Mikemeriki said...

And moved around at anchor enough to make you dizzy.
39 ft big dinghy really.
So for ocean cruising, I prefer the longer keels with more wine glass sections. I have delivered a Laurent Giles designed 30 footer (modified Vertue design) and found the lovely motion in a decent seaway a revelation.
And I do like the Walkers (along with HGO2!) We seem to have become speed obsessed, and want windward performance above all else.
I expect to be shouted down here, but any thoughts?

cisco said...
By mentioning my name you have sucked me into this one Mikemeriki.

I would just like to clear the air here as to me. Yes I have nearly 6,000 posts on this forum but many of them have been in the land sailing section which is where I joined about five years ago.

Check out land sailing, it is really exciting stuff. Imagine hooting along a beach at three to five times the speed of the wind, lying down, feet first and your bum just a couple of inches off the ground. Cheap thrills, especially for geriatrics like me and it is really SAFE.

Further, I am no legend, just old, though feeling less that way since I have been getting my weekly Chinese Massage. Damn, it is making me feel sexy and for a bloke who will be 64 in August, it is a good sign.

You must also understand I am a Navy trained MOBI. That stands for Most Objectionable Bastard Imaginable. Apart from my Navy sea time there will be guys half my age who have twice my sea time on yachts.

I am just powering up for as much sailing as I can get in before I walk the plank.


To your original question: Fin Keels.

I never have and probably never will own a yacht that is not a Fin Keeler and I am on my 7th yacht now. Why???

Fin keeled yachts are proven to the best windward performing hull design be the keel fixed, retractable or canting. End of story.

Re your concerns about fin keels falling off, that is whole different subject.

Forgetting about retractable and canting keels, lets just look at the three varieties of fin keels.

1. There is the encapsulated fin keel where the ballast is added to the inside after the hull is built. These keels do not fall off as long as the hull is built correctly.

2. The next type is the bolted on and faired in keel as exemplified in the S&S 34 with an hour glass hull form.

3. The directly bolted on keel with no fairing between the hull and keel which is the current format and probably the best for performance.

What it comes down to is the way in which the keel is attached to the hull, the scantlings in way of the keel attachment (strength of the hull) and the material used.

Assuming we are all sane people here, we know that the keel will be lead and the attachment of it will be using a dissimilar metal (think about electrolysis) because I have never seen lead bolts anywhere.

The two materials for attachment of lead keels to hulls are stainless steel or bronze. But it goes further than that. The mechanical method of attachment is of utmost importance.

If there is only a single row of bolts holding the keel on and they are stainless, be very wary. If they are alternately angled port and starboard as they were on my S&S 34, just make sure they are tight.

The best situation is sister bolting on the keel with bronze. That is what Second Wind has and I am smiling big time.

You can have the Bennys and Jennys with their fancy furniture and falling off keels. I am sticking with my Kiwi built Lotus 9.2 with bronze keel bolts.

LooseChange said...
There are two issues here, one is fin keels that are fully encapsulated by fibreglass, meaning the entire weight of the keel is carried by the integrity of the encapsulation process. The other is the current and modern trend of bolting the keels on from the outside, generally these keels will be cast malleable iron and there have been several instances over the years where these keels just fell or dropped off the boat. While I didn't hear about the Bene that lost its keel in the Atlantic there are several cases of Bavarias having lost their keels due to either a design or a manufacturing problem.

Hi loose change
This is a link to the yacht in question www.sail-world.com/USA
There is a lot of discussion on the net at the moment about it

Regards Don

Donk107 said...
There was this one wavetrain.net/2010/12/24/charter-boat-loses-keel-and-no-one-noticed/ where it hit something, fell off and it took a while befoe anyone noticed

regards Don

southace said...
Ok that's one incident......and if you read into it the boat in question had hit Mother Earth on many occasions and apparently did a charter or two before anyone noticed the keel wasn't there! Also noted the keel boats sheared off and no breach to the hull......nothing to do with poor layups and flash furniture! It proves the layup is stronger than the keel bolts, that's outstanding!

southace said...

When has a Jeanueau keel fallen of CISCO? I have not read such report? Could you please confirm further reports?

its also my understanding that most lost keel reports confirm that the keel loss has been caused from hitting submerged objects rather than the keel boats with fancy furniture keels just falling off. I'm sure your little Lotus would tear her keel clean out if you hit the reef doing 7 knots under full sail.

tell me also CISCO can you take your hand of your #**k I mean tiller while sailing to windward? A full length keeler will sail nicely to windward with out any assistance but her only down fall is that she will tack slower than a fin and she does not like going backwards.

southace said...
God now all I'm going to be thinking while sitting on my Jeanneua sipping a cold beverage is that I'm going to hear a crack and then a rip followed by a ttear as my keel slowelly rips from my hull with no doubt spoiling my night.....anyway on the good side at least I can sail home the following day without my keel attached! Hmmm must be that 4 Something meter beam that will keep her upright! Haha

Donk107 said...
There was this one wavetrain.net/2010/12/24/charter-boat-loses-keel-and-no-one-noticed/ where it hit something, fell off and it took a while befoe anyone noticed

regards Don

Jolene said...
I have just been going through a fin keel saga with my boat.
I bought the boat 12 months ago and whilst inspecting the hull with the seller I pointed out to him that there was a distinct keel/ hull joint smile that I was not happy about. I was assured by him that a trip to Bunning's for some silicone was all that was needed . The shipwrights said it was common to see a keel joint on yachts.
6 months later I removed the boat from the water for a closer look at the keel , I had no confidence to take the boat to sea with a niggling thought that the keel was loose, swinging underneath like "Hells Bells".. The boat was set down on the keel in a cradle and water started bleeding from the keel joint. I must point out that no water had been leaking into the bilge via the keel bolts. I put an 11/2" socket onto the bolts and once the nut was cracked off I was able to tighten the bolts a full turn and a half with no effort.
On the outside I stripped away silicone from the keel joint to assess the situation. I could see that in some places the bedding compound between the keel and hull had totally broken away.
I then decided to pull the keel bolts out so I shifted the motor out the way so I could access the bolts. When I say bolts,, well they are really studs with a nut at each end. I was able to access the nuts in the keel and pull the studs out in the bilge. The studs are 3/4 dia 316 stainless and there are 9 of them. All except one where in perfect condition. Some off the studs were wet and there was a strong styrene smell associated with them. 2 of the studs were wet with filthy black engine oil that must have penetrated the bolt hole some time ago in the past. Rather than just tighten the bolts back up I figured it would be best to drop the keel off so I built a frame around it to hold it upright and then lifted the boat off the keel with the slipway services travel lift. The travel lift didn't lift the whole weight of the boat before the keel let go from the bedding. For about 1/3 of the keel there was no cementing bond from the bedding there had also been engine oil in the joint at sometime.(the bedding was stained black and you could smell that dirty diesel oil )
I would say that the keel bedding was upset on this boat through striking a reef at sometime, there is a small strike mark on the very bottom of the keel that would suggest this, looks like nothing though.
I do believe that if you feel your not happy with something about the keel investigate it, don't just think yours will be ok because someone told you that there as never been a keel fall of your particular boat,,,, yours could always be the first.
To top off the saga I had the bottom soda blasted only to reveal thousands of gelcoat blisters. I have now shifted the boat home, It has been an expensive way to educate myself "How To Buy a Boat" , it would have been nice just to go sailing.