Any thoughts on the stress levels on the locking pin on the Adams yachts?.
with up to 4t lead ballast hanging 2m down with a locking pin has me thinking they may be a weakness .
are we talking similar to a trailer yacht ?
any thoughts thanks.

I've got no figures to back this up, but for me the pin is taking load when the keel/bulb is vertical, therefore a pretty static load.

When heeled most of the load is taken by the bottom leeward side of the case and the upper windward side of the case? Not sure if the pin is taking extra load in this scenario, but let's assign it 50% extra load for general jiggling around.

No idea what the shear load on the pin is but it can't be too hard to get a shear load and safety factor from the pin diameter and what it's made from?

If it has hydraulics, it doesn't need a pin to hold the keel up/down. So think of it like a safety feature rather than load bearing, at least until the hydraulics fail!
Which Adams are you referring to?

For some reason it wont allow me to post the YouTube link ,
its Captain Scarlegs episode 18 near the end of the video he shows the keel , he also has another where he had to wait 12 months to find and fix the pin .
i like the Adams 13 but i think fixed ballast in a stub keel with a centre board would be more my thing.

Those hydraulic systems seem to work, though I admit I was wary of them. It's just another system you'll learn to live with.

Is not the lifting bulb going to **** all over ballast and centreboard for sailing performance?

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MAGNESIUM said..
For some reason it wont allow me to post the YouTube link ,
its Captain Scarlegs episode 18 near the end of the video he shows the keel , he also has another where he had to wait 12 months to find and fix the pin .
i like the Adams 13 but i think fixed ballast in a stub keel with a centre board would be more my thing.

Why ensure that you lose huge amounts of stability in exchange for the extremely slim possibility of losing a keel?

Lots of boats have pinned lifting keels, surely it's not too hard to fit another one if you somehow lose the existing one?

There's pins in your rig, pins in your car and pins on the planes you fly in IIRC. Meanwhile A13s and others have been sailing for decades and no one has been injured or lost due to pin loss so obviously it's not a big deal.

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JonE said..
Those hydraulic systems seem to work, though I admit I was wary of them. It's just another system you'll learn to live with.

Is not the lifting bulb going to **** all over ballast and centreboard for sailing performance?

I was leery too of hydraulics till I owned one. I had hydraulics on a swing keel where the you had to lift the keel to get into a marina. Ergo: at the berth the hydraulics were holding up a 10' long, 3000kg load on a lever arm just sitting at the dock.
Even though I did end up with a leak in the keel ram, it took hitting a dirty great whale at 12 odd knots to cause it. In fact, the hydraulics had a safety release system that alowed the keel to move to absorb the shcok loading from a collision, so not only did it work, it potentially saved the boat (and us) from a lot more damage, something you can only do with hydraulics. It took a period of some months to organise fixing it, in that time I sailed the boat in all sorts of conditions without issue.
My autopilot also used an L&S hydraulic ram that sat in the lazerette, so it lived in a salt water environment. It never got touched and never missed a beat.
So yes, it is just another system to live with, but as a general rule I found hydraulics to be rock solid addition to the boat.

Yes, absolutely the deeper draft will transform the boat's sailing manners. Occasionally I would forget to drop the keel before sails went up. I could sail the boat just fine, but man, it was a lot more tender, with a loss in pointing, with the keel up than the keel down!
One time, one of the crew got a bit enthusisastic and lifted the keel as we crossed the finish line. We were running deep under 150m2 kite in 20 odd knots of breeze, so I didn't notice until I turned up onto a reach after the finish line. That got a bit spicy! But even then, the boat was pretty well mannered, it just sat on a 40 degree heel making a lot of leeway.

I certainly wouldn't see hydraulics as a show stopper on any potential boat purchase. Especially on a ram setup that is only under tension when you are parked up.