Can you add balast weight to the keel

[Tranona]

One of the joys of cruising in the way you describe is forgetting all that competitive stuff! If you choose a mainstream boat - just an example, but not a specific recommendation - like a Westerly Discus it could be years before you have exhausted all its potential. You can spend money and hours buying high quality sails and gear to squeeze a litle bit more out of it, or kit it out to go exploring the Arctic, or just potter around taking it easy.

Boats of the size and type you are lookng at have huge capability, which most owners never explore. They are all a compromise so you look for one that matches your expectations as closely as possible then live with it. If you get it wildly wrong, then if you have bought a good one you will find it easy to sell and get something else - which in turn will also be a compromise.

 

[KenMcCulloch]

To answer the question of what am I really wanting is. I want a cruising boat to spend a few months every year around the Scottish isles, so comfort is important and must have full standing headroom but on the other hand I want something that is not the slowest kid on the block and to be able to be handled by two people, what does that narrow it down to, one chap mentioned a Sigma or it that a bit spartan and too racy.

Richard

Hi Richard
I'm not convinced that posing this question here is necessarily going to help you all that much. You have said that you are quite new to sailing, and like a lot of people you are desperate to have your own boat. While that's completely understandable it may not pay to be in too much of a hurry. The best way to find out if, say, a Sigma 33 would be right for you would be to spend a week or a weekend on one to find out for yourself whether it's right for the kind of sailing you want to do. There are always people looking for crew and you will learn far more, far more quickly, by sailing with a lot of different experienced people on different kinds of boats than by sailing your own boat, at least to start with.

You will discover, for example that while a more modern beamy design will go faster and more efficiently to windward than most boats from the 60's and 70s, many of the older boats will give a far more comfortable ride and are therefore better for the well being and endurance of the crew. You might find that while a Sigma 33 has many good qualities, the relatively shallow cockpit feels much less secure and comfortable in any significant seas than that of, say, a Contessa 32. Until you have experienced both in a range of conditions you are not really well equipped to make that choice, I would argue.

It's also pretty important to build up your skills and experience progressively. There's a bit to learn in order to cruise the west of Scotland enjoyably so you may find that a combination of sailing other people's boats, chartering, and formal training will help you get to the point in a year or two where buying a boat makes sense. Once you have bought a boat you are likely to want or need to live with it for some years so basing the decision on simply trying to match a set of test criteria may not lead you to the best choice.

Good luck.

 

[wotayottie]

Yes Pete you are right but coming from a competition background you are always wondering "what if". Deciding which boat is going to be a major headache, as most of the criterior seem to be very subjective its not like a motor car where the way she goes , handles and stops can be compared around a set track with conditions unchanging.

Thats almost exactly what you can do with boats - look at the racing handicaps on Byronwhich will give you a good idea of relative performance. many of these are calculated but the basis of the handicap system is average performance round the "race track". But just as you wouldnt chose a car for commuting based on times round the top gear test track ( you'd commute in an aerial atom if that were the case ) so you wouldnt chose a boat based on nothing but speed as enumerated by the handicap.

I'm on my fourth boat in 20 years and I've yet to find the ideal one.

 

[wotayottie]

One of the joys of cruising in the way you describe is forgetting all that competitive stuff! .

Come on now! You're sailing along on a nice sunny day and you see a boat of a roughly similar size on a parallel course. What happens? Both you and he start tweaking sails. You arent racing, or at least the one who lags behind says he isnt interested, or are you?

And if you say you never react like that we simply wont believe you.

 

[Tranona]

Come on now! You're sailing along on a nice sunny day and you see a boat of a roughly similar size on a parallel course. What happens? Both you and he start tweaking sails. You arent racing, or at least the one who lags behind says he isnt interested, or are you?

And if you say you never react like that we simply wont believe you.

You have to remember I sail a Bavaria and an Eventide - always have the white flag ready if ever tempted to get into such a contest!

 

[Deleted member 36384]

Contessa 34 OOD (with the lead balast) is exactly what you want: stiff, stable fast, good handling.

http://www.ood34.co.uk/
One For Sale

I sailed one of these for a few years and cruised all over the West Coast of Scotland. I raced one extensively and picked up a few trophies against many modern boats.

Based on your posts, this fits the bill and no need to think about changing keels. I would purchase with a view to getting a bargain, sail it about and then either sell it on or refurbish, or get a trial sail on one.

Bags of room on them as well for 34', huge cockpit, wide side decks. There are other models, but this one works very well as a cruiser /racer.

 

[Twister_Ken]

Contessa 34 OOD (with the lead balast) is exactly what you want: stiff, stable fast, good handling.

http://www.ood34.co.uk/
One For Sale

I sailed one of these for a few years and cruised all over the West Coast of Scotland. I raced one extensively and picked up a few trophies against many modern boats.

Based on your posts, this fits the bill and no need to think about changing keels. I would purchase with a view to getting a bargain, sail it about and then either sell it on or refurbish, or get a trial sail on one.

Bags of room on them as well for 34', huge cockpit, wide side decks. There are other models, but this one works very well as a cruiser /racer.

I raced aboard one for several years, and when he didn't want it for racing the owner would let any (almost!) of the crew borrow it for cruising as long as it came back with a full fuel tank and some wine in the lockers. It makes a good cruiser, and is quite rapid, at least by the standards of its day.

 

[Norman_E]

I see no reason to worry about modern boats having ballast ratios of around 30%. My own boat has a 32.25% ratio based on the boat's published displacement. With fuel, water crew and kit it must be closer to 30%. This might look low compared to the 40% or better ratios of some older designs, but in most cases those designs are boats with comparatively deep and narrow hull sections, which lack the level of form stability of recent broad beam, shallow hull designs. The other factor is the type and design of keel. A long keel yacht with comparatively shallow draft might have a high ballast ratio and still have lower righting moment than a modern fin keel yacht. The photo below shows another factor. The keel of my boat weighs 3,000KG, but at 2M draft with about half the mass of the keel in the big bulb at the bottom it has a pretty good righting moment.

 

[mitiempo]

If you trust the designer of the boat you can trust his keel design and ballast ratio as well.

 

[snowleopard]

yes I understand your comments about righting moment but I doubt this sort of info is readily available,

On the contrary, all modern boats have that information published in the form of a graph of righting moment v angle of heel.

The graphs look like this:

 

[wotayottie]

dont know whether thats still the case but Bendytoy used to be very reluctant to supply that info or the STIX number that determined the boats A B C etc