Considering a long keel...

john_morris_uk said:
Keep saying it and some people will end up believing it!

Lets just say that there are some absolute DOG's of fin keeled boats out there and ignore the fact that there are some delightfully mannered long keel boats - just to keep the prejudice going from some parties...
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There. Fixed that for you! ;-)

No type of boat has a monopoly on enjoyment (or sensible, rational owners). Vive la difference!
 
LittleSister said:
There. Fixed that for you! ;-)
No type of boat has a monopoly on enjoyment (or sensible, rational owners). Vive la difference!
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I know that you did it with a wink, but you miss what I am saying.

What you have implied is another way of saying the very point I have been making. There have been posts blindly asserting that long keels really do certain things and ignore their faults, when there are fin keeled boats that have exactly the same positive attributes.

I hope by now anyone reading this thread through will see though the false claims and do a little more research of their own. I also hope that people stop making far reaching claims for one particular keel type that can't be justified. I have sailed many many boats and some of the fin keeled ones were horrors. I never felt very secure in their sailing ability and their hull design meant that they could broach uncontrollably in a gust of wind even when sailing up wind. However I have also sailed some long keeled boats that were unbalanced and dreadful. They had excessively heavy helms and couldn't point to save their lives. Their motion was sickening as their hull shape caused them to roll excessively and they were slow and ungainly under power or sail. There was little pleasure in sailing them and nothing was gained by their keel configuration. I have also sailed some long keeled boats that were a delight once you were out on passage. You put up with the unpredictable (sometimes impossible) close quarters handling in reverse because they had a lovely motion in any sort of seaway and sailed beautifully. However I have also sailed some fin keeled boats WITH EXACTLY THE SAME qualities and its this point that the exponents of long keels fail to acknowledge. They seem to think that their long keels have a monopoly of some qualities and that only by having a long keel and putting up with its failings can you get the sort of sailing that they want. It just isn't true... but there's none so blind as those who won't see.

My continuous posts are attempts to try and get people to see both sides of this debate. Sadly there are some people who are so in love with their pre-conceived ideas about the characteristics of their chosen hull design that they can't (or won't) see its failings and this applies to both sides.

What I will agree with you on is that no type of boat has a monopoly on enjoyment...

Hopefully I've made my point enough now.
 
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And yet John, by saying things like:

john_morris_uk said:
...Their motion was sickening as their hull shape caused them to roll excessively and they were slow and ungainly under power or sail....
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and

john_morris_uk said:
...
You put up with the unpredictable (sometimes impossible) close quarters handling in reverse because they had a lovely motion in any sort of seaway and sailed beautifully....
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You appear to acknowledge that there IS a difference between the two that is inherent in the design?

Have you sailed any fin-keelers that have exhibited those same characteristics?

Anyway, I certainly haven't had the range of experience that you have, so would you be willing to "name and shame" (or, indeed, name and praise!) any particular examples of each that you have encountered? I've only had any real experience of one twin, one fin and one long keeled boat, and they were so different in other aspects of their design as to make it difficult to say, objectively, whether the differences were down to keel shape or not. My personal opinion is that SOME of the differences PROBABLY were, and I still maintain that because other (quite significant) differences tend to go hand-in-hand with having a particular keel design, it's very hard to be completely objective in this.
 
NormanS said:
Maybe I'm being thick today, (just today)?
In the list of keel types, you have......"bilge, tween,....." (twin).
Are they not the same?
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I hope not. Bilge keel is when the hull has a short draft long keel with ballast with an additional plate/keel (without ballast) either side. Twin keel carry the ballast either side.
 
I have named and praised a few moderate fin keelers. The ones that behaved with characteristics that were most akin to those extolled by the 'long keel is wonderful brigade' would be boats like the Excalibar or some of the the Nicholsons perhaps. So long as the hull shape isn't a soap-dish with a big fat backside and a deep fin keel then it's weight and inertia that gives a lot of the sea-kindly motion. Think hull shape boats with 'V' shaped cross section bows such as the Contessa 32, Contessa 26 etc But remember that sailing upwind in a Contessa 26 is traditionally described as 'going to windward like a submarine'; she is a wet boat! Long keeled boats tend to be heavier and have 'V' shaped fore foots but if you find a heavy displacement fin keeled boat with a 'V' shaped forefoot and without any extreme beam as she draws aft then I think you would be hard pushed to know what is underwater until you start tacking and gybing.

I don't want to name and shame some of the long keeled boats that have had particularly uncomfortable characters. Some of them have been featured in PBO and YM and I don't want to be in court for making remarks which the owners might find offensive and devalue their craft. An easy and obvious example to name would be Gypsy Moth - which handled like a pig and was hard mouthed, heavy on the helm, and had few of the sea-kindly characteristics one would have hoped for in a boat of her pedigree. There was a baltic trader I sailed once that had the deserved reputation for rolling on wet grass and couldn't sail to windward to save her life. She was beautiful and attracted a lot of admiration when alongside but made a lot of people sea-sick at sea. There was a delightful and beautifully restored long keeled yawl I knew which wouldn't reverse at all. If you wanted to go backwards you warped her out of a berth. When you put the gear in reverse she went sideways in a crab like way and totally uncontrollable and I think it was too high a price to pay for her sea-keeping when you can have boat handing AND seakeeping with another hull shape.

However our last long keeled boat was a classic although only 26 feet long. She was one of the few South Coast One Designs built by Camper and Nicholsons themselves. Our SCOD was a joy to sail and you could just about reverse her in either direction. Like all long keeled boats she tacked sedately but had the common fault of SCOD's of lee-helm from time to time. However we tuned the rigging as best we could, bought new sails, and won races in her. (My few moments of fame at Cowes week... etc).

I could go on - but hopefully those help. Its not length of keel 'per se' - its all about hull shape and weight and weight distribution. Properly designed you really can have better sailing and close quarters handling but with all pleasant motion and the characteristics you get with long keeled traditional craft. The trouble is that most people's experiences of fin keeled boats are what have been called 'soap dishes with keels' and in their more extreme examples many of those slam and broach and are rather unpleasant in any sort of sea-way. Its easy to see why people jump to the wrong conclusion about keel length being the answer when its other characteristics that go with long keel length that are actually supplying much of the solution.
 
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CAPTAIN FANTASTIC said:
I hope not. Bilge keel is when the hull has a short draft long keel with ballast with an additional plate/keel (without ballast) either side. Twin keel carry the ballast either side.
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I have no great desire to intrude into John Morris's long essays, but, surely lots of small "Bilge Keelers" do not have centre keels with ballast. They just have bilge keels, and are called Bilge Keelers. But I don't want to start a war over it.:D
 
Yeach, people call things names, that's pain... me foreigne, me looking to dictionaries :p
http://andycunninghammarine.co.uk/documents/ObservationsandthoughtsonTwinKeels.pdf

Should heartily support John Morris explanation: boat design has more to it than keel :)
Motion depends on hull shape and stability characteristic; keel may only act as damping device and this depends on it's area mostly, not configuration. Pitching motion mostly on displacement (volume) distribution and mass distribution, nothing to do with keel type.

Directional stability mostly is concerned with hull balancing, long keel may assist in it only provided hull is balanced in first place.

Steering depends on rudder design. In rough water or small speed (also on shallow water) it is better when rudder blade has some area before it (it's area involved that steers the boat), good skeg is enough.
On many "traditional longkeelers" rudder was made with huge forward rake which made it pitifully inefficient - this was made to cut on keel length ;) - and smallest area possible; racing idea of cutting wetted area no matter what that should have no place on offshore boat. Many such boats were improved a lot by simply making rudderstock vertical, no matter if still attached to keel or separate.

Backing on power depends on prop aperture design and rudder design. On some old boats engine is an afterthought, or boat was just not meant to maneuver under power... but there is no reason longkeel should not go backwards, only may turn in bigger radius.
Again - so called "longkeelers" made with cut-away deadwood in result have no reasonable place to put prop in (not to mention ineficient rudder...) so propwash cannot flow forward (lands on the hull bottom or fat part of keel) and mostly there is no rudder behind prop as it's blade is cut away there - so nothing to steer with.

Everything boils down to good design, or what was the purpose of design in first place. Rule cheater for racing was it, or seagoing...
 
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NormanS said:
I have no great desire to intrude into John Morris's long essays, but, surely lots of small "Bilge Keelers" do not have centre keels with ballast. They just have bilge keels, and are called Bilge Keelers. But I don't want to start a war over it.:D
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Too late mate, I reckon another essay is one the way.

We have a long keeler but it's not better than an AWB, just better for us; I'm not naive, I know its limitations but we love sailing it, gentle predictable motion, not the fastest, not the slowest, no surfing, no hint of broaching, not very close winded, no speed in light airs but no worries with a young family.
 
I have little experience compared to most on here, and the only non-dinghy I've much experience of is a small gaff-rigged long keeler, but there is one thing not mentioned so far.

Whisper - our boat - is always neutral on the helm, whatever the angle of heel and across a range of sail choice & trim (she's a cutter), and I put this down, partly at least, to a broadly centred CLR, rather than the pointy CLR of a fin.

Apart from that, she is impossible to control backwards, but remains steerable at incredibly low speeds going forward, bows not blowing off, and these two factors balance each other out.
 
Lazy Kipper said:
Too late mate, I reckon another essay is one the way.

We have a long keeler but it's not better than an AWB, just better for us; I'm not naive, I know its limitations but we love sailing it, gentle predictable motion, not the fastest, not the slowest, no surfing, no hint of broaching, not very close winded, no speed in light airs but no worries with a young family.
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No more long essays from me. We all (mostly) go sailing for pleasure and if you find a boat that you enjoy sailing then I celebrate with you.
Boats have different qualities and different boats do different things and they are all a compromise somewhere.

The only thing that slightly wound me up were some peoples unsupportable assertions about connections in hull and keel design that weren't always valid...

We've no plans to change our boat at the moment. She still ticks all the boxes for us and our current and planned futures needs, but never is a long time and if we ever change boats, who knows what the underwater profile of the next one will be...?
 
>Perhaps you can explain why it occurs and if you succeed

I assume you mean prop walk I did explain why it happens, perhaps you didn't understand it.

>>at least no more than you can broach a long keeled boat.

You can't breach a long keel boat as I said, perhaps you didn't uderstand that either.
 
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john_morris_uk said:
No more long essays from me. We all (mostly) go sailing for pleasure and if you find a boat that you enjoy sailing then I celebrate with you.
Boats have different qualities and different boats do different things and they are all a compromise somewhere.
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I agree there, forums sometimes bring out the "I have to prove I'm right" syndrome. Arguments about which keel configuration is best is a bit like an argument about which breed of horse is best - utterly pointless since they were bred for different jobs. Currently shortish fin is seem as normal but some people think that means it should be normative, forgetting that in 40 years time people will look back on it as terribly old fashioned.
 
KellysEye said:
>Perhaps you can explain why it occurs and if you succeed

I assume you mean prop walk I did explain why it happens, perhaps you didn't understand it.

>>at least no more than you can broach a long keeled boat.

You can't breach a long keel boat as I said, perhaps you didn't uderstand that either.
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There's no need to be rude.

No you didn't explain how reversing a propellor makes it give lateral force and 'walk the stern of the boat sideways'. You talked about it, but you didn't explain the hydrodynamics of why it occurs.

Yes you can broach a long keeled boat. It's silly to suggest otherwise. (Just to check we are talking about the same thing: Broach usually refers to an uncontrolled action of the boat where it rounds up as the rudder loses its ability to keep the boat on course. This is usually either by being lifted out of the water by hull shape or simply being overcome by the forces of sail and waves which usually results in the rudder completely stalling.)

A racing person would say that if you haven't broached you aren't trying hard enough.
 
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Lazy Kipper said:
Currently shortish fin is seem as normal but some people think that means it should be normative, forgetting that in 40 years time people will look back on it as terribly old fashioned.
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Of course, that is always possible but given that what has happened is just a refinement of design based on growing technical competence, it seems unlikely to be the case. To use an aircraft analogy, can you imagine planes going back to wire supported double wings? Or car engines going back to sidevalves? I can't. In both cases the way they work is essentially the same and all that has happened is the development of a better was of achieveing the desired result.

Which is not to say that there wont be a small number of die hards wanting the old way of doing things. Morgan cars have made a living out of that.
 
I don't see the need for hyonamic details. Prop walk is prop walk and everbody knows what it is.

>Yes you can broach a long keeled boat. It's silly to suggest otherwise. (Just to check we are talking about the same thing: Broach usually refers to an uncontrolled action of the boat where it rounds up as the rudder loses its ability to keep the boat on course.

You are still wrong about this, we sailed some 8,000 miles in our long keeler and never broached, turned in to wind or surfed as I said. Another poster here said the same. Ask around others who have long keelers and they will say the same. I can't understand why you won't accept it.
 
Actually, I'll have to hold my hand up and say I have broached Avocet once or twice. Again, not a direct result of having a long keel per se, but a keel-hung rudder with a lot of rake to it and not that big a rudder to start with, so I assume it was just overcome and lost its grip on the water. What I would say though, is that it was a much more leisurely experience than broaching our last fin keeler!
 
KellysEye said:
>I don't believe that the amount of prop walk has anything to do with keel length.

It has everythig to do with keel length. When you reverse a fin keel boat there is clear water in front and behind the keel, thus the water flows immediately over the rudder and there is little or no prop walk. On a long keeler there is clear water behind the prop but not in front because it is attached to the back of the keel and thus you don't get water flow over the rudder and the prop walk takes over. But it can be handled as mentioned in my previous post.
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My boat has a fin and skeg, and I use prop walk every time I leave my berth to swing the stern a metre and a bit to Starboard to enable me to clear the end of the pontoon. She is also dry and does not slam in a big sea. I mention this not to add weight to either side of the fence but simply because both are true.
I have sailed long keel boats and fin keel boats and enjoyed both. The bottom line is that they are different, but both do the job that they are designed to do. Many long keeled boats are used just for coastal marina hopping, and many fin and skeg boats have done Ocean voyages in horrible conditions.
 
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