deep keel cruisers in the UK

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If I had a boat in the Bristol Channel it would be a great big deep keeler that would allow me to get as far away as fast as possible.

But thats just me. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

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A bit to scarey for ya is it? /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Unless you was on the Welsh side, or maybe Portishead, or Watchet, the chances are that if you did have a boat in the Bristol Channel, it wouldn't be a Fin Keeler, not unless you is completely brain dead? /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
Um, get some sea room and ride it out? Regardless of keel configuration, most boats will take a bloody site more than their crews can. Running to the coast would only be something I would do in absolute desperation!
 
Normally an upwind shelter is safe and easy to get into in any weather whatsoever. But I guess that if you have a shallow keeler you don't have much experience of the wonderful ability to reach a comfy port to windward in foul weather /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

But anyway Dogwatch was talking about a hypothetical medical emergency etc. where you HAVE to get in.
 
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A bit to scarey for ya is it? /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Unless you was on the Welsh side, or maybe Portishead, or Watchet, the chances are that if you did have a boat in the Bristol Channel, it wouldn't be a Fin Keeler, not unless you is completely brain dead? /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

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You're right. It wouldn't be a fin keeler. It would have a long keel.

It's not that it's too scary, it's just that in my humble, and warped opinion everywhere else is better for sailing. Obviously others don't share my views and it's probably a good thing they don't.
 
I remember last season leaving Cardiff bound for Porlock Weir locking out with some bigger deeper drafted finkeelers .Wind hard on the nose and fresh the heavier deeper boats soon pulled away upwind. We arrived at the anchorage a good hour astern of the cruiser/racers an hour later a tubby bilge keeler arrived.

All anchored in the bay now waiting for the tide.With our lifting keel up we slid into the harbour first and took up the best mooring position, followed shortly after by the bilge keeler.

We sat on deck relaxing with a beer while the larger finkeelers continued to rock and roll out in the anchorage for a further hour waiting for water /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif.
 
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Normally an upwind shelter is safe and easy to get into in any weather whatsoever. But I guess that if you have a shallow keeler you don't have much experience of the wonderful ability to reach a comfy port to windward in foul weather /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

But anyway Dogwatch was talking about a hypothetical medical emergency etc. where you HAVE to get in.

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Do you usually make such sweeping assumptions about peoples experience? By the way, you wouldn't want to be tackling Bideford Bar or any of the others much in the Bristol Channel, in a wind over tide blow, especially in a deep draughted vessel, there has been many that have come to grief trying it.

If this hyperthetical medical emergency was really such, the emergency services would come to you. Thus negating any such need to be running to anywhere. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

I note however, you are not answering the points I made in my post about keeping a boat here in the Bristol Channel, you are just making you own points, based on I assume, no experience in sailing here? So really, not a lot of anything constructive to discuss with you is there? /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
Sounds great! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif Now turn up the wind a Force or two and press "Replay"! /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
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Sounds great! Now turn up the wind a Force or two and press "Replay"!

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Fair enough.Heres the replay in a force 7 . After a long hard bash to windward we arrive 1 and a half hours after the larger cruiser racers. its too rough to anchor so they are all jilling about waiting to get in we still enter the harbour first by raising the lifting keel.The small bilgekeeler probably would have spent an enjoyable weekend somewhere else that wasnt dead up wind. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif Any more scenarios for me??
 
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Sorry but I have to call foul!
You were obviously bored and wanted to play by posting the provocative statement: "Deepkeel cruisers in the UK - not very sensible are they"
When someone picks up the challenge, it is not allowable to defend your original statement by claiming the respondent is touchy or immature.
Play properly or not at all!

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No, it is something that has always interested me to be honest, yes it was slightly provocative but not a troll, more to actually get a response. If I wrote it in a page long rant people would have smiled and ignored, I tried to encourage a discussion.

What I took offence to was you suggesting I thought everyone was a tw@t or the fact you made it personal.

If we were sat on the sailing club terrace I would have used the words "I think it is daft", I would not say, "I think you are all tw@ts". I resent you trying to make this a bun fight and told you so in so many words.
 
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Not very sensible are they?

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What an utterly pointless post. 2007 is young but it gets my vote so far!

Predictably, smiffy (well balanced chap with a chip on each shoulder) gets to have another rant about us lot in the Solent and it all degenerates into total nonsense

If all you want to do is hug the drying creeks in your locality, and your main priority is avoiding mooring fees then go for a bilge keeler or whatever. Others regard their base as just that - and enjoy passagemaking to the limits of the time available on their annual cruises

It would be interesting to compare the passage miles of Robin and other deep keel cruisers with your own over, say, the past 3 years
 
All good points.

But I think you take the speed thing a little too far to be fair, although I see your points. My hypothetical situations were just that, I can pick holes as easy..

If it was downwind I would be surprised if you could catch me, though I take points about entering a harbour with the wind pushing up your arsé.

But what if you lost your mast, all those advantages have just dropped to the sea bed. Lets say a mechanical failure rather than sat out in a F10. But the forecast is F10 imminent and you really need to find a bolt hole, I bet the 60 miles would not seem so short then.

But ignoring all that, the emergency bolt hole is a red herring anyhow, the point is you restrict yourselves from visiting wee little harbours and end up holidaying in more industrial marinas. I know you have (well those against my argument) said that there are plenty of deep water berths available, but it is still a fact that you have to carefully select every stop over you make.

When you pick up Reeds Almanac or spread the charts on the dining room table planning the summer cruise, you have to disregard maybe 3/4 of the available harbours or anchorages because you can't dry or cross the cill.

Last year we sailed down to Tenby and spent a few days against the wall in harbour, it was the fun weekend and it was a fabulous place to be, especially when we had an unrestricted view of the fireworks etc. If I had a fin keel we would have been outside in the very limited sheltered pool, needing the dinghy to come ashore.

Had I needed to leave at low water, I could have moved to the pool the previous tide, so saying I am restricted by tide doesn't follow either. The arguments about access are moot, I can choose as easily to pay for a deep water mooring as well as drying, you can't.

One of the reasons I bring this up, it seems if a mono sailor wanted a new bilge keeler he is restricted to small bennys or a legend. No one is making shoal draft vessels and we live on one of the most tidal Islands in the (affluent) sailing world.
 
Take your point....

It strikes me its just a fashion thing..... BK's aren't fashionable at the moment, so no-one buys them.... same as gaff rigs, tillers and spinnakers..... yes sure you can get them if you look in the right places, but mainstream they ain't..... and fashion is famous for ignoring common sense....

However, I wouldn't buy a BK, even as an East coaster, not because I suspect any major issues with performance, but simply because I like the feeling of a deep fin powering to windward......
 
what do passage miles have to do with anything?

I could as easily cross the pond in my boat or as similarly sail to the med..

Using your argument, the QE2 is a far more sensible boat to keep in a uk marina cos it goes further.

Before you call me stupid for being ridiculous, you started it.
 
Never said you were stupid, just that it was a pointless post. You seem to imply that getting into shallow or drying ports is a priority. Not for me (and prob many long distance cruisers) it isn't

Accept the fact that people sail for different reasons and twin hulls or bilge keels aren't the holy grail for all

And BTW you startd this pointless thread, not I
 
'ere, now just hang on a minute Emot O'Dreary! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif The only chips I got are on the workshop floor!

I don't give a rat's arris about you lot in the Solent, I think you just read it that way. The only time I raise an eyebrowe or three is when you lot in the Solent babble on as if your way of sailing is the only way with any merit.

I have a bilge keeler for the reasons I have already stated, along with everybody else around here, we know it is the right kind of boat for our "base". The bilge keelers also give us more options when farther afield, we don't have to be worrying about looking for Marina berths or deep water anchorages, we can use them if we want to, but we don't have to.

After about 40 years of sailing experience I have come to the conclusion that a bilge keeled boat is a very good choice for the sailor who is only interested in cruising. It is of course not the only suitable choice, as you rightly intimated, it depends where your base of operations is, and what you are willing or able to spend on a berth for your boat.

I can only say that I find discussions like this very interesting if people keep away from making sniping smart ass comments, I don't mind anyone disagreeing with my point of view, but don't resort to smiffy has a chip on his shoulder, that is utter crap!

Sailing appeals to a very wide section of our society, not just the folks with large disposable incomes, but a lot of the posts on these forums seem to ignore or belittle anybody that doesn't have the means to sail Solent style.

Getting back to the discussion in hand, I have to tell you that if I lived somewhere where I could .......

1. sail a long fin keeler,

2. afford the berth for a long fin keeler.

Then from choice, that is what I would have, hence my reference to horses for courses.

I have the boat that suits my pocket and my base of operations, it doesn't preclude me from going anywhere I want to go, I may not get there as fast as some, but I will get there. If my sailing interests were limited to racing around the cans, or just going fast for the hell of it, I would have bought a quick little trailer sailor, either fin keeled or drop keeled, but my interest is in single handed passage making, ie going somewhere. I don't need to be going anywhere particularly fast, so I have the boat I want.

Now if some of you can resist the urge to score points off of others, and add summat interesting to the discussion, I for one would be very pleased to read it?

If not then just blather away, but I will have no interest in reading what you have to say.
 
Ok Smiffy - you have the boat that best suits your pocket and probably your style of sailing also. As do most with many years of sailing under their belts

Although (technically) we don't keep our boat in the Solent, it's our closest cruising ground. But our annual cruises are about exploring new places - SWMBO had never been to Ireland before we sailed there together last year. My mum lives on Iona and we'd like to visit her, we will do the Rias of Northern Spain this year and then perhaps visit our relatives in Norway next year

For that type of sailing a deep fin cruiser is our boat of choice, even though we may have extended ourselves to buy it

Neither of us is keen on multihulls (shock, horror!) and I think you'd agree that a bilge keeler wouldn't be our preference

So, back to the pointless post

I'm happy to demote your chips from epaulettes to the floor, but I did sense an antipathy towards the Solent sailors perhaps?
 
I know you didn't, but I expected you to from my QE2 statement, which was a daft example to make a point.

Just because you disagree does not make something pointless.

But, if you want a point from my opinion,

Marinas are an ugly blot on an otherwise pretty seascape.

If people were offered more choices especially those newer to sailing and not drummed into them that fins are the only way to sail we would not be losing every safe anchorage to pontoons.

How is that?
 
Even if everyone did have a bilge keeler then I still think we'd be losing pretty little anchorages to pontoons. Like it or not a lot of sailors like to be able to tie up to a pontoon at the end of the day and walk ashore.
 
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