Help! What are bilge keels really like to sail?

[PeterR]

The Hunter range of bilge keeelers are very good sailors. The Horizen 26/27 was good and the Channel 31 excellent. Personnally I dont like them because however well they sail, in a seaway waves tend to slap under the windward keel and if you run aground on a falling tide you are unlikely to get off. If you need one because you have a drying mooring then fine but if you just want shallow draught I'd go for a lifting keel. Aside from those with drying moorings very few bilge keel owners ever take the ground deliberately.

 

[Fire99]

The Hunter range of bilge keeelers are very good sailors. The Horizen 26/27 was good and the Channel 31 excellent. Personnally I dont like them because however well they sail, in a seaway waves tend to slap under the windward keel and if you run aground on a falling tide you are unlikely to get off. If you need one because you have a drying mooring then fine but if you just want shallow draught I'd go for a lifting keel. Aside from those with drying moorings very few bilge keel owners ever take the ground deliberately.

I think some of this has been covered. Falling tide whilst heeled or not heeled? When heeled a 'Bilger' will stand a better chance than a Fin.

The other point to consider is that if a 'bilger' (my new word of the night! ) does run aground after making a mistake etc the captain can sit nice and flat, go make a cup of tea and wait for the tide to come. With a Fin you may have some angle issues to contend with.

Lifting keel?? Well i'm sure there are those who love 'em but one snag I see with them is that you need to er Lift the keel and drop it down on various points of sail and it's an additional mechanism to service and keep watertight etc.

These threads seem to keep being in danger of Fin versus Bilge when at the end of the day the OP just wanted to know if a Bilge Keeled boat can sail nicely and I think we have established that with a great number, they can be very nice sail boats.

 

[jusw]

Bilge Keelers

I have a Hunter 27 BK - apart from the low cost drying mooring that is a real advantage, I also think that the running aground "ability" is mainly an advantage -

If you are unfortunate enough to run aground on a falling tide and get stuck, at least the boat sits upright until the water returns - much more comfortable - I guess all who use the east end of the Solent have seen fin keels lying almost on their side stuck off Ryde or just east of Cowes.

I may be just a bad sailor, but I have run aground several times and if you are swift with the engine - so far I've always pulled off the offending sandbank or mud. That is except for the very first time when returning to the mooring on a falling tide I got stuck just about 15 feet short! - Very frustrating.

Usually the cause of running aground is not paying enough attention to charts or sticking to a channel - maybe a BK breeds complacency - Anyway I'm very happy with bilge keels and expect to remain so.

JuSw

 

[Fire99]

I have a Hunter 27 BK - apart from the low cost drying mooring that is a real advantage, I also think that the running aground "ability" is mainly an advantage -

If you are unfortunate enough to run aground on a falling tide and get stuck, at least the boat sits upright until the water returns - much more comfortable - I guess all who use the east end of the Solent have seen fin keels lying almost on their side stuck off Ryde or just east of Cowes.

I may be just a bad sailor, but I have run aground several times and if you are swift with the engine - so far I've always pulled off the offending sandbank or mud. That is except for the very first time when returning to the mooring on a falling tide I got stuck just about 15 feet short! - Very frustrating.

Usually the cause of running aground is not paying enough attention to charts or sticking to a channel - maybe a BK breeds complacency - Anyway I'm very happy with bilge keels and expect to remain so.

JuSw

Good for you. Me too. And yes I've run aground for completely ignoring cardinal buoys and charts but a little prod of the Honda four and off we went again.

 

[Marsupial]

"Aside from those with drying moorings very few bilge keel owners ever take the ground deliberately."

But talking to designers as I have the whole reason for twin keels IS that the boat takes the ground. Certainly anything that came out of the builders on Canvey (Jaguar, Mirage, Cobra, Snapdragon et al) was designed to to take a pounding twice a day and they did for years and years many still are. With a few exceptions there is no question of the sea worthyness of these craft and when science was applied to the keels and they splayed a bit sailing performance improved but the main reason for making these boats was that could dry out upright on essex mud. The french have similar designs where they have drying moorings but the advent of the marina has rendered these craft an endangered species. Becasuse the fin version always sails better. I suppose you could argue that the twin keeler elevated running aground to a art form on the east coast and if you cant read a chart it still does.

 

[Eccles]

"Aside from those with drying moorings very few bilge keel owners ever take the ground deliberately."

Other than the because I have a drying mooring I regularly (and intentionally!) dry out.
There are many places where it is lovely to spend the day dried out so people can wander ashore without using a dinghy and the kids can play in the sand.

I can thoroughly recommend it!

 

[Bosun Higgs]

In the 80's I raced on a Mirage 29 so what you are saying is that the portsmouth yard stick handicap system is fairly accurate but fin keelers have a better VMG. Find a tiwn keel boat where its sister fin keeler has a lower PM number. SO fin always sail better than bilge - sorry twin keelers. Then we dissapear into the relative advantantages of twin over fin; but the OP was asking about sailing ability and there is not one point of sail where when the boat is sailed well a twin keeler will outperform its fin keeled sister.

I think you misunderstood what Wotayottie was saying Marsupial. There is indeed a 5% standard adjustment when converting the handicap for a fin keeler into a bilge for the same boat and this gives a real indication of the degree of difference in sailing performance like for like. But the real question is "why"? And the answer is that the big difference is in leeway when sailing upwind - the is no difference in performance down wind unless there is a big disparity in keel area and therefore drag. Wotayyottie's practical experience tends to confirm this.

Its also worth adding that there werent many bilge keelers constructed on good sailing hulls or to put it another way, a First of 26 ft would sail all over your Mirage even if the latter were a fin.

 

[Marsupial]

I think you misunderstood what Wotayottie was saying Marsupial. There is indeed a 5% standard adjustment when converting the handicap for a fin keeler into a bilge for the same boat and this gives a real indication of the degree of difference in sailing performance like for like. But the real question is "why"? And the answer is that the big difference is in leeway when sailing upwind - the is no difference in performance down wind unless there is a big disparity in keel area and therefore drag. Wotayyottie's practical experience tends to confirm this.

Its also worth adding that there werent many bilge keelers constructed on good sailing hulls or to put it another way, a First of 26 ft would sail all over your Mirage even if the latter were a fin.

Ahh but it wasnt my Mirage and yes it would struggle against a First, but then it sailed around Konsorts, but the point I was making is that if you race on the yardstick handicap then you have to sail the socks off whatever boat you find yourself in if you want to have a chance of a place. All the bilge/twin keelers I have sailed and owned did have a hell of a drag downwind compared with anything with a fin. Its horses for courses, if you want a sailing machine that you can keep on a drying mooring there is very little choice its twin or lifting.