lift keel boats - what are they like drying out regularly and any problems

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niccapotamus

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Hi

we are thinking seriously about a boat good for popping on a swinging mooring and taking up the backside of the creeks and harbours of the solent (length 26-28ft)

Naturally we are thinking about a bilge keeler, but just to widen the net a little and give us some choice of boats that might sail a little better I thought I'd ask the question about lifting keels

We are nervous about these as they are an added complication and would seem to make antifoul and routine maintenance more expensive as they'll need a lift out rather than just drying out to sort out issues

Also - what about drying out regularly - is this OK? Any real problems with keels jamming?

ta

Nick
 
There aren't so many lift keelers when you get above 25' as it becomes a serious and expensive engineering exercise.

Drying out depends on the particular design, for instance on lift keel Etaps - 22 & 26 - the keel doesn't fully raise, it just reduces draught a bit, so no good drying even on soft mud - have seen it tried...

A well designed lifter shouldn't suffer keel jamming with mud, but remember if the keel fully retracts then the boat rests her hull on anything nasty on the seabed.

My 22' boat has a ballast bulb which is 9" deep below the hull, she settles upright in soft mud.

Larger lift keelers which spring to mind are the Seal 28, SuperSeal 26 ( racy if inexperienced ) Hunter Delta 25, must be others I can't remember at the moment.

There's also the Anderson 26 which is a lift keeler, good fast cruising boat but rare - see website below.
 
I've had 3 lift keel boats, a Jaguar 21, Parker 275 (update of the Super Seal) and now a Southerly 46 RS, and sailed them for a combined 20 year plus. The Jaguar and Parker where moored on half tide mud moorings, the Southerly is on a deep water swinging mooring. I've never had a problem with the lifting keel mechanism, I've had to replace lifting pennants and other wearing parts, but no problems with keels sticking, up or down.

They can be a pain to antifoul the keel, because you obviously need to lift the boat, so that the keel can be lowered. On the Jaguar and Parker I did this on a hard standing with a trolley jack and lots of big blocks of wood, jacking one corner up at a time and sliding blocks and wedges in as appropriate. This can be done single handed, but it takes time. With the Southerly I use a marina hoist and get the guys to leave it in the slings over a weekend. They just charge for one lift that way. I've also used Copper Coat, but find that the lower leading edge of the keel need re-coating, where the Southerly touched the ground.
Lift keel boats are generally fast and seaworthy, but they need reefing early (at least the 3 I've had), I think that this is because they carry a lot of there ballast in the hull and the lifting keel is relatively light.
I've had one cruiser with a fixed keel, a Dufour 40, and wouldn't go back to a fixed keel again, it's too limiting, even with a big boat like a Southerly 46, the draft is only 0.8m with the keel up, so you can get into and dry out in all sorts of small harbours and creeks, which a fixed keel boat would just pass by.
When you have left the bilge keeler's way behind in your wake and are sitting in a comfortable harbour, whilst they are still slogging to windward, you'll know you've made the right decision.
 
A while ago I sailed for a few years on my brother’s 20 year old Southerly 100 (32ft) and for the last four years I have owned and sailed a Beneteau Oceanis 323 with lifting keel and twin rudders. Also my son has a 22 year old First 29 with lifting keel.

I think lifting keels are great, especially if you like getting into places the fin keel skippers would never dream about. The Southerly and my Beneteau have been on a half tide mooring with gravel bottom, my son’s First is on a mud berth, these moorings have not caused a problem with the boats.

The only problems we had with the Southerly were caused by previous people messing up the wiring for the electro-hydraulic keel lift, not hard to fix. My son did have a problem with the attachment point of the lifting mechanism to the keel on his First, but it was not that difficult to fix. The Beneteau screw mechanism is very easy to grease, just turn the device to lower the keel when dried out, the screw comes up into the cabin. Grease it well with water resistant grease and screw it back.

Peter Poland has written an article about lifting keel boats in this month’s Practical Boat Owner, well worth reading, he is so knowledgeable about boats.

Good luck with your search, George
 
Some years ago, I sailed the RYA's lift keel sonatas quite a bit. There were some issues with small stones jamming the keels.
I suspect this could happen with most lift keel boats?
At least the Sonata 7 could be sailed with the keel up, so not the end of the cruise!
 
We have had a 24 foot lifting keel for the last four years. We do not keep her on a drying berth or mooring but will regularly dry out at weekends.

If you read the article by Poland you will see that he quotes the reason why owners of "variable draught" cruisers prefer them to Biquilles is not just because they sail much better but that they extend the window that you can sail them on any one tide.
You are able to flloat off earlier than a deeper draft bilge keeler.
If you are constrained by returning over a cill or through a tidal lock or have a drying mooring berth you are also able to leave or return to such locations much earlier or later than Bilge or Fin Keels.

We are most definitely going to look at a lifting keel boat as we upsize. Having a stub keel is not a problem as you can still get most larger lift keel boats into places where the equivalent bilge keeler will dry out but with a variable draft you can stay afloat..

I was also taken by the number of Fin Keel boats in Brittany that were quite happily drying out on "Yacht Legs" This solution is fine for sheltered locations and overcomes the problems of maintenance and antifouling on Lift Keelers. It is not quite as good as lifting a keel as most of those boats had to wait up to 2 hours either side of low water longer for access to the same harbour as our boat!
 
Mine is a lift keel.

What you will find looking at lifters, is that there about as many ways to implement a lifting keel, as there are designs of lifting keel yacht.

Ours is an encapsulated lead keel that lifts up completely leaving just the "bare" bottom of the boat. That's good for low draft, but I would not want to dry out on anything that might contain rocks.

Ours lives in a drying harbour so twice a day settles down onto nice soft mud. no issues with the keel jaming or mud otherwise causing problems. the only "issue" appears to be the anti foul on the very bottom of the boat gets scrubbed away and at the end of year crane out there's usually some barnacles to be scraped off on the very bottom.

see other threads on the subject, getting access to lower the keel over winter is pretty much essential. In our case I modified the trailer to allow the keel to be lowered on the trailer. Others lift their boats onto custom made tressles.

Annual servicing of the lifing mechanism is essential. Ours is lifted with a stainless steel rope pulled up by a winch mechanism. Failure of that lifting rope could drop the heavy keel from full height, and I suspect the botom of the boat might not like that. So inspecting the rope and it's fixings is vitally important.
 
lw395,

it's possible to get problems with small stones etc if the keel retracts completely; my boat gets over this by having a ballast bulb which is veed on top so it fairs in with the hull when raised, but at 22' is no good to the OP.

Most larger lift keelers use a ballast stub fixed on the hull with a light plate going through it, makes engineering much easier though obviously the ballast isn't as well placed, ie not as low as the end of the keel.

However I know a couple who had a lift keel Seal 28 on a drying mooring for decades, this uses the stub with plate through it but I never heard of them having problems, they covered some impressive distances too.

For keel plate maintainance I have my boat put onto high trestles, but for larger boats I think it will be a ' leave it dangling from the hoist ' job as previously mentioned.

As this is a pain with all lift keel boats, any secondhand lift keeler should be inspected with the plate down to see it has been cared for !
 
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It certainly makes a difference as to the exact design of the keel, some suffer more than others. It will also make a difference as to what kind of bottom you would consider settling onto. I wouldn't let any boat settle onto rocks, so that's a red herring. Hard sand is probably the least problemmatic, whereas soft mud may contain the sort of small stones and shell which might cause a jam.

One extra word of caution, some designs of sportsboat have a straight lifting board sometimes without a method of locking them in the raised position. With a light, racy design this leaves no counterbalance for the rig in rough conditions and boats have been known to get knocked down on the moorings in a storm. If the board is not locked, it can now fall into the cabin, worsening the situation so the boat can turn turtle. On a half tide mooring, that guarantees losing the rig if not worse damage.

Rob.
 
Dont know about bigger boats, but my ( and the new owner's) first sail on a Sandpiper 565 on Loch Lomond last week was brilliant.
Been used to sailing a 30ftr fin, I was really impressed with this little boats performance even considering there was a few little things to be sorted, did miss the the heads though. :eek:
C_W
 
rob2 said:
It certainly makes a difference as to the exact design of the keel, some suffer more than others. It will also make a difference as to what kind of bottom you would consider settling onto. I wouldn't let any boat settle onto rocks, so that's a red herring. Hard sand is probably the least problemmatic, whereas soft mud may contain the sort of small stones and shell which might cause a jam.

One extra word of caution, some designs of sportsboat have a straight lifting board sometimes without a method of locking them in the raised position. With a light, racy design this leaves no counterbalance for the rig in rough conditions and boats have been known to get knocked down on the moorings in a storm. If the board is not locked, it can now fall into the cabin, worsening the situation so the boat can turn turtle. On a half tide mooring, that guarantees losing the rig if not worse damage.

Rob.
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I've not seen any boat which I'd call remotely serious with a loose keel like that !

Actually I'd say hard sand is indeed problematic due to the hard pounding in any waves, I avoid it for even temporary drying; also my boat settles upright in mud but at 20 degrees on sand, like most boats with a ballast bulb - or stub.

The Anderson 26 has integral drying legs going through near vertical tubes, the legs being raised and retracted from on deck -there are small foot pads which fair in with the hull when the legs are in raised, sailing position - which may be handy for firmer surfaces.
 
Clyde_Wanderer said:
Dont know about bigger boats, but my ( and the new owner's) first sail on a Sandpiper 565 on Loch Lomond last week was brilliant.
Been used to sailing a 30ftr fin, I was really impressed with this little boats performance even considering there was a few little things to be sorted, did miss the the heads though. :eek:
C_W
Click to expand...
That boat is almost identical in size to my own boat. But mine does have a heads "cupboard" with a porta potti.
 
rob2 said:
One extra word of caution, some designs of sportsboat have a straight lifting board sometimes without a method of locking them in the raised position. With a light, racy design this leaves no counterbalance for the rig in rough conditions and boats have been known to get knocked down on the moorings in a storm. Rob.
Click to expand...

Happened last month to a Jaguar 21 on the moorings for our club - when I got to my boat in the morning, it was laying on it's side on the water - local rowing club went past and one of them flipped it upright..... stability like that would worry me...

The boat also seems to veer around a lot on it's mooring in a breeze - fin up and c.o.g. high?????
 
Fantasie 19,

I'm surprised to read that; the Jag 21 is a bit light in every way but by no means extreme, had the keel dropped out or something ?

I once met a Sailfish 18 ( now that IS a lightly ballasted boat ! ) in Yarmouth where the keel had dropped out a day or two before but the chap was insisting on taking his young family to Cornwall !

He got very stroppy when I did my Dad's Army ' I say, do you think that's wise ? ' !

Last seen motoring across Poole Bay in a calm...:rolleyes:
 
A lot of lifting keelers have rudders that look a nit smaller than their fin keel sister ships. Are they OK in practice, or do they round up more than you'd like?
 
I've done some time in a Parker 275 and it's a fine performer, quick, high-pointing and sits level on the putty as I the hull is flat bottomed and ballasted and the dagger board is not where the weight is.

An impressive boat all round.
 
sighmoon said:
A lot of lifting keelers have rudders that look a nit smaller than their fin keel sister ships. Are they OK in practice, or do they round up more than you'd like?
Click to expand...

My rudder pivots up like a dinghy rudder. So keel down, rudder down and everything is as you expect.

Keel up for sneaking out of the harbour first as the tide comes in, I can lift the rudder as well to match the shallow draft.

Have to be careful turning to port with my rudder up though, as the OB prop males mincemeat of it.
 
A mate has a Bene 217 on Windermere in a not very exposed mooring. The 217 keel swings up under the boat and sticks out 18" or so, theoretically you could sail it with the keel up if it's not too severe conditions. Anyway, a couple of times last winter he came to the boat to find it had been knocked down, crockery and sticky coffee granules scattered about. Now he leaves it with the keel down always.

The keel on my Harrier lifts verticaly on a winch. It's way too unstable with the keel up to leave it to dry out unattended.

The keel tapers towards the bottom and the hole in the hull only touches when it's all the way down, I can't see how stones could jam it if I was brave enough to leave it on a drying mooring.
 
I can't see the point in lifting a keel on a mooring on a lake with no tide?

Surely you only lift the keel if you are expecting it to dry out?

In our early days we once hoisted the main with the keel up. We wondered why it wasn't steering properly and we were going sideways until the penny dropped. but it didn't seem to heel over much more than we expected.
 
I must admit I've been surprised by some things on this thread, I've learned and I've had a lift keeler for 35 years.

In answer to a few points, the Anderson 22 has quite a big rudder, it raises vertically up a pintle the full height of the transom; no control problems, inc with rudder part raised., though rounding up would be more due to hull shape.

She has a 900lb ballast bulb which stays outside the boat, and has been through some extreme weather on ( and off ) the mooring inc with me aboard, in F10+ squalls on the mooring, tide in, she only heeled about 20 degrees.

To be honest I thought this quite normal !
 
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