What's the fascination with long keels?

Tranona said:
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I don't think the price differential is to do with cost of materials, it's to do with the hull moulding and fit out procedures, at least that's what I've always understood. Any sort of encapsulated keel, tumblehome. non-straight sheerline etc etc, means the boat has to be built using a 2 part mould which is bolted together, you can't release an "odd shape" moulding from the mould using a one piece mould. The "seam" of the 2 piece mould has to be filled and faired (which is a skilled job) after each and every hull release and the mould has to be polished as an integral unit after each release. Then the laying up can start.

Whereas an AWB production mould is a one part mould, the design is always going to be saucer shaped to one degree or another. The laid up structure is ejected or "popped out" using high pressure air between the hull sides and the mould. Because there's no "seam", the mould can be used again immediately.

With a one piece mould, slots for bulkheads can be included in the mould so that when fit out commences, it's just a matter of dropping bulkheads and furniture into the appropriate slots and they're correctly positioned every time. That's obviously not possible with a 2 part moulding. I think for the same reason, the lid can't be put on a 2 part moulding quite as easily as the 1 part moulding because of very small variations of alignment.

And other stuff! So that's why even if there was a standard interior, it won't decrease the building cost to anywhere like the same cost of an AWB.

I don't denigrate AWB's, but if you do happen to want an encapsulated keel, a shapely sheerline or a wineglass shaped hull, it's going to have to cost a lot more even if you produce a standard product. It's all down to production costs and the materials are only one element of cost.

Cheers, Brian.
 
>However in this day she decided to do a complete 180 more-or-less in her own length. I ended up reversing her back into her own berth facing the opposite way, I then nonchalantly drove her out forwards. One of those manoeuvres you could never repeat in a month of Sundays.

What a lovely story, thank you.
 
No, I think you are wrong. IF the boat was engineered properly for mass production it would be no more expensive to make than 7 tons of any other boat. They are made in an expensive manner because they are tooled up for backyard production. You are right about tumblehome - that is the only reason for having a split mould. Even if you kept a split mould you could still engineer it to lay up and cure in one day - you could even leave the transom out and include that in the deck moulding. Transfer the hull into a building jig and you can insert the bulkheads and interior mouldings/furniture ready made as the AWB builders do.

You have to "unthink" the way those boats were built in the past - they were built like that because there was no capital to invest in tools and equipment - and no volume to justify it. That does not mean it is the only way they could be built. They are after all only a moulded shell into which you pour bits!

Suggest you look around a factory such as Northshore and count how many hours are spent walking up and down stairs and hand fitting interiors and equipment - then look at how the mass producers do the same thing. This is not a criticism of Northshore as they turn out a high quality boat - but at a price only a few can afford. Crucially though, the few that can afford one buy it because it is a design that takes full advantage of new design ideas and materials - not 50 year old designs (the moulds for those lie forgotten in the yard!).
 
flobbergob said:
I don't think the price differential is to do with cost of materials, it's to do with the hull moulding and fit out procedures, at least that's what I've always understood. Any sort of encapsulated keel, tumblehome. non-straight sheerline etc etc, means the boat has to be built using a 2 part mould which is bolted together, you can't release an "odd shape" moulding from the mould using a one piece mould. The "seam" of the 2 piece mould has to be filled and faired (which is a skilled job) after each and every hull release and the mould has to be polished as an integral unit after each release. Then the laying up can start.

Whereas an AWB production mould is a one part mould, the design is always going to be saucer shaped to one degree or another. The laid up structure is ejected or "popped out" using high pressure air between the hull sides and the mould. Because there's no "seam", the mould can be used again immediately.

With a one piece mould, slots for bulkheads can be included in the mould so that when fit out commences, it's just a matter of dropping bulkheads and furniture into the appropriate slots and they're correctly positioned every time. That's obviously not possible with a 2 part moulding. I think for the same reason, the lid can't be put on a 2 part moulding quite as easily as the 1 part moulding because of very small variations of alignment.

And other stuff! So that's why even if there was a standard interior, it won't decrease the building cost to anywhere like the same cost of an AWB.

I don't denigrate AWB's, but if you do happen to want an encapsulated keel, a shapely sheerline or a wineglass shaped hull, it's going to have to cost a lot more even if you produce a standard product. It's all down to production costs and the materials are only one element of cost.

Cheers, Brian.
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Spot on.

Well almost, I do think materials might be more significant than you allow.

Your older yacht has a lot of expensive features that have been designed out
of modern production boats. If they were bad or good is another argument they were, and are, certainly costly to produce.
 
I suppose I should chip in here, having a R36 an all.

Tranona raises an intriguing idea. To Tool up vs hand build.
I don't know if Bavaria are making profits enough right now to service their capital Investments program, being volume driven in a recession when boats refuse to die for 50 years it seems...
As far as I can see ( which is behind every single component and panel) no rustler component is slotted and spot tabbed, foamed or siliconed into another. There is a grp shower tray and engine tray and thats it.
Everything else is copiously( laboriously) taper bonded to the hull and there are stringers and grid stiffeners throughout. Everywhere passes the drag-a-stocking-to-find-a-rough-edge test..
To try to automate that sort of commitment would take a very very clever robot or necessitate quite a lot more GRP submoldings and a far less woody feel to the interior.in fact it would look quite a lot like a Bav 36.
You would end up with unedged or laminate board type edging to a lot of he interior and wraparound stick on vinyl trim lining the hatches instead of multiple pieces of solid teak etc.
In fact disregarding any keel or hull shape differences you can usually 'tell' what boat you are sitting in by virtue of looking around, surely?
Btw rustler used to offer hulls for home completion so I suppose there are one or two out there with the emphasis on simple fit out and quick build time?
 
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The point is that the processes used by Rustler currently are not necessary to deliver the "benefits" of the style of boat as discussed here. They are carried out because the method of construction is imperfect because the volumes are so low because the costs are so high! They are all a consequence of producing maybe 8 or 10 boats a year from one mould compared with one a day from one mould and a whole load of sophisticated CNC machinery. (BTW Bavaria bulkheads are hand laminated to the hull - not everything can be mechanised).

You can still retain the woody interiors - mine has, although they have moved away from the heavy wood interior since then. You just build the interior outside the boat where you have the space and access to do it efficiently. The actual furniture in your boat is probably less in volume than mine - I have 4 major doors for example, 4 clothes lockers, 15 other locker doors - these are the things that take time and money to fit - especially doing them one at a time inside a partly complete hull.

Each boat has the same engine, same electrics, water systems, rig and so on - OK some of the details may be a bit different, but not much. The difference in costs is primarily related to the huge increase in man hours and occupying a factory space for 3 months rather than a week.

A Rustler built Bavaria - style would not look like a Bavaria, nor behave like one, but it would cost half as much - but would anybody buy it? Or rather could you find 200 buyers a year to justify the tooling?
 
john_morris_uk said:
I had another friend whose boat featured heavily in editions of PBO many years ago. He had completely rebuilt his classic double ender with long keel. The prop came out of the quarter in the old fashioned way and there was NO WAY you could EVER get the thing to turn backwards against the prop... Astern was always hard to starboard or slightly to starboard.
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I have this setup, except I go to port. Predictable? Yes. Easy in marinas? No. Short tacking up rivers? It can be done but it's hard work and I don't try and sail through moorings.

In general I am in agreeement with the OP and Flaming on the fin vs longkeel debate, although I have sailed both in severe ocean whether, and even for similar displacements (20 tons-ish) the long keeler was more comfortable. As far as marinas go, I'd rather have a fin, but for picking up moorings, dropping and raising the hook, the long keeler is happy to sit and wait for you to sort things out. The fin blows off more quickly and gives you less time, but then you can recover more quickly too.

I'd be hard pushed to say one or other is absolutely best, except I like the looks of a long keeler, and wouldn't have a fin. But that is personal preference and rationality has nothing to do with it!

If I was rational I wouldn't have a boat!
 
Re Tranona.
Yes yes but....:)
By the same logic the Swedes would cost less than they do but they don't!
One way or another wood ( and me hands) has kept me going since preteens so I suppose I profess to know a bit about it. And it's expensive stuff these days. So is GRP . There is certainly less of either in a volume built AWB, so I am not sure where sufficient cost savings will be found to 'cover' that.
Surely Bav( for example) would offer 'more' if they could at an attractive price yet the trend at the boatshows seems to be to offer less 'boat' but more volume?
Anyway, it is an interesting idea. Go for it! New R36 for say £125k sailaway, all teakified? I'm definitely IN!:)
Might have to fit posh props and/or bowthrusters tho to convince others.
 
Scotty_Tradewind said:
From the mouths of babes.... Certainly the G.O.M. appears to fit :D Where on earth do you get that from? I resemble that remark!

So, if the hat fits....although the main quality required to confirm acceptance to the 'club', is the ability to laugh at oneself and to see the positive values of others. ;) I'm rolling in the aisles, or as I am about to take our boat to Scotland, perhaps that should read rolling in the Western Isles?

and as Libby says, "You can trust a man with a long keeler" :DAs I have sailed in company with Libby, I can tell you she trusts my little fin keel implicitly.
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However I note that the Purvis's last two boats have not been long keeled boat, but conservative fin keel, skeg and rudder etc. Who doesn't she trust there then?
 
john_morris_uk said:
However I note that the Purvis's last two boats have not been long keeled boat, but conservative fin keel, skeg and rudder etc. Who doesn't she trust there then?
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The Victoria 38 is fin and skeg I grant you, but unless the Biscay 36 was vastly different to mine, I think you'd have found an encapsulated long keel beneath John.
 
Blueboatman said:
Re Tranona.
Yes yes but....:)
By the same logic the Swedes would cost less than they do but they don't!
One way or another wood ( and me hands) has kept me going since preteens so I suppose I profess to know a bit about it. And it's expensive stuff these days. So is GRP . There is certainly less of either in a volume built AWB, so I am not sure where sufficient cost savings will be found to 'cover' that.
Surely Bav( for example) would offer 'more' if they could at an attractive price yet the trend at the boatshows seems to be to offer less 'boat' but more volume?
Anyway, it is an interesting idea. Go for it! New R36 for say £125k sailaway, all teakified? I'm definitely IN!:)
Might have to fit posh props and/or bowthrusters tho to convince others.
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The Swedes operate in a high cost environment and have a massive on cost. They have gone down the automation route on their smaller boats (been in a small HR lately?) to contain costs. They are fortunate (well some of them) in having sufficient market prescence to ride out the fall in demand - at least some of them, but Najad, Sweden Yachts, Regina have all gone (although the Najad name has ben brought back).

You are right about the cost of materials, but as they only represent around 35-40% of the retail price of the boat, it is not that which causes the price difference. Much of the wood in Bavs has been eliminated as much because style and fashion has changed and "improvements" in man made materials.

Volume (of the boat) is what the mass market seems to want, so they use the same 7 tons of material to enclose and fill a larger space. They don't build boats like that just on a whim - they do it because that is waht the folks with the money want to buy. If as imilar number of people wanted long thin deep boats, that is what they would make.

Hence my proposition - but it is not a runner when the small number of people who want long thin, deep boats can buy old ones for a fraction of new build cost, and the even smaller number who buy new ones probably would not if they were priced such that the current buyers of new AWBs could buy them.
 
pyrojames said:
I have this setup, except I go to port. Predictable? Yes. Easy in marinas? No. Short tacking up rivers? It can be done but it's hard work and I don't try and sail through moorings.

In general I am in agreeement with the OP and Flaming on the fin vs longkeel debate, although I have sailed both in severe ocean whether, and even for similar displacements (20 tons-ish) the long keeler was more comfortable. As far as marinas go, I'd rather have a fin, but for picking up moorings, dropping and raising the hook, the long keeler is happy to sit and wait for you to sort things out. The fin blows off more quickly and gives you less time, but then you can recover more quickly too.

I'd be hard pushed to say one or other is absolutely best, except I like the looks of a long keeler, and wouldn't have a fin. But that is personal preference and rationality has nothing to do with it!

If I was rational I wouldn't have a boat!
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+1
 
Sexier still:

indirespray.jpg
 
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