What's the fascination with long keels?

[Sybarite]

I was very interested to read about their boats. One a sloop with a deep fin with a bulb tip and the other a centre board ketch! And this is from people who go high latitude sailing and thought through their design and then had it built...

"The hard dodger has proven to be one of Hawk's best and most distinctive features. We continue to be surprised the concept is not built into more cruising designs."

Amen to that.

 

[chrisedwards]

To called the SCOD small and maneuverable is perhaps over-egging it slightly - well compared to the maneuverability of a fin keeled Sadler 26 or similar. The SCOD was a joy and delight to sail in many ways, but turn on a sixpence it did not. Like all the long keeled boats I have sailed, when you want to tack, you lean on the tiller and wait. On longer bigger boats, you can almost go and make a cup of tea while you tack - if you didn't have to back the staysail and attend to the runners in the middle of the process....

The Medina doesn't feel wide when its the end of racing in Cowes week. Have you ever sailed there in such conditions? Most people keep well away, because the river is wall to wall yachts and sailing a long keeled boat up under those circumstances doesn't do ones blood pressure any good. A small fin keeled boat is much easier. Just by way of contrast, in a small fin keeled boat and in lightish airs you can stop and sail backwards with a bit of skill and application. That's not something that's easily achieved in any of the long keeled boats I have sailed - no matter how well mannered they were going the right way. I am not sure what close quarters sailing is if it isn't sailing up the Medina and alongside the pontoon in Cowes Week at the end of the days racing. Its about the most demanding close quarters sailing I can think of.

"lean on the tiller and wait" for the little SCOD???

 

[KellysEye]

>If long keels are so good, why doesn't anybody make them any more.

Cost basically, they were heavily built and very strong. Modern lightly built boats were built with ladies in mind (large aft cabin) and are built to a price.

We sailed many types of boats with fin keels and spade rudders, all of which would head up to wind in a gust, broach and surf, none of which we wanted to go ocean sailing. Thus we chose a long keeler, it does none of those, tracks straight and has a sea kindly motion. The boat's length is 38 feet with a twelve foot beam thus doesn't heel much, we've never come close to having the rail in.

On the subject of speed yes they are slower than lightweight boats but as others have said why be in a hurry. We love ocean sailing so time doesn't matter.

 

[Conachair]

I was very interested to read about their boats. One a sloop with a deep fin with a bulb tip and the other a centre board ketch! And this is from people who go high latitude sailing and thought through their design and then had it built...

Yep. Nice boats too. There's a lot to be said for centre boards, you see quite a lot of Ovnis about. 2 very big advantages, you can get into the shallower bits of the anchorage closer to the dinghy dock and ( BIG one), run up onto a beach with just a few feet of tide for a scrub. Doubt if i'll ever be able to afford a better boat than the one I have and even then.. I would be put off by the Ovni in the anchorage in Suriname with a stuck centreboard, waiting weeks on end for spares to filter through the wierd customs system. And the scarey previous passage with no keel. All these things lodge in your mind.
Nice boats though. Would be a close one.

And check this one out!

Tranona will be loving this

Many ‘sailing experts’ say that spade rudders are inherently weak and unsuitable for offshore use. This is flat out ridiculous.

http://www.bethandevans.com/boats.htm#50.
Though tempered with..

Too many modern 'offshore cruising boat' rudders have been engineered to meet only 'expected sailing loads'. A cruising or offshore rudder must be designed (and constructed) to survive full speed impact loads and not just sailing loads. The rudder on an offshore boat WILL hit stuff - from rocks to large sunken logs to containers. The rudder must be able to survive these impacts without catastrophic damage and still bring the boat back to safe harbor. This can be done without great difficulty, expense or weight, but the customer must make it a priority. The rudder (shaft & bearings) are normally out of sight and are common places for builders to save money and/or weight.

And this bit interesting as well..
http://www.bethandevans.com/hawk.htm

I was instructed by several quality control engineers that the key to ensuring reliability is to minimize the number of moving parts. We followed this edict vigorously as we fit-out Hawk (e.g. no generator, watermaker, pressure water, etc), and it has proven a successful approach. We are more self-reliant and our maintenance workload is about a quarter of that aboard the more complex Shannon.

WHich is pretty much my stance on the whole thing.
If you're heading out there then do it on a tough boat with as few things to break as you can get away with. And try to make sure that the vital bits which do break you can fix yourself.

 

[alant]

If long keels are so good, why doesn't anybody make them any more.

I loved sailing the Nic 32, stable, good in very strong weather, lovely motion but a nightmare in marinas, cramped and not particularly fast.

You've answered your question "why doesn't anybody make them any more."

"but a nightmare in marinas"

 

[doug748]

Doug, all these things might be true, but what I was suggesting was that you can have nearly all of them with some fin keeled boats that actually sail faster and better. The only thing you might compromise on slightly is the ability to keep tracking in a straight line, but that attribute is a two edged sword for lots of sailing... I am not criticising all long keeled boats, but trying to honestly balance the pro's and the con's.
Most sensible well built fin keeled boats don't lose their keels either...

Well, to me, I am afraid it comes across as potboiling.

I doubt you will see it.

"Faster and better" A lot of folk are not interested in the notion of flat water speed and the compromise needed in getting it, and your use of the word "better" is so subjective as to have no meaning in this context.

I have a fin keeled boat.

 

[john_morris_uk]

Not sure what you mean by 'potboiling'?

When I say faster and better, the faster bit is obvious (although in a blow, long keeled boats can be surprisingly slippery.). The better bit means, points higher and is more responsive to sail. Perhaps the latter is a bit subjective and I don't want to overstate my case as I have loved sailing long keeled boats over the years.

I know people get very attached to their own boats, but I was appealing for some honesty about what is really important and why. I still think that the long keel as a 'must have for offshore blue water sailing' is a hangover from a previous generation of sailors and their traditional boats.

 

[john_morris_uk]

We sailed many types of boats with fin keels and spade rudders, all of which would head up to wind in a gust, broach and surf...

On the subject of speed yes they are slower than lightweight boats but as others have said why be in a hurry.

Well I don't want a stand up row, but you must have sailed some rubbish fin keeled boats. I know that there are lots about, but there are also some ges that won't broach and misbehave in the way you describe.

I have enjoyed a few ocean passages and I have never been on one where the crew didn't watch the progress made with great interest. In light airs all efforts being made to get the boat moving and lots of happy discussions about what the first beer or run punch will taste like. So the point I am trying to make is that if you enjoy sailing just for being at sea then fine, but most people seem to like to make progress and if I get there two or three days quicker then that makes a lot of sense to me.

Some of my Ocean sailing has been in JSASTC Nicholson 55's. (fin keel, skeg and rudder partly supported). Difficult to find a more sea kindly safe yet reasonably quick ocean sailor. Unless you are going to tell me otherwise?

 

[john_morris_uk]

"lean on the tiller and wait" for the little SCOD???

In comparison to a Sadler 26 or similar: YES

 

[rotrax]

If long keels are so good, why doesn't anybody make them any more.

I loved sailing the Nic 32, stable, good in very strong weather, lovely motion but a nightmare in marinas, cramped and not particularly fast.

You've answered your question "why doesn't anybody make them any more."

"but a nightmare in marinas"

As I posted earlier, long keel yachts are made in relativly large volume by Island Packet. Their Bob Johnson designs are trademarked as "Full Foil Keels" Look at their website and check the hull shape- looks like a long keel to me!

 

[PuffTheMagicDragon]

A very interesting thread, especially when one disregards the 'trenches'. A man who must have been much wiser than I is reported to have quipped "It's not the ships, it's the men who sail them".


P.S. One of my boats is a bilge-keeler (Westerly Centaur) while the other one has 2 tonnes of lead encapsulated in a 'fin' and a rudder on a skeg (Wauquiez Centurion 32). I can't really complain about either one of them.

 

[Conachair]

I have enjoyed a few ocean passages and I have never been on one where the crew didn't watch the progress made with great interest. In light airs all efforts being made to get the boat moving and lots of happy discussions about what the first beer or run punch will taste like. So the point I am trying to make is that if you enjoy sailing just for being at sea then fine, but most people seem to like to make progress and if I get there two or three days quicker then that makes a lot of sense to me.

Well we're well into semantics here but that sounds more like a delivery than a bluewater passage. In the context that the word brings into my head, the bluewater sailors I know like to keep the boat moving efficiently but speed isn't that big a deal. Not breaking anything being far more important. If it's another day across an ocean who cares.

 

[Arcady]

If long keels are so good, why doesn't anybody make them any more.

I loved sailing the Nic 32, stable, good in very strong weather, lovely motion but a nightmare in marinas, cramped and not particularly fast.

But things move on and now with a conservative fin and skeg I'm a happy bunny and wouldn't go back for all the tea....

But they do ... Island Packet and Cabo Rico are two (US) builders amongst others. An earlier post praised Chuck Paine's designs which I agree with: he designed some lovely and fast long keel boats with cut away forefoots.

 

[oldbilbo]

There are so many chapters, multiple ways to enjoy sailing. I'm intrigued by the points of similarity in our contributions, rather than the points of divergence.

 

[Oatcake]

?? Can you translate please?

I didn't even realise I'd posted this.

Wrt to long keelers, at the 25 -32 foot range (ish - rather arbitrary but hopefully I'll make my point) long keelers tend to be favourite for offshore sailing. If one were to name ten recommended circa 26-30 foot boats to use for offshore sailing then I reckon 8 of them would be long keeled.mprobably folkoat types.

It's when we get to larger boats that other keel configs become recommended for offshore sailing as an alternative to long keel.

I would always favour a long keeled boat up to 32 feet. By 40 feet I reckon I would be open to any keel config as long as the numbers stacked up and she sailed well.

Also manoeuvring up to 32 foot long keeler in tight places is not that hard. 36 feet is borderline, and A 40+ foot long Keel is going to need bow thruster and be causing many more headaches, needing hammerheads etc despite being very comfortable offshore becoming a bit of a pain compared to a long fin and Skeg. IMO.

So it's all about the overall size/dispalcement of the boat too.

 

[Babylon]

There are two examples of long keel boats getting the prop fouled on this thread alone.

Crikey! What have you been smoking?

 

[Tranona]

Crikey! What have you been smoking?

Does not make sense out of context but makes perfect sense in the context of how (and why) it was posted!

 

[westernman]

Also manoeuvring up to 32 foot long keeler in tight places is not that hard. 36 feet is borderline, and A 40+ foot long Keel is going to need bow thruster and be causing many more headaches, needing hammerheads etc

Mine is a 52ft long keeler (not counting the 16 ft of the bowsprit which sticks out) with no bow thruster. No need for hammerheads. A little bit of thinking ahead and the occasional warp, is all that is required for parking in Med style berths, stern to. Not that I would want to do that without the engine though.

 

[Conachair]

This thread touched a bit of a nerve and I've been mulling over it for a few days. I think some of the posts are looking at the question from the wrong direction.
This will not come out very well but here goes.
For bluewater sailing a very good first step would be to go down the chemist, buy a big bag of humility pills and scoff the lot. You are a tiny speck of nothing. Developing an open mind and dealing with the world as it is in any particular moment with the info available will work better. the whole "long keels bad " thing just smells of having some kind of prediction of the future with little knowledge.
The first post would have been much more useful if it was more like "lots of people over the years like traditional heavy boats for bluewater, why is that and what can I learn from it"

Knew it wouldn't come out right.

 

[Phoenix of Hamble]

This thread touched a bit of a nerve and I've been mulling over it for a few days. I think some of the posts are looking at the question from the wrong direction.
This will not come out very well but here goes.
For bluewater sailing a very good first step would be to go down the chemist, buy a big bag of humility pills and scoff the lot. You are a tiny speck of nothing. Developing an open mind and dealing with the world as it is in any particular moment with the info available will work better. the whole "long keels bad " thing just smells of having some kind of prediction of the future with little knowledge.
The first post would have been much more useful if it was more like "lots of people over the years like traditional heavy boats for bluewater, why is that and what can I learn from it"

Knew it wouldn't come out right.

hee hee... got your point though Paddy!

I'm interested in this debate, as within the last year i've moved from a 40' fin keel to a 45' long keel.... yet to fully appreciate the upside and downside as i'm locked into a spiralling task list of 'things to do' before we get out on the water properly, but FWIW, my decision was based on compromises.... and ours was trading the comfort on long offshore passages aagainst the reduced maneouverability in close quarters.... I figured in the end, over the last 30 or so years, that i've been a lot more frightened by rough weather offshore than by challenging berthing situations... and that not looking forward to passage making, would spoil the whole bluewater experience for us. The rudder vulnerability bit barely factored at all in our decision making at all.

However, open minded enough to appreciate that this is probably an area where there simply is no right answer én masse, and every one must find the path that works for them.