Bosun Higgs
N/A
Same reason some people prefer to fly biplanes or live in old houses or do anything the identical way their ancestors did - a silly idea that technology hasnt moved on.
Long keels are obsolete. Like steam powered trucks.
What's the fascination with long keels?
- Thread starter john_morris_uk
- Start date
Same reason some people prefer to fly biplanes or live in old houses or do anything the identical way their ancestors did - a silly idea that technology hasnt moved on.
Long keels are obsolete. Like steam powered trucks.
Oatcake
Active Member
Long lead keels are not obsolete, but, to buy a new one, just like buying a new steam powered truck, is very expensive, compared to a bolt on iron job.
Just like an ASSA lock, there is not much point fitting one to a 4 bed speccer in the brown belt.
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Blueboatman
Well-Known Member
Well well well. (Actually, 3 relevant words).
When you don't have a long keeler, where exactly goes the water tankage?
If nothing else, long keepers have useful storage space low down that on a fin job has to muscle into competing under bunk lockers..
Perhaps the question should be this: for serious long distance, heavily provisioned sailing, should the keel be hollow or bolt on?
When you don't have a long keeler, where exactly goes the water tankage?
If nothing else, long keepers have useful storage space low down that on a fin job has to muscle into competing under bunk lockers..
Perhaps the question should be this: for serious long distance, heavily provisioned sailing, should the keel be hollow or bolt on?
john_morris_uk
Well-Known Member
Well obviously water and heavy items should be stored low down in the boat - and for example in the Exacilbar (fin keeled) boat the water tank is moulded into the space just above the encapsulated ballast in the fin. Not all fin keeled boats have wine glass sections with poor stowage: besides which, our own boat has the water tanks under the two saloon berths plus under the saloon floor. We are not exactly short of storage space (although if we put ten people on board to sleep in the supposedly ten available bunks space might be a bit tight! In reality four or six people lots and lots of room to stow things..
But I'm not here to justify my own boat, rather to try and have an honest discussion about what might be an outdated prejudice in favour of long keels for ocean cruising.
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Conachair
Guest
Blue water boats ain't mobile phones to go with the percieved tech flow, much more going on than that. A major consideration on bluewater boat systems is keep the higher technology away from the critical systems. Everything breaks, much older technolgy is easier to fix well off the beaten track. This is why there will always be a (prob very small) market for boats which can still move in the identical way their ancestors did. And a long keel could well be part of that parcel.
The picture is almost always bigger than the one you think you see.
Storyline
Well-Known Member
That is very true but is also a big argument in favour of spade rudders which are easy to drop and maintain if needed in remote spots when a lift out would be out of the question.
Conachair
Guest
Why not go further? One hung off the transom doesn't even need dropping. Plus no holes in the boat.
Conachair
Guest
You might be better off on a forum with lots of bluewater sailors for that. Not actually many here. Lots and lots of offshore miles maybe but that's very different from long term cruising. I don't actually think there is any kind prejudice amongst the sailors. Too many variables to pin it down.
Storyline
Well-Known Member
Why not go further? One hung off the transom doesn't even need dropping. Plus no holes in the boat.
Sounds bomb proof except for the time a not so friendly whale surfaces and lifts the rudder off its gudgeons
rotrax
Well-Known Member
So how do you get the stern elevated high enough to drop several feet of rudder stock from the bearing and tube? On my fin keel boat- a Hunter 27 OOD-it would have been impossible dried out against a wall. Even laid on its side it would have caused problems due to the exit angle.
Storyline
Well-Known Member
3m of water !
Conachair
Guest
Sounds bomb proof except for the time a not so friendly whale surfaces and lifts the rudder off its gudgeons
No come on, have a look through the thread. Isn't it obvious that I would be cautious enough checking the little safety pin at least 17 times a day?
Blueboatman
Well-Known Member
I built a new ' improved' spade rudder for my last boat. Went out to anchor, tied a line to the stock of the old one and dropped it out and aboard( bloody heavy) then reattached the same line to the top of the new rudder, launched that over the side and pulled it up through the ruddr tube and into place.
15 minute job ( with a bit of wiggling as the new bearings were tighter).
Plan b would have meant hanging in the travelift over lunch and a few more beertokens..
Currently I have a wooden transom hung full heigt rudder, it looks seriously heavy. I think some sort of tackle would be needed to reinstall if Mr Whale were to give it a tickle
15 minute job ( with a bit of wiggling as the new bearings were tighter).
Plan b would have meant hanging in the travelift over lunch and a few more beertokens..
Currently I have a wooden transom hung full heigt rudder, it looks seriously heavy. I think some sort of tackle would be needed to reinstall if Mr Whale were to give it a tickle
john_morris_uk
Well-Known Member
Sounds perfect - but helm loads can be high because its very difficult to build balance into the rudder. (One or two designs have a go - but you end up with a poor compromise.) All the keel/deadwood back to the rudder is excess wetted area whose only purpose is to allow the rudder to be hung on it.Why not go further? One hung off the transom doesn't even need dropping. Plus no holes in the boat.
Blueboatman
Well-Known Member
Whilst I would agree wholeheartedly, the Folkboat types get away with it by raking the transom and aft edge of the keel.
I suppose one could usefully add propwash to the benefits of such a rudder if the aperture ain't too large.
Funnily enough last boat with 'improved' spade rudder etc wrecked the light feel of the helm though gained the desired 3 degrees less pointing angle between tacks. I had to trim some aft area off and refair it but then it stalled out at the top at large tiller angles so, whilst a fascinating learning exercise, needed more work to perfect.( or a new, third rudder. And on it goes...)
Subtle stuff this keel/rudder design
I suppose one could usefully add propwash to the benefits of such a rudder if the aperture ain't too large.
Funnily enough last boat with 'improved' spade rudder etc wrecked the light feel of the helm though gained the desired 3 degrees less pointing angle between tacks. I had to trim some aft area off and refair it but then it stalled out at the top at large tiller angles so, whilst a fascinating learning exercise, needed more work to perfect.( or a new, third rudder. And on it goes...
)Subtle stuff this keel/rudder design
grumpy_o_g
Well-Known Member
Just a thought but one thing about a long-keeler that could make a difference to the motion is the polar moment of inertia. A LK will tend to be a shallower draft for the same lateral area and resistance and will probably have the ballast spread along more of her length. That would, at a very rough guess, make her less of a pendulum in pitch especially than an extreme fin keel with a heavy bulb at the end. The other thing is that she'll tend to present a finer entry to the water as the keel goes all the way forward, so no slamming and a gentler increase in buoyancy as the bow drops.
NB It's a guess and I'm not suggesting that all or even most fin-keelers behave as pendulums or slam or whatever.
NB It's a guess and I'm not suggesting that all or even most fin-keelers behave as pendulums or slam or whatever.
Sybarite
Well-Known Member
Two leading architects in France: Michel Joubert and J-P Brouns have both chosen twin keels for their personal boats.
Bajansailor
Well-Known Member
Chuck Paine has come up with a very neat solution to the problem of how to build some balance in to a transom hung rudder - here is a link to the pdf on his website about Expannie, who is a long keeler that is bound to win over the heart of even the most die hard and passionate fin keeler...... http://www.chuckpaine.com/pdf/36EXPANNIE36.pdf
This is a fascinating thread John, thanks for starting it.
I must admit that I have toes in all keel camps, and in the hull camps as well re mono or multi - all have their advantages and disadvantages, some are abject objects of desire, others are dogs.
One dog I sailed on was a steel long keel ketch who was so directionally unstable that even the Monitor wind vane was having a headache steering her to windward (when one might have expected her to be fairly well balanced....)
We have a long keeler (a Challenger 35) - but we were not looking for a long keeler specifically, she sort of acquired us, rather like how you acquire a dog at the RSPCA, she was quite appealing.
She has a cut away fore foot, so the bow does blow off with the slightest puff, and I would not want to have to berth her regularly in a marina (but am happy sailing her up to her swinging mooring). Wine glass midship section, longish overhangs, 10' 6" beam and only 5.5 tonnes light displacement.
She can carry full genoa and main in 18 knots apparent, but she is heeled over far too much for comfort, and is happier with less. And with a clean bottom, and the sheets cracked off a wee bit she flies - we once covered the 100 miles over to Martinique in 14 hours.
But with all that wetted surface area, woe betide a bit of fouling - easy to lose a knot or 2. And it is hard work (but good exercise!) scrubbing this acreage using just mask, snorkel and fins (a scuba tank is a definite help!).
PS - Re rudders, I just hope that we never have to drop ours, as it sits on a S/S shoe attached to the bottom of the keel with lavish amounts of 5200.... in contrast, spade rudders can be / are a doddle (as Blue boatman mentioned above).
We dropped the rudder on the SO 40 mentioned in the link below to carry out repairs - the hardest part was getting the stock back in the hole afterwards, as the rudder was slightly buoyant, despite the weight of the stock. It does help though to be able to carry out this job while snorkelling in warm clear water......
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Conachair
Guest
Mine's a little heavy but who cares. The aries doesn't seem to mind. It's autopilot 99.9% of the time. Which is another quite high up requirement for a bluewater boat - it must be quite easy to balance well so the autopilot doesn't have to work very hard. I haven't played around with a fin keeled boat and windvane so can't comment .
Bosun Higgs
N/A
A dug out canoe? Viking longboat?
Racing always improves the breed and ocean racers stopped using long keels back in the days of Robin K-J. The reason is simple - they have a very poor lift to drag ratio. Absolutely nothing to do with strength of construction since there is no reason why the length of the keel need affect that. Sure Bav cut the corners and paid the price but they would probably do the same with a long keel.
