NickRobinson
Well-Known Member
Hmm... where was your risk assessment? Did that hungry school crocodile have a current CRB?
What's the fascination with long keels?
- Thread starter john_morris_uk
- Start date
Hmm... where was your risk assessment? Did that hungry school crocodile have a current CRB?
dulls
N/A
What i mean is i am working on my skills after the stuff up and going in sideways i have got off to a tee now its going in straight that i am working on.
Polux
Well-Known Member
Since the thread has been resurrected I find funny you not having a prejudice regarding fin keel boats but having one regarding what you call "fat bottomed horrors".
It seems that today boat production, including voyage boats, are mostly constituted by fat bottomed boats and I believe that all those NA that are designing them know what they are doing, the same way I believe that their predecessors knew what they were doing when 50 years ago they started to abandon long keel for fin ones.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqCmy3VSyy4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkwBY-CGHcA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvHpgJU36L8
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JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
That's not how I read it at all. Mr Morris is, I gather, professionally qualified to kill you and therefore doesn't really need me to defend him, but I read him as saying that fin keels are great but get a bad name from some poor designs.
Polux
Well-Known Member
What is that kill talk about? If you don't read it that way what are in your opinion those fat bottom boats he talks about generically? There are as many narrow boats (fin keels or otherwise) badly designed as fat bottom badly designed boats. Why target particularly fat bottomed boats as an example of "unpredictable nightmare of broaches and rounding up in the smallest of gusts"?
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JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
What he wrote was "the fat bottomed horrors that are produced for occasional light wind sailing" which is clearly intended as a subset of fat bottomed boats.
john_morris_uk
Well-Known Member
Thanks you Jumbleduck.
Reading this back I realise that what I meant people to understand and what I wrote didn't necessarily correlate when i referred to 'fat bottom' in a boat.
By fat bottomed fin keeled boats, I was referring to those boats with too much buoyancy carried too far aft. In other words, all the fin keeled boats that are made too fat in the beam and underwater sections towards the stern. Its usually done because it increases the accomodation possibilities dramatically, but makes them much less sea kindly.
And just to remind those who are new to the thread, I have owned and sailed long keeled boats. They often sail very well, but they are invariably slower and a pain in the proverbial for some of their handling characteristics.
My original premise was that there is nothing about a well designed fin keeled boat that won't perform equally well and almost certainly perform better than a long keeled anachronism. A properly designed fin keeled yacht, with a decent underwater profile, will track just as well, heave to properly, and stand up to her canvas just as well as any long keeled boat. In addition, she will be more easily handled under power and probably sail faster. What's not to like?
alant
Well-Known Member
Plus perform burial rites!
john_morris_uk
Well-Known Member
But I can't issue the death certificate...
KellysEye
Well-Known Member
>In other words, all the fin keeled boats that are made too fat in the beam and underwater sections towards the stern. Its usually done because it increases the accomodation possibilities dramatically, but makes them much less sea kindly.
The manufactures went the wide stern route to draw ladies into sailing with their partners. One look at the aft cabin by the lady and the boat was sold and AWB sales rocketed. It's one of the classic marketing ploys of the era.
>My original premise was that there is nothing about a well designed fin keeled boat that won't perform equally well and almost certainly perform better than a long keeled anachronism.
Which make(s) would those be? I.e. boats that don't turn into wind, surf or broach.
The manufactures went the wide stern route to draw ladies into sailing with their partners. One look at the aft cabin by the lady and the boat was sold and AWB sales rocketed. It's one of the classic marketing ploys of the era.
>My original premise was that there is nothing about a well designed fin keeled boat that won't perform equally well and almost certainly perform better than a long keeled anachronism.
Which make(s) would those be? I.e. boats that don't turn into wind, surf or broach.
john_morris_uk
Well-Known Member
First of all you can get almost any boat to broach if you abuse it enough. Too much sail up downwind and losing concentration on the steering will make even the most docile of long keeled boats round up.
Lots of the Rustlers, Nicholsons, Victorias Halberg Rasseys, Malos etc are moderate fin keeled sailing yachts that behave themselves very well. However I'm not going to start a peeing contest over naming specific boats!
Our own Westerly is a very sedate lady compared to many boats. The shock and horror is that she has a spade rudder which guarantees that we are going to die according to some. She does have a fin keel though...
Lots of the Rustlers, Nicholsons, Victorias Halberg Rasseys, Malos etc are moderate fin keeled sailing yachts that behave themselves very well. However I'm not going to start a peeing contest over naming specific boats!
Our own Westerly is a very sedate lady compared to many boats. The shock and horror is that she has a spade rudder which guarantees that we are going to die according to some. She does have a fin keel though...
Sybarite
Well-Known Member
Philippe Harlé, who was one of France's leading naval architects, argued that a spade rudder was safer than a fin and skeg because if you took a serious hit, the skeg would block the rudder, whereas a spade, even with a bent stock might continue to function.
Polux
Well-Known Member
And I agree with your first premise regarding full keel boats and fin keel boats but not with the second where you generalize that "fat bottomed fin keeled boats... horrors that are produced for occasional light wind sailing, and whose performnce under sail is an (predictably) unpredictable nightmare of broaches and rounding up in the smallest of gusts."
It seems I understood you well from the beginning in regarding to what you call "fat bottom boats" and I do not agree that they are ","invariably slower and a pain in the proverbial for some of their handling characteristics". That type of boats that include the voyage boats that I had posted, the New Beneteau Oceanis and Sense, the new Hanse, the Azuree, many Jeanneau the Dufour GL, the Pogo,the RM yachts among many others. Some of those are very rapid and all of them faster than the previous models from the same brand from 15 years ago when they did not had those fat transoms.
Those transoms are not designed like that to increase the interior volume but to give to the boat some of the qualities that are found on the boast from where those type of hulls are derived: Solo racers. Not of course the planning aptitudes (except in some few cases) but mostly to allow a more stable platform that sails with less heel, has more power and stability without prejudice of speed, less roll downwind and an overall easier boat control, specially on autopilot. That's why almost all all the NA are using those "fat transom" hulls in their cruising boat's designs: Like the solo racers the cruisers that are many times sailed solo or with a short crew, will benefit of that superior easiness.
Off course they can be badly designed and in that case, as with any boat, they can give problem, but they are not certainly badly designed when designed by Finot/Conq, Marc Lombard, Rob Humphreys, Umberto Felci, Judel & Vrolijk, that are the designers of the boats previously refereed.
Like you I have some experience with full keel boats and also experience with fin keel boats with "traditional" narrower transom and with those with a fat transom. My boat is a modern one and does not have not a fat transom. That does not mean that I don't see their advantages (and disadvantages) in what regards cruising boats.
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JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
What post of John's are you referring to? Is it this one
I have emphasised the area I think is pertinent.
KellysEye
Well-Known Member
>First of all you can get almost any boat to broach if you abuse it enough.
Have you ever broached in a long keeler? I haven't and have never heard of one doing so and why would anyone abuse a boat.
>Too much sail up downwind and losing concentration on the steering will make even the most docile of long keeled boats round up.
Many heavy displacement long distance boats use a wind vane, as we did, so concentration doesn't come into it.
Have you ever broached in a long keeler? I haven't and have never heard of one doing so and why would anyone abuse a boat.
>Too much sail up downwind and losing concentration on the steering will make even the most docile of long keeled boats round up.
Many heavy displacement long distance boats use a wind vane, as we did, so concentration doesn't come into it.
Polux
Well-Known Member
Yes, I see and I agree. My mistake, the reference was to long keel boats, not to fat bottom boats. It seems that the "fat bottom boats" are not anymore "horrors that are produced for occasional light wind sailing, and whose performnce under sail is an (predictably) unpredictable nightmare of broaches and rounding up in the smallest of gusts" but just "much less sea kindly" and I agree with that too, taking away the "much" and considering only upwind sailing. The Fat bottom ones have the advantage of offering the commodity of sailing with considerably less heel (that's important to comfort) and to have a less rolly motion downwind.
john_morris_uk
Well-Known Member
We are playing with generalisations here.
I am sure that we would both set off across oceans with conservative sail plans and self steering gears that don't lose concentration, but that's not the point. By abusing the boat I meant to imply inappropriate sail plans with too much sail up for the conditions, and yes I have managed to broach in a long keeled boat. Just fly a spinnaker in too much wind and lose the steering. The broach might be a little more sedate than some modern fin keeled racing boats, but the essential elements of the rudder no longer being able to control the rounding up of the boat is all there. The boat 'trips up over its own keel' and round she comes. Fly the spinnaker sheet, dump the main and off you go again down wind.
The real point I was making is that long keels have some admirable characteristics, but they also have some characteristics that are not very desirable. I suggest that a conservatively designed fin keeled yacht has all the good characteristics of the long keeled yacht but performs better in all areas that matter.
Long keel aficionados are always extolling the lovely sea kindly motion of their boat and its ability to track well. The ability to track well is a two edged sword but many well designed fin keeled boats track very well. Don't start asking a modern lightweight flyer like a Pogo to look after itself for too long though! In addition many conservatively designed fin keels boats don't slam, don't suffer from wave slap and have a lovely sea kindly motion as well. I have sailed in long keeled yachts where in the wrong conditions the wave slap against the forefoot shakes the whole boat and makes sleeping a miserable and almost impossible trial. My argument is that a well designed fin sails faster and is easier to handle under power (and sail). I don't dislike long keels boats, I started this discussion years ago because I want people to think carefully and realistically about underwater hull design.
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westernman
Well-Known Member
A long keeled full displacement boat does not track at all well when you push it beyond a S/L of 1.4 or so.
Or actually any full displacement boat for that matter.
Or actually any full displacement boat for that matter.
KellysEye
Well-Known Member
>I meant to imply inappropriate sail plans with too much sail up for the conditions, and yes I have managed to broach in a long keeled boat. Just fly a spinnaker in too much wind and lose the steering.
The normal mistake with a broach is to fly a spinnaker and full main in too much wind, there are films of that with racing boats. We went downwind with a twin headsail twistle rig, no main and a reefed mizzen sail. Most boats take the spinnaker down at night but with a twistle rig you have an infinite range of sizes when reefing. I really don't understand why somebody would abuse a boat with the wrong sail plan unless they are inexperienced or just plain stupid, if the wind starts picking up reef.
The normal mistake with a broach is to fly a spinnaker and full main in too much wind, there are films of that with racing boats. We went downwind with a twin headsail twistle rig, no main and a reefed mizzen sail. Most boats take the spinnaker down at night but with a twistle rig you have an infinite range of sizes when reefing. I really don't understand why somebody would abuse a boat with the wrong sail plan unless they are inexperienced or just plain stupid, if the wind starts picking up reef.
Scotty_Tradewind
Well-Known Member
I've recently attached a second forestay close to the main forestay and have two genoas. One genoa will be furled while the other at present, will be hank on.
I'm getting organised for a second pole and now have the mast attachments to fit two.
I've long admired the Twizzle method. Are there various means of connecting the poles inboard, or a manufactured connecting system or pictures of various methods/made up systems available?
thanks
S.
