grounding a wing keel

Hayden Watson

Hayden Watson

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Apr 5, 2009
3,125
Catalina '88 C30 tr/bs Oak Harbor, WA
I have never done it but with 15 foot tidal ranges I have several sailing friends who have found themselves high and dry when they were in a bad place near high tide. One was a Valiant 42 and ended up laying on her side for 24 hours.
With a fin keel grounding on a high tide results in the boat laying over onto its side with out going tide and standing back up on the incoming.
How do wing keels handle this situation. Will they lay over? Do they rest on their sides and come back up? I have been looking at C42's and a lot of them are wing keel and it would be good to know how they respond if I should happen to screw up big!
 
Meriachee

Meriachee

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Aug 1, 2011
3,972
Catalina 270 255 Wabamun. Welcome to the marina
A wing is no different than a fin - the boat will lay over. The real difference is that if you manage to bury it, the time tested fin method of rocking the boat side-to-side will only dig a wing in deeper. Usually, but not always, the rudder of a wing is as deep or deeper, so that's something you need to pay attention to. Ours is within inches, which predicts that if the keel gets dug in, the rudder is too. That could be bad.
 
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D

dlochner

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Jan 11, 2014
12,920
Sabre 362 113 Fair Haven, NY
Heeling the boat using a line to the masthead may not work as well with a wing keel. If the boat goes around while heeling it may work, but if it is level, probably not.
 
Hayden Watson

Hayden Watson

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Apr 5, 2009
3,125
Catalina '88 C30 tr/bs Oak Harbor, WA
My biggest concern is what happens when the boat is high and dry. With 15' tidal swings, if you go aground on a high falling tide, you only have minutes to get free before you are stuck until the next higher tide. If a wing keel boat is on its side will it lay at about the same angle or will it be farther over. If they are too horizontal you run the risk of down-flooding on the rising tide.
https://www.cruisingworld.com/how/what-do-when-you-run-aground
 
Hayden Watson

Hayden Watson

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Apr 5, 2009
3,125
Catalina '88 C30 tr/bs Oak Harbor, WA
Ted said:
No problem! :biggrin:
attachment.php
There's a current thread about wing keels on the Cruisersforum.com site. Search "Winged Keels"
Click to expand
That had come to mind but I don't think the wing on a C42 is wide enough to be stable so it would probably fall over. My friend on the Valiant went aground with an 11' tide and dropped to a -2'. He was there with a race crew of 8 for 24 hours when the next high tide was luckily 11.2'. During the low tide, he walked out 300' toward the water (which was about 1/2 mile away) and dug a big hole to bury is anchor in to help with kedging the boat free.
 
Hydro Therapy

Hydro Therapy

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Dec 27, 2012
587
Precision Precision 28 St Augustine
The make up of the sea floor obviously comes into play. My previous boat had a wing keel. My slip always drains out at low ride. The bottom is soft mud so the keel would just sink into the mud. The boat would remain upright due to the soft mud.
 
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Hayden Watson

Hayden Watson

.
Apr 5, 2009
3,125
Catalina '88 C30 tr/bs Oak Harbor, WA
the situation that I am talking about is not just a reduced depth of whater. In my area, you can end up on dry ground. I would be really nervous to have a 40' boat balanced on a wing keel on a mud or sand bottom. I would want it to lay down on its side so that a wind could not blow it over.
 
Meriachee

Meriachee

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Aug 1, 2011
3,972
Catalina 270 255 Wabamun. Welcome to the marina
The wings are not wide enough to balance the boat, and certainly not made for that purpose.
 
C

Crazy Dave Condon

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Jun 8, 2004
10,436
-na -NA Anywhere USA
If I recall of the wing keels as a former dealer for the big three mfgs, it would defeat the purpose of being on a fin keel. I question that photo. The purpose of a wing keel was to have less depth from bottom of keel to water line vs the deep fin keel
 
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dlochner

.
Jan 11, 2014
12,920
Sabre 362 113 Fair Haven, NY
Crazy Dave Condon said:
If I recall of the wing keels as a former dealer for the big three mfgs, it would defeat the purpose of being on a fin keel. I question that photo. The purpose of a wing keel was to have less depth from bottom of keel to water line vs the deep fin keel
Click to expand
Wing keels became a "thing" after Australia II beat the US in the America's Cup in. 1983.

Ben Lexcen designed the wing keel to get an upwind advantage. As we all know, when a boat heels the keel becomes less effective because it starts to lift the boat out of the water instead of lifting it to weather. The wings on Australia II's keel were designed to provide an upwind advantage. As the boat heeled, the wings would become vertical allowing the boat to point higher. It worked, for the first time in 132 years the AC went to a country other than the US.

Back in the day, it was all the rage and boat builders responded to market pressure and they realized that a wing keel would allow them to offer a "high performance" shoal draft keel just like the one on Australia II. One company that bit on this hype was Catalina and they marketed their Capri 25 (designed to compete with the J24) with both a fin keel and a winged keel. As the saying goes, it didn't go as planned. The Capri 25 with the winged keel was no competition to the fin keel version.

Somewhere along the line naval architects and boat builders realized that placing the weight in the keel very low was good for stability and that wing keels were good marketing devices. In the production boat world, wing keels became an alternative to other shoal draft options such as centerboards and longer full keels. In the performance boat world, deep fin keels with a bulb at the bottom became popular.

In the end, we have poorly designed wing keels and poorly designed bulb keels on the production boats we all sail.

Full disclosure: Second Star is a wing keel boat designed by Jim Taylor. To my untrained eye, the wing at least looks like a foil that may add an advantage when going up wind over a bulb keel.
 
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jssailem

jssailem

SBO Weather and Forecasting Forum Jim & John
Oct 22, 2014
23,127
CAL 35 Cruiser #21 moored EVERETT WA
Here you go Hayden. Here is what can happen when the storm surge floats your boat out of the marina. It is one of the pictures posted earlier this year. Aftermath of Florence in NC...
 
rgranger

rgranger

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Jan 19, 2010
12,557
Hobie 16 & Rhodes 22 Skeeter Charleston
jssailem said:
Here you go Hayden. Here is what can happen when the storm surge floats your boat out of the marina. It is one of the pictures posted earlier this year. Aftermath of Florence in NC...
Click to expand
wait! If I remember correctly, that boat's mast was tangled in a tree and that was helping to hold it up....;):badbad:
 
jssailem

jssailem

SBO Weather and Forecasting Forum Jim & John
Oct 22, 2014
23,127
CAL 35 Cruiser #21 moored EVERETT WA
Rgranger I think you are correct. But it is still standing on the wing keel. I wonder how it developed. Was the keel damaged?
 
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