Interesting how the notion of 'competition keel' has changed over the last 50 years! Viewed with today's eye, that keel is all wrong. Stubby and long that generates low lift, and fat at the top, where it undesirably concentrates all of its lead. New performance boats turn this around; long thin foils generates max lift (think U2 wing) and all the weight down low.
View attachment 194049
Let's see, that Ericson is now almost 4 decades old. We have certainly learned a huge amount about sailing, hull design, sail design and more in those nearly 4 decades of work. We now attach sensors all over a research boat in the sails, rigging, hull, etc. and measure things that could not be measured just 40 years ago. She certainly would not be competitive today, but I bet she's a darned nice sailing boat!
I'd still love to sail on a foiling boat! I just sold my WR17 which had foils developed for retrofitting a few years ago and I was just soooo tempted to buy them, install them and see what it would have been like! But I knew then it was not the boat I wanted to put money into, so I didn't... I need to find someone with a boat I can go sail on that foils.... Kinda on my bucket list - one day....
dj