4-ft keel
The 4-ft-deep boat is definitely better. Deep-draught H-27s do not seem to be very numerous till after about 1979. This may be because one of the MAJOR dealers in the '70s was located in Havre de Grace, MD, where 4-ft draught is considered too deep. There were hundreds of boats sold in the Chesapeake and NJ shore areas then and most of the 27s were shoal-draught. A shoal-draught keel is a compromise, something many first-time sailboat owners think means 'low performance' in the 'safety' and 'just getting started' vein. Actually this only shows a grave misunderstanding of sailboat physics. First of all, the weight of the keel is the same whether shoal or deep draught. The boat's total displacement cannot change without seriously affecting either buoyancy or righting moment. Therefore the trick in designing a shoal-draught-keel version of a given boat is to preserve the same area of the keel, thus maintaining lateral resistence, and to preserve the same volume, thus maintaining ballast and buoyancy. The problem is that in so shortening the depth, the righting moment is adversely affected– there is less stability for given conditions than a boat whose keel area extends deeper into the water. In other words, the first-time sailors who think they are getting a 'low-performance' boat in the interests of safety are actually getting a more roly-poly, tipsy boat which will probably give them a less-satisfying view of the yachting experience than a deeper boat. While it is true that a shallower boat can get you out of the weather better, enabling you to sail into and drop the hook in waters where there is less of a swell running, I would suspect that most shoal-draught owners are not sailing in very deep water in the first place, and if they are, they ought to already know how to handle a bit of a blow by shortening sail, etc. The fact is that the deeper-draught boats handle infinitely better, due to both the increased stability factor and the extra length of keel leading edge. For the first-time sailor I would strongly recommend a boat known to be a good performer either by experience with the type or evaluation of the design. It's like learning to play on a really bad guitar– you will lose interest fast and mistakenly believe all of it is like this. The H-27s are not really bad boats, especially for families, but like most cruising boats of this size they are a compromise. I would very much like one for myself– so hopefully that means you are in decent company! [laugh] By all means seek out a deeper-draught boat if you can find one, and I hope you will peruse some of the many comments I have made on this boat in the HOW archives for added insight. J Cherubini II Cherubini Art & Nautical Design Org. JComet@aol.com
