Keel up or Down ?

[Jeff Smith]

I have a 25' Mac. It's a great boat for me,since I have to trailor it every where.My question concerns the fact that often timesI'm sailing in shallow water.If I put the Keel all the way down, and it hitssomething, it makes a huge BANG after it rides over the object.How much damage can this do to the boat?Second thought is, if it's not all the way downhow much stability am I losing?

 

[Rich Wallace]

Big Bang

The big bang occurs when the keel clears the object and swings back down and forward and hits keel trunk's forward end. This cannot be good for the boat.Depending upon the wind conditions, you may find raising it a little will not make much difference. I know of several Mac owners who put the lock down bolt in when the keel is up and then let the keel down until it is against this bolt. It works but there are a couple of drawbacks in my estimation. The first is that is putting a fair amount of stress on the keel trunk. The second is that if you do get a strong puff of wind, and get laid over on side, the keel could just fold up against the bottom of the boat and the whole works will turn turtle. The better solution is to put the keel locking bolt in when the keel is down, and avoid the shallow water where those boulders and stumps are lurking. Happy boating.

 

[Art King]

Keel position

I never put the keel all the way down. I discovered early on that the boat does not balence well that way. I have found that in most conditions, the boat balences with the keel down about 20 turns on the winch (of 30 all the way down). If you have too much pressure on the helm going upwind with both sails tightly sheeted in, you can try raising or lowering the keel a bit which moves the center of resistance back or forward as necessary.

 

[Chip Giles]

Part way down is fine

We sail with our keel part way down all the time. We are often in very shallow water and the boat does just fine with the keel only 1/2 way down. You would be surprised how little keel you need to sail into the wind.