I'm looking at boats 'on-line' right now, just trying to figure out how the all work. We're going from a Hobie cat to a Real sail boat. And I got a couple questions about keels. 1) Can you put a swing keel on any boat? 2) I see boats with keel type - Centerboard (forgive me) but what are they, and how do these work? 3) How much abuse can a bulb type keel take? Will running aground at 6 knots break it off? 4) I see alot of information about water ballasts. I understand how water keels work. Is a ballast the same thing as a keel? Thank you for clearing this up for me. In addition is the a good website I could visit to read up on some of this stuff? Thank you again Kevin
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Swing keel is not a propper term!
Kevin: 1-2. Swing Keel is really not a propper term. These are CB or Center Boards. They usually are either a swing type or a dagger type. The swing keel will swing from a pivot point and the dagger is usually pushed down and pulled back up. A boat needs to be designed for this type of appendage. It is not something that could be easily retro-fitted. 3. A traditional keel can take quite a bit of abuse. I don't think you could ever break one off by bumping the bottom. It is not uncommon for them to fall off on the ocean racers but we have some very different dynamics here (usually very light construction). What will usually happen with a fin type keel is you may get seperation between the keel and the hull if you hit too hard too many times. The other thing that can happen is the bolts will start rusting and then you have other problems. If you have an encapsulated keel you will crack the gelcoat and fiberglass (different set of problems). 4. Water ballast is used in smaller boats to offset the traditional ballast that is provided by the iron or lead that would normally be in the keel. On larger boats they will use it with a iron/lead keel to provide additional ballast at sea. On these small boats the do this so the boats are easier to trailer. A boat that is ONLY water ballast is USUALLY more tender than the same boat with keel. The water is emptied when you trailer so you loose the 1000-2000 lbs of water when you pull the boat. If you are looking for a boat to trailer you are going to have to give up something to be able to trailer it. If you want a boat with a shoal keel there are also other keel configuration that will allow very good pointing and stability without using water. These are the 'wing keels'. Many of the Hunters, Catalinas and other boats have these and they draw less than 4 ft. You need to consider all of these things before you buy.
Kevin: 1-2. Swing Keel is really not a propper term. These are CB or Center Boards. They usually are either a swing type or a dagger type. The swing keel will swing from a pivot point and the dagger is usually pushed down and pulled back up. A boat needs to be designed for this type of appendage. It is not something that could be easily retro-fitted. 3. A traditional keel can take quite a bit of abuse. I don't think you could ever break one off by bumping the bottom. It is not uncommon for them to fall off on the ocean racers but we have some very different dynamics here (usually very light construction). What will usually happen with a fin type keel is you may get seperation between the keel and the hull if you hit too hard too many times. The other thing that can happen is the bolts will start rusting and then you have other problems. If you have an encapsulated keel you will crack the gelcoat and fiberglass (different set of problems). 4. Water ballast is used in smaller boats to offset the traditional ballast that is provided by the iron or lead that would normally be in the keel. On larger boats they will use it with a iron/lead keel to provide additional ballast at sea. On these small boats the do this so the boats are easier to trailer. A boat that is ONLY water ballast is USUALLY more tender than the same boat with keel. The water is emptied when you trailer so you loose the 1000-2000 lbs of water when you pull the boat. If you are looking for a boat to trailer you are going to have to give up something to be able to trailer it. If you want a boat with a shoal keel there are also other keel configuration that will allow very good pointing and stability without using water. These are the 'wing keels'. Many of the Hunters, Catalinas and other boats have these and they draw less than 4 ft. You need to consider all of these things before you buy.
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Brad Elbein
Here are some tidbits from my limited store of knowledge. A SWING KEEL is a keel that pivots from a point near the bottom of the bilge of a boat to give you deeper draft. When the keel is up, it's swung up flush with the bottom of the hull. The advantage is that when it's swung up, it's not a centerboard that has to be stored somewhere; it's also heavier, since it doesn't have to be carted around by hand. The disadvantage is that it does require a "trunk" which takes cabin space. A swing keel can be found on many different size boats: the most popular boat in the world with a swing keel is the Catalina 22. I had one on a Siren 17, as well. I'm building an 18 foot sharpie with a swing keel. There's a large cruising boat with a full keel that also has a swing keel--it might be a Pacific Seacraft or something similar. A swing keel provides mostly lateral stability, i.e. prevents sideslipping and assists pointing; if it's really heavy, it can also help serve as ballast. A centerboard does the same thing as a swing keel, but it's a separate piece of wood or metal. You've seen them on Sunfish, I'm sure. They slide into a slot that goes down through a hull. They are purely for lateral stability and do not have any ballast effect at all. Water ballast is only ballast. It places a fair amount of weight down at the bilge level of the hull. It does nothing to help lateral stability, i.e. cannot stop sideslipping or assist pointing. I don't know from experience how much a keel can take, but I can tell you that I've never run aground when I had slowed down just in order to run aground. They're pretty much designed to take some abuse, but you never know how much a particular grounding will cause. Obviously running aground on a jetty will cause more damage than sand.
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Gary Bruner
Keel primer
I'm not an expert, but I have sailed for 23+ years. Some boats have unweighted Center boards that slip down through a trunk. They provide no ballast (weight) to aid stability. My current boat, a Catalina 25 is a swing keel, which has a 1500# cast iron keel that pivots and swings some inches (4 or so) into a trunk. This particular boat still has a level floor, although some swing keel boats have the whole thing swing into a trunks that projects into the cabin floor (a Windrose, for instance). A water ballast boat will use water for weight (ballast), but will still need a C/B to lower to prevent excessive leeway. In general, a fixed keel boat will have more stability and ballast, but to be easily trailerable you have to give up something...Everything's a compromise. For me, a weighted swing keel is my choice in trailerables. I want to ramp launch, but I want the weight of a solid keel. No WB (water ballast for me, thank you! But, obviously, my boat weighs 1500# more than an empty W/B boat when they are trailered. See, everything's a tradeoff. A "shoal keel" is fixed, so usually heavy (lots of ballast, but little to dig into the water to prevent leeway; hence, not real good sailing upwind/ to weather) As to abuse, there are boats that are so poorly built that you couldn't give me one; others are like tanks (Flicks, etc.) and can take a hard grounding. Quality of builders must be factored in. As for grounding, there have been times when I was real glad I could just crank up my keel and get out of shallow water or off a sand bank! E-mail me if you want more....I am tired of typing right now!
I'm not an expert, but I have sailed for 23+ years. Some boats have unweighted Center boards that slip down through a trunk. They provide no ballast (weight) to aid stability. My current boat, a Catalina 25 is a swing keel, which has a 1500# cast iron keel that pivots and swings some inches (4 or so) into a trunk. This particular boat still has a level floor, although some swing keel boats have the whole thing swing into a trunks that projects into the cabin floor (a Windrose, for instance). A water ballast boat will use water for weight (ballast), but will still need a C/B to lower to prevent excessive leeway. In general, a fixed keel boat will have more stability and ballast, but to be easily trailerable you have to give up something...Everything's a compromise. For me, a weighted swing keel is my choice in trailerables. I want to ramp launch, but I want the weight of a solid keel. No WB (water ballast for me, thank you! But, obviously, my boat weighs 1500# more than an empty W/B boat when they are trailered. See, everything's a tradeoff. A "shoal keel" is fixed, so usually heavy (lots of ballast, but little to dig into the water to prevent leeway; hence, not real good sailing upwind/ to weather) As to abuse, there are boats that are so poorly built that you couldn't give me one; others are like tanks (Flicks, etc.) and can take a hard grounding. Quality of builders must be factored in. As for grounding, there have been times when I was real glad I could just crank up my keel and get out of shallow water or off a sand bank! E-mail me if you want more....I am tired of typing right now!
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Eric Lorgus
Visit the Rhodes 22 website for info on keels
Kevin, Among sailboats I've seriously considered buying, one was the Rhodes 22, which has a combination type keel. What I still remember is that with the keel up, this boat only drew about 2'. What a great boat for the Chesapeake! The builder is General Boats, and they have an interesting website about their boat. I've pasted a link below for the page where they discuss the various types of keels in use today. It is at http://www.rhodes22.com/keel_diamond_small.html
Kevin, Among sailboats I've seriously considered buying, one was the Rhodes 22, which has a combination type keel. What I still remember is that with the keel up, this boat only drew about 2'. What a great boat for the Chesapeake! The builder is General Boats, and they have an interesting website about their boat. I've pasted a link below for the page where they discuss the various types of keels in use today. It is at http://www.rhodes22.com/keel_diamond_small.html
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Mike
Food for thought
All of the responses below give good information. In trading up from my Sunfish (a true daggerboard boat) to my O'Day 23 (a true keel/centerboard boat) I learned a few things. First, Almost any boat with a permanent fin keel, wing or otherwise, will point a little higher, sail a little flatter and be more a little more stable than any centerboard type boat. This is important if you are concerned about racing or if you want to minimize heeling. The tradeoff is that its really hard to trailer a fin keel boat. I bought my boat at least partially because I like the tradeoffs inherent in a keel/centerboard boat like the O'Day. She sails better than a Catalina 22 which has a canoe bottom except for the swing keel, and I don't have to worry about grounding the boat as much in the shallow waters I like to visit. In case it is unclear the difference between a keel/centerboard and and centerboard boat: a keel/centerboard boat has a very short keel attached to the bottom of the hull. A centerboard is stored in a slot in this keel, and pivots out to give additional draft. There is no centerboard trunk in the cabin taking up valuable room, and since no ballast is in the centerboard itself (its all in the keel), the board can be raised and lowered with just a pendent line; no crank and cable necessary to raise and lower 800 lbs. of lead, no worries about your ballast jamming in the up or down position or falling off entirely. Keel/centerboard boats are relatively uncommon. Most manufacturers these days who make trailerable sailboats seem to make water ballast models(Hunter) or short permanently fixed keels (Compac). Catalina still makes the 22 (despite my rantings above, a very fine boat; they've made so many of them that the engineering problems inherent in the design have been worked out). The only small keel/centerboard boat that I can think of currently in production is the Rhodes 22, which someone else mentioned in their post. I have sailed on this boat, and think it is the best small cruising sailboat I have ever been on. Not the best sailer, although she is pretty good, but the most innovative, practical boat if you want to have a comfortable 22 foot cruiser. There aren't alot of used Rhodes 22's on the market and the new ones are expensive, but it is def. worth a look. Of course, the Little Harbor luxury yachts are also keel/centerboard designs, but I think the cost of the mast alone on one of those is more than the cost of a new Rhodes or Catalina.
All of the responses below give good information. In trading up from my Sunfish (a true daggerboard boat) to my O'Day 23 (a true keel/centerboard boat) I learned a few things. First, Almost any boat with a permanent fin keel, wing or otherwise, will point a little higher, sail a little flatter and be more a little more stable than any centerboard type boat. This is important if you are concerned about racing or if you want to minimize heeling. The tradeoff is that its really hard to trailer a fin keel boat. I bought my boat at least partially because I like the tradeoffs inherent in a keel/centerboard boat like the O'Day. She sails better than a Catalina 22 which has a canoe bottom except for the swing keel, and I don't have to worry about grounding the boat as much in the shallow waters I like to visit. In case it is unclear the difference between a keel/centerboard and and centerboard boat: a keel/centerboard boat has a very short keel attached to the bottom of the hull. A centerboard is stored in a slot in this keel, and pivots out to give additional draft. There is no centerboard trunk in the cabin taking up valuable room, and since no ballast is in the centerboard itself (its all in the keel), the board can be raised and lowered with just a pendent line; no crank and cable necessary to raise and lower 800 lbs. of lead, no worries about your ballast jamming in the up or down position or falling off entirely. Keel/centerboard boats are relatively uncommon. Most manufacturers these days who make trailerable sailboats seem to make water ballast models(Hunter) or short permanently fixed keels (Compac). Catalina still makes the 22 (despite my rantings above, a very fine boat; they've made so many of them that the engineering problems inherent in the design have been worked out). The only small keel/centerboard boat that I can think of currently in production is the Rhodes 22, which someone else mentioned in their post. I have sailed on this boat, and think it is the best small cruising sailboat I have ever been on. Not the best sailer, although she is pretty good, but the most innovative, practical boat if you want to have a comfortable 22 foot cruiser. There aren't alot of used Rhodes 22's on the market and the new ones are expensive, but it is def. worth a look. Of course, the Little Harbor luxury yachts are also keel/centerboard designs, but I think the cost of the mast alone on one of those is more than the cost of a new Rhodes or Catalina.
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Dakota Jim Russell
Free Information is that
Had a 25 Catalina Swing Keel. Great boat. Good for gunkholing as one can ground out at 5 feet and still have 2 feet more of clearance with the keel up (I think it drafted 3 feet with it up, but could have been 3.5) Swing keels can point extremely well. They also can be very fast. On light wind days, one can raise the swing keel, reduce the drag and go . . . . especially on down wind runs. Of course doing such on an upwind run will reduce the point ability some. Friend has a 40 foot C
Had a 25 Catalina Swing Keel. Great boat. Good for gunkholing as one can ground out at 5 feet and still have 2 feet more of clearance with the keel up (I think it drafted 3 feet with it up, but could have been 3.5) Swing keels can point extremely well. They also can be very fast. On light wind days, one can raise the swing keel, reduce the drag and go . . . . especially on down wind runs. Of course doing such on an upwind run will reduce the point ability some. Friend has a 40 foot C
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Ken Cobb
O'Day 222's
Did they have a keel with a swing centerboard, like the earlier O'Day 23's? In trailerable cruisers, what do the Precisions have for a keel arrangement?
Did they have a keel with a swing centerboard, like the earlier O'Day 23's? In trailerable cruisers, what do the Precisions have for a keel arrangement?
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