Shrink my keel

Status
Not open for further replies.
P

Pete H.

I have a deep draft '86 H31 on Lake St. Clair outside of Detroit. Our lake levels have been dropping rapidly over the past few years. I would like to Know if anyone has ever swapped a deep keel for a shoal draft keel. Can it be done? Will the keel bolts line up? What will it do to performance? Can I find a shoal keel to purchase? Am I crazy for even thinking of this project? Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks, Pete H.
 
J

Jim Ewing

Add a bulb

I can't remember the name of the company right now but several years ago I had heard of a keel foundry (maybe in Canada) that would cast a pair of half bulbs that would fit on your curent keel. They through bolted partway down the keel, you cut off the bottom of your keel under the bulb and faired the whole thing up. Voila!, shoal draft. If I can remember the name of the place I re-post. Jim "Prospect"
 
C

Clyde Lichtenwalner

Swapping

I have seen it done on the H-34. It is lots of work and considering the value of these boats, it may be smarter to simply sell what you have and buy a shoal draft '31 (or other boat). I have no idea where you would find a shoal draft keel to swap. On the 34, (and I'm fairly shure the 31 is designed similarly) the top of both the shoal and deep keel are identical so that either can be installed on the same hull.
 
R

Ron Dague

Marsmetals.com

Mars Metals, located in Ontario, Canada, will custom cast either a new keel, or bulbs that can be bolted to the existing keel. Of course, when this was done and documented in a sailing magazine, the whole keel was lead. I imagine the difficulty in cutting the bottom off a steel keel would be a lot more difficult than cutting through lead. This same thread just ran on the Sail Net Hunter Group. Interesting...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top Bottom