with all of the different types of keels available, I'm curious to know which is the most popular amongst all the sailors out there....
Which type of keel do you prefer?
- Thread starter Curious Sailor
- Start date
There is no "most popular." It's like asking: "What is the BEST?".......anything. Doesn't work. All sailboats are compromises, whether it be tiller vs. wheel, inboard vs. outboard, placement of traveler, type of rudder or type of keel.
What you can do is be aware of the differences and their advantages and disadvantages.
I'm a serious fan of the short fixed keel with a centerboard combo. It allows for a flat cabin sole with a retractable light centerboard. The boat can sail in shallow water and with the board down it can point pretty well. The only downside is having to trailer the ballast.
Well for performance, skinny and deep with the weight concentrated at the bottom like in a bulb. The obscure French boats (Finot designs) look like they are going for a swing keel so you get high performance and shallow draft. For comfort supposedly a full keel gives a gentle motion and good tracking. Water ballast is an interesting option allowing the boat to be lighter or heavier as required.
I've sailed with most keel configurations & they have all their pros & cons.
Stu said it best, "All sailboats are compromises." I finally got the chance to sail my friend's 30ft. Newport that he had just purchased & had a wing keel. It was an over nighter (130 mile) in spirited conditions & 6ft. waves changing from beam to beam.
The wing blew me away. More stability, less roundup character & steady with little side to side roll tendencies.
CR
Stu said it best, "All sailboats are compromises." I finally got the chance to sail my friend's 30ft. Newport that he had just purchased & had a wing keel. It was an over nighter (130 mile) in spirited conditions & 6ft. waves changing from beam to beam.
The wing blew me away. More stability, less roundup character & steady with little side to side roll tendencies.
CR
Modern trends:
Bulbs replace wings as the best way to lower CG
Lifting keels become more popular
Straight leading and trailing edges replace shark-fin design as attachment engineering improves
There are way too many design considerations (performance, safety, cost, draft, motion, slip, etc) for there to be a single 'best' keel. Best is what is best for you.
Bulbs replace wings as the best way to lower CG
Lifting keels become more popular
Straight leading and trailing edges replace shark-fin design as attachment engineering improves
There are way too many design considerations (performance, safety, cost, draft, motion, slip, etc) for there to be a single 'best' keel. Best is what is best for you.
Where draft is not a consideration (west coast), I think a deep fin keel is best. Where I sail, (Gulf coast) I prefer a shoal draft fin like the one I have. And bulbs are always better. In my experience, wing keels add too much wetted surface for light air performance, and cause turbulence and drag when the boat is pitching/heaving in a chop, plus they can be a pain to get loose when you do happen to run aground on a soft bottom. I used to own a keel/CB boat, and my gripe was that the ballast weight was higher than it might have been otherwise, plus it violated the KISS principle. It was nice to be able to just raise the board and go on your way if you touched bottom, though. The only advantage I can see to a full keel is sheer structural strength, at great cost to performance, although a lot of people are willing to make that compromise.
As you can see, there are a lot of varying opinions among boat owners.
As you can see, there are a lot of varying opinions among boat owners.
I'm old school. I like a cutaway forward, with around six feet of draft with the board up and 10 to 12 feet with the board down. A full skeg to protect my rudder, is a comfortable thing to me.
All this talk about skinny water keels may be fine and dandy for sailing in skinny water, but for a live aboard, those boats probably tend to be the most uncomfortable in a lousy anchorage. We even use our board at anchor, because it does dampen the motion in a rolly anchorage.
I've carried 9 feet throughout the Bahamas with the only problem spot being the back door to Nassau (we couldn't fit under the bridge), but I did consume a great many Rolaids on that voyage.
So it really does come down to how you use your boat.
All this talk about skinny water keels may be fine and dandy for sailing in skinny water, but for a live aboard, those boats probably tend to be the most uncomfortable in a lousy anchorage. We even use our board at anchor, because it does dampen the motion in a rolly anchorage.
I've carried 9 feet throughout the Bahamas with the only problem spot being the back door to Nassau (we couldn't fit under the bridge), but I did consume a great many Rolaids on that voyage.
So it really does come down to how you use your boat.
I remember more than two decades ago chartering in British Columbia on a C&C 38-3 w/ the 7 1/2-ft draft due to the deeper keel of that model versus earlier ones. We had just come about to port tack and were hardening up to clear a rocky headland. I quickly thought "NO WAY!"; we'll have to tack again & soon. But the way that boat could point; I could hardly believe it after having sailed for many years in FL by that time on shoal-draft yachts. We cleared the headland by more than a boat length after which we all stood there scratching our heads--how did that happen (i.e., no lifts or wind shifts involved)? I immediately became a serious fan of deep-keeled yachts, which remains to this day, even if I don't own one (unless a 6 1/2 ft draft on a 38'er is considered deep)!
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You need to ask which keels are most popular amongst sailors who sail where you plan to sail. The average depth of the Chesapeake Bay is 2 feet, so if I had a 7 foot keel I would be observing much of the Bay with binoculars. Same with the 10,000 islands and Florida Key backcountry, or the Exumas.
I have recently purchased my first water ballast boat. It is a bit more tender at first and that takes getting used to... but here the main advantage is not the ability to change my ballast but rather the ability to dump it entirely for when I trailer the boat. I have a swing dagger board for pointing. The advantage there is shoal and again for trailering. I would not try crossing an ocean on this boat but for coastal cruising, there are some clear advantages.
"Popularity" of keel-type is perhaps not a good question as it may be "forced" by one's cruising area--near or far. IF, however, I lived in a perfect world where I could pick my spots while holding down a land side job, I would cruise mostly the deep waters typical of the west coast of North and Central America, the Caribbean, and areas of New England, where I would prefer deep, fixed, fin-keeled yachts with the keel strong enough to withstand a moderate hit or two w/o breaking something loose, etc.
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A large part of the popularity of modem lifting keels is that is gives all those 'deep keel' benefits, with the ability to take the boat into shallow/tidal areas. The keel on the Pogo gives almost 12 feet of draft for enormous stability, but comes up at the press of a button to 3 feet. In addition, the mechanism has a hydraulic fuse that opens and protects the boat in the event of a very hard grounding; one that would almost certainly cause structural damage to a fixed keel.
The First 260 has almost the same keel, just with a manual lifting screw in place of the fancy hydraulics.