Wing Keel Grounding

[Brian]

Getting new boat fever again but now live by shallow water(3'6"low 5'6' high) Interested in a boat with 4'3" wing/bulb keel.Wonder how do you get off when grounded? Can you heel off with a wing keel or does it just dig the tip of wing harder? And is there a differance between a wing and wing bulb or is that just the way some say it?

 

[John J]

Due to the drought in the SE this summer our lake is down about 12 feet. This has given many of us the opportunity to get up close and personal with the bottom. I have a wing on a C310. When we went aground I had the other 3 people on the boat go to the bow, this raised the back of the wing enough so when I backed down it did not continue to plow into the mud. Worked like a charm.

 

[Robert Polk]

Wing/Bulb Keel

A wing/Bulb keel has a large diameter bullet shaped appendage at the bottom of the keel to provide the lowest center of gravity (CG) for a given mass of lead (or iron). Wings emanate from the bulb. The size of the wings is probably independent of whether the keel is a wing or bulb/wing. New Hunters seem to have a substantial lead bullet with rather short straight wings and will be easier to extract from a grounding than designs that use larger wings that cant downward as they go aft. These tend to dig in like a Danforth anchor when you try to back out of a grounding situation. The best strategy is to power forward and turn. With a low draft keel with short straight wings such as the new Hunters, heeling the boat will probable help, especially if the boat has a wide beam.

 

[Alex]

Heeling it one side won't work..

..as Hunters have relatively large wing tips.You will dig them in, Altough it's standard procedure-and workable too-in most others keel design.

 

[chris]

Just did it

I just grounded hard last w/e on my 27 with a 3-6 draft. My wife and I worked for 4 hours with the kids saying " can we get going daddy" and " daddy , can I take the helm. This was near panther key ( south of marco ) we finally got away using the dingy to place the anchor and me pushing it forward while standing waist deep. There was no way it was going to heel off. I had read about that also. We live in skinny water, but my last boat hada retractable keel. I think that if the boat was any bigger we would have never moved it. We have all sand and mud down here, but I found the one spot with coral also, so the rudder was actually the bigger problem. It was basically stuck between two " rocks" It it were just sand , the bulb will slide through it ( did that also )Chriscboland@chealthpartners.com