Erps- so right you are. I, unfortunately, can attest to the fact that logs can and do hit keels and rudders. While this is probably much more prevalent here in the PNW, I'm sure it occurs with any wooden debris that becomes waterlogged. In my case I was sailing very slowly in practically calm seas (near Friday Hbr) when I hit a submerged log about 30' long and 16" diameter floating more or less horizontally, which is contrary to the normal vertical deadhead. It thumped the front of the keel, then the bottom of it, and then slightly bumped the rudder as we went over it. It came to the surface briefly about 30-40' behind the boat then went under again, occaisionally breaking the surface at one end or the other. No damage but I hate to think what might have happened if I had been going 6K instead of 2 (or 20 in the crab boat). We only have a partial skeg on that boat and I remember worrying about it getting hit by whatever we hit (didn't know what it was until it surfaced behind us). I'm sure that a lot of other floating or partially submerged debris, if hit dead on, will behave the same way that log did. By following the forward edge of the keel down and under then trying to surface at the first opportunity, which is right in front of the rudder. The exception of course, is a full keel with the
wheel in an aperture. On our new boat that has a fin keel and full skeg I am in the process of deciding whether to have a heavy (3/4" X 4") SS bar glassed from the bottom of the aft end of the keel to the bottom of the skeg, so this discussion is timely. I have seen this done on some other boats. Anyone have experience doing something like this?
I think that it is fairly safe to say (even here) that a skeg offers some protection to the rudder which is absent with a spade. The ways that you can hit something, or it hit you, are limitless, and personally I like knowing the skeg is there to help protect and support an important part of the boat. Especially here in the land of ten thousand deadheads.
For cruising I can't think of any viable reason to choose a spade over skeg all things being equal; for racing the reverse makes sense of course.
John