[tdw]

OK, the Womboat is 34' Steel. Brick Outhouse. Ironically enough however below the water she is fin keel skegless rudder.

Having spoken with a number of designers I am now firmly of the opinion that the skeg issue is a furphy. Many are the skegs that are as useless as can be. A lot of them are simply there for effect and indeed there are cases where skegs have separated from the hull leaving the rudder intact.

My belief is that the rudder construction is what's important and that a well designed and constructed rudder does not need a skeg.

I'd also note that on the two occasions I have had the old girl aground and the one occasion I ran my PB up it was the keel and not the rudder that got walloped. Yes they were all soft nudges onto sand but the point is still valid. Run aground and you hit your keel, not your rudder.

Yes, if you are hard aground and lie the boat over you might have more serious problems but most times , particularly on coral, its a crunch only.

Now, beyond, that.....my search for the new Womboat has been largely in the area of large fin and skeg rudder cruisers of the Valiant (generically speaking) type. This encompasses Valiants, Tayanas, Passports, Noresman and the like. All of these are considered big heavy offshore cruisers but might I also remind you that 20 - 30 years ago many of these boats were frowned up by the traditionalists who considered anything less than a full keel to be undesirable. Early Beneteaus would have been laughed at.

Today, the early Beneteaus are spoken of in terms of 'they don't build them like they used to' . No they don't and in many cases for good reasons.

Earlier this year Wombette and I spent some time on a Benetteau 505. Damn that was a nice boat. Bit big for me but shrink it down a tadge and I'd have one in a shot. That thing has sailed almost the entire east coast of Oz with nary a problem. Her below decks wreaked quality and that garage up front was ginormous.

Thats said I'm not about to go out and buy a Beneteau just yet but we are looking. The issues I see are that the Firsts are probably the best of them but their draft is a problem for us. I can handle six feet but beyond that it is a bit limiting. Ironically when we then have a look at the Oceanus, the forty odd footers are 5'6' ish draft which is getting to the point where uphill performance is going to suffer.

Trouble is you see that too often we are close minded on these matters and really should be more open to different ideas. I am, I admit as guilty as the next man.