Lifting keels

[rbh1515]

There is a new boat that looks interesting that has a lifting keel. Its the new Columbia 30. It has a bulb at the bottom of the keel and with it in the down position the draft is 7''. In the up position it is 2''. Does anyone have any experience with lifting keels. Are there any typical problems with this type of design? Rob

[Jeff_H]

A lot of sport boats have them such as the Melges 24 and 30''s, Tripp 26 and 33, Henderson 30 and 33. They work fine but are generally set up so that they can''t be lifted underway. I have thought that if I had the money my ideal boat would be a roughly 30 footer with a dagger board with a bulb and shiftable water ballast. There is some feeling that the Columbia 30 will never actually see the market.


Jeff

[msl]

...see this month''s "SAIL" magazine. It reviews several lifting keel boats. The Shannon looked very interesting.

[e-27 sailor]

Lifting keels on ULDB sport boats make them trailerable, dry sailed and therefore eliminates the need for bottom paint. With a 6''+ drop keel, a carbon rig and a 5-6'' bow spirit, these boats are fast enough to steam water. With all that speed, the keel is really stressed, and failures have occured.

On page 7 of Sail Anachy''s Forum lists some of the boats that have experience keel failures. http://www.sailinganarchy.com/index.htm

[rbh1515]

Thanks for all the replys. I have not seen the new issue of sail magazine yet--must be the Feb issue?
Jeff, what have you heard about the Columbia 30? There has certainly been a delay in the first boats, but it looks like they are working on the first two. It will be interesting to see what happens, and if the boat is produced I''m going to take a serious look at it.
I live in Milwaukee, and one of the sailors at our Yacht Club sailed around the world in the Around Alone race (I think that was the name of the race). He (Tim Kent) sailed on Everest Horizontal. The boat had a keel with the bulb on the bottom, and on a race after the Around Alone race the bulb fell off and the boat turtled. I wonder how common this type of failure is in production boats with this type of keel. Rob

[Jeff_H]

I am not sure how to answer you on that. First of all the canting keels on Open Class 60 boats are very different than the dagger board with a bulb that we were discussing. Daggerboards with a bulb are pretty common in small production racing boats (Tripp 26, Tripp 33, Melges 24, Melges 30, Henderson 30, Henderson 33 toname a few). The only bulb failure that I know of in a production race boat was some problems with an early Melges 30.

Everything that I have seen on the Columbia has been very sketchy so I really don''t know what they are doing or how likely they are to have problems.

Jeff

[newuser]

I''m always a little late but here goes the seaward eagle has a lifting keel that can be raised or lowered with an electric motor and while sailing (I Hope) I did not misstate that I have given up on the manufacture"s hype on all boats after all the mags testing the boats advertise them to make money its like an honest politician does anybody have the straight stuff on this boat.