Can somebody pro/con a full vs. fin keel for a newbie (will learn to sail on said boat) and taking it thru the Caribbean? All I can seem to come up with so far is fin keel is better to the wind, and a full keel will protect your rudder.
Your boat was designed entirely as a performance shallow water boat. That means at all costs, even salon room was compromised to performance. That huge divider running directly down the center line of the boat from the steps to the forward bulkhead, from deck to ceiling, over a foot wide is a serious compromise.BryceGTX must have missed my point. We all make tradeoffs to suit our needs.
Eric Jr. LOA= 25'2"; Beam= 7'7"; Draft= 4'"My wife would also prefer one a bit less cramped than what we have. BUT, even a full keeler would not have a lot more room. I was on boar an Eric jr awhile back. Half the room of my boat, with the same length etc. Not sure it would do any better in a blow either."
I agree 100%The Capsize Screen Formula and the Motion Comfort Index tells almost nothing about how the reality of a boat's likelihood of capsize or its motion comfort. In fact they provide so little indication of a boat's behavior that to rely on these surrogate forumlas for real information borders on the dangerous.
Well said!! Love your attitude!btw--we dont need no stinkin numbers--when passion hits, BUY.
I agree with you that is possible to build a full keel boat stronger than a fin keel boat the same way that is not possible to build a full keel boat that is so efficient sailing as a fin keel boat (both boats being well designed).Paulo you are right designers have long since abandoned full keel designs when it comes to production boats that require cheap quick building. ... It would appear the older designers got it right the first time. .. A good friend just lost his half million dollar fin keel to a submerged deadhead, his boat went down in under 3 minutes. If you want to know the difference in strength between full and fin keels, don't ask the designer, don't ask the builder, don.t ask the sailor. Ask the boat yard manager who has to do all the repairs on the boats, or at least the ones that didn't sink.
Here is the Video.In der Welle: Langkieler gegen Kurzkieler - Yacht TV - Segel Videos von Europas größtem Yacht MagazinThe 25/26 issue of the German bi-weekly Yacht magazine has a very interesting article comparing a full keel (Vindö 40, 31ft, 1971), a moderate fin keel with skeg (Hallberg Rassy 29, 1981) and a modern fin keel boat (Sun Odyssey 30i, 2008).
They sailed the three boats together in 5 Bft wind and 3 to 5 feet waves to find out which is the most comfortable to sail under these conditions.
They had 3 crews rotating between the boats and all crews reported that the HR and the Vindö are not only more comfortable but the HR even sailed higher and faster than the Sun Odyssey.
(I'm a little disappointed, I expected a German magazine to use 3D accelerometers and data loggers and software to evaluate the boat movements and not just rely on crew opinion )
Let me cite the closing sentences of the article:
"The most common argument used to justify the uncomfortable motion of modern cruising boats is that the typical customer (young families, older couples and charter crews) won't leave the marina in winds over 4 Beaufort anyway. For that, these boats are significantly faster in light winds than they predecessors.
The latter may be true. The first, however, should probably be reversed: maybe the reason people don't sail them in rough water is that these boats are too uncomfortable for that?"
"Häufigstes Argument zur Rechtfertigung des unbequemen Seegangsverhaltens moderner Fahrtenyachten ist, dass sie von der angepeilten Klientel - jungen Familien, älteren Paaren und Chartercrews - bei Bedingungen jenseits der 4 Beaufort ohnehin nicht mehr bewegt würden. Da blieben die meisten lieber im Hafen. Dafür seien sie im unteren Windbereich deutlich schneller als ihre Vorgäger.
Letztgennantes Argument mag stimmen. Auf das andere kann jedoch auch der Umkehrschluss angewandt werden: Wird vielleicht nicht mehr bei Seegang hinausgefahren, weil die Yachten dafĂĽr zu unkomfortabel sind?"
there are no racing fin keels. Fact is that most modern performance cruisers and even some mainstream cruising mass production boats use similar keels to the ones that are used in racers just with a smaller draft..So unless you are talking about racing fin keels that can plane, a fin keel would not be any faster. 30' at 8ton it is smooth in nasty seas
Hi Marty,Do not remember which number, be it capsize or comfort ratio, but was not one of them "hood" a naval architect that came up with that ratio. Later said it was good, but at the end of the day with some of the newer designs not as useful as with past designs. Not saying that that ratio should be thrown out per say, as it favors longer/skinnier designs vs some of the fatter hulled designs of today. Rather apparent that hull design will potentially make or break a design depending upon useage as to if it will or will not work for the end user. Not just fin vs full vs bilge vs CB or some combo there of!
The more I type, I believe it is the motion comfort ratio number. Even short will come out on the lower side of things than width. As a 30'L 10' wide boat will come out with a worst number than a 60' x 20', even tho the length.width ratio is equal. I am also recalling disp being part, maybe that needs to be equally doubled to get the same ratio, where is going up double in length, usually (typically) quadruples or equal the disp of the boat. That would be an interesting plug in numbers to see what or if one can get different equal length and beam to equal....
Marty