Braille Navigation system

[Brent Swain]

When a single keel sailing hull goes aground on a flat beach , initially, the only two points that touch are the bottom of the keel and the turn of the bilge.
As both of these points are low down and midships, there is nothing to lose by overbuilding the hell out of them. On single keeled hulls, I put a doubler plate inside , making the chine nearly a half inch thick, for six inches inboard and above the chine. The bottoms of my keels are half inch plate, with tons of lead ballast poured on top of that. On fibreglass boats, one has nothing to lose by throwing all your scrap mat and roving in ,and making it as thick as you can.
I've seen many boats lost, which could have survived with a bit more beef at these points. If they don't break, often the bottom will never touch the rest of the hull.

[Pauls]

Steve Dashew offered this as an option on his glass hulled boats. They added extra thickness to the turn of the bilge area. He called it "reef insurance" and said that it was a very popular option with their customers.

Paul