Canting Keels In Production Yachts

[D'ARTOIS]

The last post in the "Sydney Hobart" thread were highlighted by some facts stated by Mistral and Lorsail.
Lorsail commented to tell us that already a number of canting keels have been integrated in production design.
Although I visit expositions regularly, I haven't seen any system manufacturer for example on METS in Amsterdam, neither on Hiswa, and I am curious if they are represented on the next show in Dusseldorf, coming week.
It must be clear that Lorsail, Mr Lord, represents a company that is connected to the manufacturing c.q. promotion of canting keels and any criticism on canting keels and/or its mechanism, concerns him professionally.

We have to accept the fact that the canting keel technology does have specific advantages over the traditional keel configuration. That it is first applied in racing yachts is not more than logic. Any advance technology that is not ruled out will be welcomed and most happily applied.
That this newly applied technology (however old in theoretical principle) has been met by many pro's and contra's is a result of regular sketpiticism in an old fashioned trade as yachtbuilding certanly is.

However, and I would like to revert to what Mr Lord stated, that this - in my personal opinion rather undeveloped technology, new or old is unimportant, is showing up in production boats that are sold to the general public, who is unaware of the full extend of their purchase.

Or, the application of the canting keel on an yacht outside the racing community is an individual application and carried out on an individual demand. Or, more precisely, the canting keel happens to be mounte on so called "one off's" - individual made boats to individual designs.

The next question is, since insurance plays a vital and elementary role in the US community (and in a lesser degree to the European) is it desirable to apply this still fresh technique being not fully developed yet - to have the CK's applied to production yachts.
The more, since the insurance issue is not clear yet and the CK (as far as I am aware of) has no CE certification, or there are no yachtseries yet in Europe that are already CE certified with a CK applied.

[Gina22]

http://www.cbtfco.com/wrapper.php?pa.../schock40.html

http://www.santanasailboats.com/boat...0/schock40.htm

D'artois: saying I represent a company that is using canting keels is NOT true-yet. I build radio control models along with full size prototypes. I intend to build -but do not yet build- a radio control one meter model using a canting keel.I've also built and sailed almost a dozen radio controlled canting keel models strictly as test prototypes over the last ten years.I can assure you that that is a labor of love not money!
I am not connected in any way with any full size company doing canting keels. I MAY build an 18' canting keel boat as a prototype to test various concepts in the application of canting keels to small boats.
I believe in the technology NOT because of any business interest but because I have studied it carefully and have had the privledge of discussing various aspects of the technology with some top people in the industry.
This technology has proved itself many times over and will continue to do so. It is the fastest keelboat technology bar none and has brought monohull keelboat performance into a new age. In fact the evolution of this fantastic technology is a long way from over with canting keel hydrofoils borrowing from the Moth style foil setup being tested in rc models by me and I know others on the west coast are actively looking into this untapped potential. Canting keels on hydrofoil equipped boats will also provide extra stability by the use of a flap on the lower portion of the canting fin/strut. Very exciting !
I think there is great potential for the application of this technology to cruising boats and the one I mentioned in Sail magazine is being built by Stimson or Stinson Yachts in the UK. Interesting design where the daggerboard for the extra lateral resistance is BEHIND the canting keel.
I'm not at all familiar with whether or not any standards organization(Lloyds, ABYC,EU) has developed any recommendations for canting keels but I'm sure they will and think they should...
I think arbitrary rules such as the 10° static heel rule in Open 60's and mini's (and the Sydney Hobart) is probably not the best solution and has led to some trully weird hull shapes.

[D'ARTOIS]

Lorsail, I fully accept the advantagious design of the CK / CBTF let that been noted. I know that this technology will develop rapidly and that the racing people will come to use this (valuable) addition to racing technology widely. Reading the Schock pages I discovered that it could lead to a dramatic reduction of keel ballast, a very important improvement that I did not realise at first sight.

It is fully comprehensible that the smaller racing yachts do much more profit from this technology than the 60 ft + racing machines.
First of all, the example of the Schock 40. This is not what I understand as a regular yacht design, although, technically speaking, it is.
It comes not even in the cruiser-racer category.
The Schock 40 is whay we call over here "a fun boat" - a clubracer, daysailor,
very well engineered for this purpose. This yacht however is an on purpose build racing machine and stands therefore outside the scope of the thread.

Just as in car racing, some of the used high tech applications are adapted from the race courses to the general designs, to the production boats. Mostly improvements in hull design, hull-manufacturing, ruddersystems etc.
In general, the buyers of the today's production boats have or have had some profit from the investments done in the racing field. And more to come.

The advantages of materials like the aramids ( I am not mentioning any brand names) epoxies and other fibers/resins, were industrial developments creatively adapted for the use in yacht building technology. Of course, this is the result of the efforts of the industry in general.

Now the canting keel. The technical advantages are known and accepted. That the bigger boats still struggle with the technology is not so important. My question is: what might be the use of this technology for the normal cruising boat, for the family boat, immaterial length or make, now or in the immediate future.

[brian eiland]

THREE QUESTIONS FOR RUSSELL BOWLER
Russell Bowler, president of Farr Design, was questioned by mail for an
article about the next Volvo Ocean Race published in the French magazine
Course Au Large. Here are his answers:

1. Which are the main improvements in the design of Volvo 70s compared to
the old generation of WOR 60 ?

RB: VOR70 was conceived as the fastest 70ft ocean going monohull employing
the latest performance enhancing features. While only 4ft longer than the
VOR 60, the VOR70 has deeper draft, canting keel, 50% more sail area at
the same sailing displacement. Construction technology is full carbon
sandwich construction and has abandoned the impact resistance of Kevlar
laminates required by the V60 rule. Rule minimum shell weights for the
hull, deck and watertight bulkheads prevent the structures from being
frail. Rig height and sail area give the required horsepower to make the
VOR 70 a high speed ocean racing yacht. The overall result is a boat that
will be potentially 33% faster than the VOR 60 and a big challenge for
designers, builders and sailors.

2. Can you compare one of your last Volvo 70 design to your Open 60 design
for Jean-Pierre Dick ?

RB : Open 60 rules and the VOR 70 rules are very different in their basic
format. The Open 60 Rule encourages wide boats because the heel with
ballast fully canted by rule can not exceed 10 degrees, which has type
formed this class. The VOR70 rule has a cant angle limit, restricted rig
dimensions, minimum bulb weight and upper and lower displacement limits.
Common to both rules is the freedom to use any variety of appendages to
make the boat perform, although there are some limits in the VOR 70 rule.
With both projects we put a big effort into providing the sailors with an
appendage package (canards and rudders) that would provide good balance
and sea keeping qualities over a broad range of sailing conditions that
can be expected in long distance ocean racing. Research into this subject
had some useful overlaps for the two designs. Single handed sailing has a
different focus on rig operation than the fully crewed VOR 70. Both
projects however are fast, light displacement ocean going yachts that
share some development characteristics

From SeaSailSurf.com:
http://seasailsurf.com/seasailsurf/a...d_article=3480

Farr Design website : http://www.farrdesign.com
Course Au Large: http://www.courseaularge.com

[Gina22]

Hi,
Another links

http://www.backmanboats.com/

http://www.tboat.com/

http://www.cariboni-italy.com/HOME.html
... they are fast sailing boats, fast daysailors or fast sportboats not for coffee boil.
Faster then boats with fixed keel


Gina 22

[Gina22]

Sorry I have forget:
http://www.balticyacht.com Baltic 78 and Baltic 56
in thet ships may bie to boil your coffee

Regard Gina22

[D'ARTOIS]

The Backman is a "Fun Boat" and a dayracer.

2. According to Baltic, only the 56 is in an early stage of design to be equipped with a CBTF - that's the twin foil system from - or according - to Dyna Yachts design.

3. Caborini offers indeed a remarkable design: the combined lifting- and canting keel, again, only pratical in large non-production yachts.

You continue to refer to racing yachts. As I clearly stated before, they are not included in this topic. Neither do the non-production yachts.

[mistral]

mmmm, not a plenty of boats, considering that backman 18 is still on the drawing board and Baltic 78 and 56 won't sell a grat numeber of boat (quite expensive and luxury yachts); that confirm what i wrote in another thread.
Cariboni is a great producer of hi-tech fittings parts, with some awesome solutions such as "magic trim", but he doesn't produce boat at all.
I guess ten Schock 40 are sailing now; so, where are the big numbers???? I cannot see any production boat with decent numbers of purchased boat in this list....

Mistral

Numbers will come ,Mistral and the publicity of being without doubt the fastest monohull keel technology in history won't hurt.
Plenty of things stil to try yet to such as low aspect ratio canting keels for dedicated shallow draft cruisers, boats under 20' etc,etc,.....

[D'ARTOIS]

What I try to establish is Mistral, that outside the racing field and a number of top dollar yachts, the CK cannot be found elsewhere.
Any references given sofar were about racing yachts, by the way, the Backman 21 is a reality and sails already, but outside the racing scene it seems that no other yacht is fitted out with the CK.

However, what we have learned is that the main advantage of the canting keel is the fact that you may either increase your sail-area with 50% or drop the same percentage of ballast, and any mix of the two in between.

In this respect has Lorsail all the right of the world when he states that it is a dramatical improvement of sailing technology level because a 50% increase of sailarea at the same ballastratio that is no cat's piss.

What I am afraid of is, that yachtracing is now factor X more expensive. Take my word for it that now I have seen Cariboni's frame and further machinery to make this keel system working, that in two or three years time all serious racing yachts will have this keel fitted. No doubt about that.

Very interesting for the very few designers in the field of the big racing yacht's the maxi racers; ( not mentioning any names ) because one of the most well known fetches per design, for the Volvo Open among others, more than USD 1 mil per boat. Emphasize the word more.

[B. Hamm]

I think the technology is just too new and in some circles untrusted for a production designer to risk it. You have to remember that it's very expensive to put a boat design in production. If the technology isn't accepted, you at minimum have to partially retool to get any return on your investment.

Couple other problems:

1) like water ballast was a few years back, there have to be some accepted limits to the canting angle, if the machinery fails you still need to be able to return to port. Perhaps a combination of the canting keel and another form of shiftable ballast?

2) all of this takes up space in the hull that could be used for accomodations, or at minimum storage. Don't know what the public's reaction will be to giving away space in a given hull. I suspect though that with many fairly modern designs that cruisers would rather have the accomodations than an increase in speed. Some percentage though might accept it, how large that percentage is though is the question.

Bill H.

[Gina22]

The most of Vendee-Globe constructions have canting keel and water ballast tank also. The abandonned ships have returned to port with decreased sails, and with fully water ballast on the luv, slowly then racespeed.
I think one-ramming system is not enough, all elevators have emergency break.

The rules over canting keel from ISAAF is not old. (Raceboating)

In an charter yacht, typically 40-44', i's not enough space for technic. But if you will with an minimal, family crew to sail, it is the best. For me is an american daysailer, or clubracer for 2 weeks my Home.

Gina22

[D'ARTOIS]

Mr Hamm, you hit the nail on the head, and you too Gina, and that's exactly why I started this thread. The design will probably remain in, and be limited to, the racing scene and in top dollar yachts where there is sufficient space for this equipment.

It will have no use for the everyday's sailor, whose ship is too small, and who doesn't have the financial sourcing.


For the rest, well if anybody should know how difficult it is to get something new from the ground, it's be me. Watch my next thread!

[Gina22]

Mr Hamm 15 years ago was CARBON for space-research, today more
mast builder are working on serie carbon masts.
Any yachts with DECK salon, like Jeanneau 43 DS, or with centrecockpit can have enough space for this technic.
The question is the thriftiness of market.

Regards Gina22