Ballast preference for racing yacht?

Three circumnavigations plus and I like my ballast glued on SOLID.

 

Canting mast on a fixed keel hull.

Righting force is created this way,too.
(Does it count for a fixed or a canting (related to the mast) keel?

 

A weighted swing keel (not a canting one, but the old-fashioned one).

But then again, I don't mind not coming first – at least I will be safe, sound and in a good mood.

 

INMHO, any sailboat that needs an engine constantly running is a motor sailor and should be classified as one.

If I'm going to allow someone an engine to cant their heavy ballast, I should also have to allow someone use the same amount of engine and fuel fitted to a propeller.

Man the manual hydraulic pumps, matey. Pump like yer lives depend on it! What is worse?

Losing or dying?

If you pick the second choice, what kind of racer are you? Ahrr!

Seriously.

This question is too open ended to mean much.

There is a whole galaxy of options open to racing.

I'm aware of at least three different kinds:

1.) One design, (very highly restricted)
2.) Class design, (a little less restricted) (includes rating systems in some cases) and
3.) Open (very mildly restricted. Often just length, with a few safety requirements, and multihull or a monohull specific)

The first part of your question should have specified which of these three types of racing we are talking about.

Also, are we talking about what we would choose if we were setting up a new class or one design?

Or are we talking about just an individual boat?

In the second case, if I were Bill Gates rich, or even Kieth Richards rich, I would want to have the fastest thing afloat, limited maybe by just length.
If it breaks, I can always throw it away and get a new (and even faster) one.

Its one thing to win after a committee considers your rating. It's quite another to win by being the first across the line. I would much prefer the rest of the fleet looking at my transom.

In this case, I would definitely pick a canting ballast with an engine to cant it, if I could get away with it.

It's a very hard thing to beat and is probably safer than a deep, fixed bulb keel. It seems all the bulb keels I hear of getting into trouble have been the fixed type.

Not that it is inherently less safe, but because it offers idiot designers and builders engineering options that should best be ignored.

Besides, about three decades of open design (mono), single handed, long distance ocean racing has all but proven the canting ballast concept is king.

In racing, the equipment gets to reside in the best part of the boat. It's what makes the boat go fast. The crew are just cargo. Stick 'em anywhere they will fit.

As long as they are out of the way.

Now that's if we are talking monohull, (also not specified in your question).

If we are talking multi, gimme foils for my leeward floats.

Why drag all that hull through the water if I don't have to.

Just let me get the relatives I least like out of my will, before we depart.

 

No ballast, multihull.
If you really want to win a race that is.

 

How can you "really win" a race if you are not allowed in it, or don't win what is accepted by competitors as the main prize (which is normally on corrected time)?

If you have a multi and you are not allowed to enter a race because it's just for monos then you have not "really won" the race; you haven't even started. Most sailing events (even those run for multis) only allow in certain types of gear and just about everyone respects that - events for beach cats rarely cater for kites, skiffs, or yachts so why should events for monos cater for multis?

If you have any type of craft and you finish first but lose on corrected time (in an event where the main prize is corrected time honours) then you haven't "really won" the race; you've just finished first, and you may have been last in the real race. When I raced multis in mixed fleets, few people cared much about "really finishing" by finishing first - what everyone really wanted to do was to win on PHRF or measured rating type corrected time, because that allows us freedom to choose the gear we want.

Lots of people can beat Michael Phelps in swimming if they use different gear (like swim fins and a streamlined suit), lots of people can beat the Tour de France cyclists much of the time if they use different gear (like a streamlined recumbent bicycle) and lots of shooters could beat the Olympic shooting medalists if they hit the target with machine guns or mortars. But no one would bother, because just about everyone accepts that the very essence of a sporting competition is to use gear that is similar enough to make competition a contest of sporting skill. Putting a multi into a mono event to "really win it" is just as odd as any of the above; as strange as entering a horse in a greyhound race and claiming to have really won it. So ignoring multis in a question about monos makes perfect sense.

 

Why would you enter a horse in a greyhound race? (greyhounds are faster than horses, second only to the cheetah.)

 

Really win? Geez, that means you cross the finish line first. F-I-R-S-T
Unless , of course, ones thinking is handicapped........

 

Ahhh, but greyhounds don't go at all when carrying a crew.......

Actually as I understand it from a bit of Googling, greyhounds are only quicker over short distances. But the point is, you don't normally really "win" by using a type of equipment that is not allowed to even enter the race.

 

So do you think people like Elvstrom, Peter Blake, Olin Stephens, Bruce Farr, Russell Coutts and Ben Ainslie have been lying when they refer to having "won" races on corrected time, when they did not also win line honours?

There are plenty of races that are all about corrected time, with the line honours boat only receiving a minor prize. If the only "real win" was line honours, either we'd abandon pretty much anything but class racing, or abandon most racing since very few boats have a chance at line honours most of the time in mixed fleet races.

Very few people would feel adopt a definition of "really winning" that would mean that a person in a 130' racing tri could beat an Optimist across the line by 1 second and claim the "real" victory. Most of us prefer something of an even playing field.