swing keel

I want to know opinions about swing keel

carlos, are you talking / thinking about...

swing keels (in the fore and aft direction)

or

CANTING keels (athwartships)?

I am talking about swing keel that allows to sail in shallow waters

swing keels

A number of builders still make swing keel production sailboats. I'll point you toward Southerly at http://www.northshore.co.uk/yachts/south/south.htm as but one example. In the U.S., designers Craig Walters and Dick Carter used to be associated with swing keels. I don't know what's become of Craig Walters, but his brother is the designer of the Cambria 44 ( http://www.caborico.com/cambria/index.html ). I think the Tanzer 10.5 is a Dick Carter (deceased?) design:
http://www.multimania.com/sail4fun/tanzer-plan105.html
The Ted Hood Design Group in Portsmouth, RI remains associated with large centerboarders.
In France, Giles Vaton & Phillipe Briand have designed swing keelers.

Hinckley Sailboats in Maine, McCurdy & Rhodes in Cold Spring Harbor, NY, and John G. Alden in Boston have designed a number of keel/centerboard combinations, and there is a respected French builder now building a boat with an interesting split keel. Finally, I'm working on a keel/centerboard combination that I think improves on what hs gone before, which I hope to debut next year.

What else would you like to know?

Oh yeah - opinions. My opinion is that it's time consuming (and therefore expensive) to build a hull with a slot in the middle of it, and then you have to figure out how to design the rudder to lift or kick up as well. It you can tolerate some draft a good wing keel is just as good and has no slot or moving parts, and the keel I'm working on is hydrodynamically superior to either a traditional keel/centerboard or an Australia II style wing keel. (My keel does not have a slot but does have a moving part.)

Stephen

Dear members
I am building now a 42 feet. In our waters (Rio de la Plata) we cannot sail everytime and we must take care of the tydes.
I suppose the swing keel is a way to reduce the draft. To reduce the draft of the rudders we are thinking about two instead of one.
There is a revolutionary swedish design,the one 40 (www.oneboats.com) that apparently solves the problem without loosing perfomance. The swing keel is controlled hydraulically.
But I agree that is not good that the keel can move...

I took a quick look and I suspect this boat is a Sven Ridder design similar to Bergstrom & Ridder's "Route 66." I respect Ridder's engineering ability - so I don't think you'd be going wrong to buy one.

Additional info about swingkeels...

The boat "One 40" is a Finnish design, it's designed by Guy Christer Lönngren, Guy is wellknown in Europe for designing boats with swingkeels. http://www.guydesigngroup.fi/

There's also a new Swedish boat named Z31 with a swing keel. This boat is brand new and is just about to be viewed by prospective buyers this weekend.
Quite a nice but too expensive in my opinion about 900.000 SEK is about $90.000 USD.
http://www.idesign.se/z31/

Opinions:
I think swingkeels are great for a number of reasons, here are a few:
We have a large archipelago of islands (1000+ islands) where the water close to shore is not always deep enough to get a shore. With a swingkeel you can get really close. In the winter when you take the boat out of the water it stands low and stable and is not affected by the wind as a finkeel boat would.

But there are drawbacks... As mentioned more expensive to build and maintan, Since the keel can't be as heavy as a delta bulb or similar it will not have the same righting force.
Just my two swedish kronas.

Erik Guldager

Stephen Ditmore:

Can you post any more details of the keel you're working on?

solutions

The great this solution in this web site: www.run.yate.net.ar

Carlos:

I can tell you this- I've sailed a few thousand miles on a quite traditional swing keeler, a Wauquiez Hood 38' (Ted Hood as you probably know is one of the most well known swing keel architects). This boat draws 1.40m with the keel up and 3.20m with the keel down. If you want to learn more about the boat and how she sails, ask here or email iava@acn.gr .

Hi Iason. Would you classify the Hood designs as swing keelers as opposed to centerboarders? I was under the impression that most of the ballast is internal on the Hood, wheras on the Dick Carter designs (such as the Tanzer 105), Craig Walters designs, and Southerlies I think at least half the ballast is in the "swing keel."

You are right, Steven- I actually didn't know that a swing-keeler and a centreboarder have this difference (excuse my english once again!). So, if a centreboarder is what we mean when we talk about a yacht which uses a light blade without ballast, the Hood 38 is a centreboarder. The ballast (40% displ.) is in the shallow keel of the yacht, and the centreboard weighs only around 160 lb.
Thanks for the correction.