Keel skeg addition to traditional sailboat

Hello everyone,

The new keel has a had a bit of a test now, couple hundred miles of sailing between Valdivia and Castro. This being Chile we have had a good spread of condition, from beating upwind in 25-30 knots in open water to some calms and a good bit of work in tight spaces.

Glad to report the keel has been a very substantial improvement in how the boat sails.

Upwind we are able to keep going in much higher winds, especially when beating into a head sea. the boat now balances quite well with a double reefed main and full staysail, just a touch of weather helm, where before we had to reef the sataysail when the main was double reefed and we still had lee-helm. We have more weather helm with the full main in a breeze now, but not bad and is a good reminder to reef.

Tacks are more predictable and we accelerate out of the tack with less ground loss and no tendency for the bow to fall off before we get moving again. Very helpful in tight areas where you need the boat to be predictable and minimize time stuck without steerage.

No major change in down-wind performance, slight increase in the boat wanting to round up when pushed too hard, but not a problem and easily solved by reefing down.

In moderate winds we are now able to carry a second jib outside our staysail to give a bit more power up-wind, before the increase in lee-helm negated any benefit of the increased sail area.

It should be mentioned that we also moved the staysail stay inboard about 18 inches from its old position, likely helped the lee helm a bit and made the staysail set better.

We also have replaced the 6 of our 9 stays and shrouds with Dynex Dux, saving quite a a bit of weight aloft, a subtle but noticeable improvement in righting moment and a bit less pitching when on a beat.

Draft increase was 6 inches, The keel is 18 inches tall at the front and tapers to 6 inches at the back.

All in all we are quite happy with the change, it did what we expected and made a real difference for a pretty small amount of time, effort and money.

Thanks again to everybody (especially PAR) who chimed in with advice and ideas. Will be happy to provide more details if anybody has questions.

 

Sounds great Ben and doing pretty much what I'd hoped. Congratulations and yes, post some pictures so we can see how things ended up. Most often we don't get to see a project from one end to the other. At some point they stop posting, probably because they have their answers or results. Thank you for the follow up. Did you reshape the rudder too?

 

We decided to leave the rudder alone for now, one thing at a time so we can see what does what. And she seems to be steering fine with it the way it is.

Few of the pics are here: https://picasaweb.google.com/bwedlo...authkey=Gv1sRgCN7AhPa66qO3qgE&feat=directlink

But more will be coming, need to get around to uploading them.

We will be falling off the face of the earth for a few months as we head south into the channels but will be back with more updates when we are back in a place with email.

 

Well, you should get a good shake out on your cruise. Have fun and avoid the uncharted stuff.