twin keel aluminum sailboat

Yachting Monthly

• Digital edition

Why twin keels are making a comeback

• Theo Stocker
• March 20, 2019

French boat builders are leading the way with versatile new twin keel boats. Theo Stocker went to discover the appeal and how to dry out in style

There are a significant number of sailors who prefer boats that can take the ground

Bilge keels can be a divisive topic. While it might seem like the majority of new boat buyers are in favour of fin keels, there is a significant undercurrent of sailors who prefer boats that can take the ground.

While fin keels offer a deeper centre of gravity, marginally less drag and more lateral resistance, making them theoretically better at sailing to windward, they are a relatively recent development and it’s not long since all yachts were long-keeled and could comfortably dry out on legs or alongside a harbour wall.

In the tidal waters of the UK, where drying harbours and half-tide creeks abound, the ability to dry out can vastly increase both your potential cruising grounds, and the cost and location of your home berth.

There are a wealth of shallow draft cruisers available on the second-hand market today.

Moody, Westerly and Hunter all produced enormously popular bilge keel models, while Southerly, Parker, Feeling, Ovni and Allures have been making lift keel and swing keel yachts for years.

Drying out opens up new cruising grounds

Latterly, it is the French centre-board yachts that have proved most popular for the adventurous sailor keen to get off the beaten track. That may explain why bilge keels have rather waned.

There are some new kids on the block, however, that are reinvigorating the concept.

Most notably, La Rochelle-based RM yachts offer a range of epoxy-infused plywood boats that can take the ground between their two keels and a weight-bearing rudder.

Hot on the heels of these French class leaders are Brittany yard Marée Haute and their Django brand, which produces lightweight GRP pocket cruisers from six metres up to 12 metres.

While they offer deep fin and lift keel options, it is their twin keeled versions that are currently proving most popular. So where better than Brittany to go for a test sail?

We went along to try drying out in the latest incarnation of these new and interesting twin keel cruisers.

BILGE KEEL OR TWIN KEELS?

There have been many design variations that come broadly under the term bilge keels. Strictly speaking, bilge keels are in addition to a long central keel, fitted near the bilge, where the hull turns from the bottom to the side of the boat.

Traditionally, these were non-structural, shallow and long, largely intended to reduce rolling. Twin keels, in contrast, replace the central keel entirely and the boat is structurally adapted to make these the main ballast-bearing hull appendages.

Some early twin keel moldings simply added two shallow-draught keels either side of the centreline, at right angles to the waterline and parallel to the centreline, but these boats often tended to sag to leeward when sailing upwind, and sometimes lacked the proper hull reinforcement at the attachment points.

More modern twin keels tend to be much better hydrodynamically aligned and, some argue, provide at least as much lateral resistance as a single keel, though in theory, more drag.

A boat with two keels will tend to be heavier because of the additional reinforcement needed to bear the loads of the ballast and of drying out, and will usually have a higher centre of gravity because of their reduced draught. Again, modern construction, narrow-chord keels and ballast bulbs all help to reduce these effects.

1 FINDING A SPOT

The art of drying out is all about finding the right spot to take the bottom. In an ideal world, you would find somewhere that is totally sheltered.

Luckily, when drying out you can tuck in much further than you normally would, but you don’t want any swell coming through that will lift the boat and drop her on her keels in the crucial moments that she is settling down, or refloating as the tide returns.

Most twin keelers will be designed to withstand some wave action on the keels, but you don’t want to push it. You then need to find an area of seabed that’s as level as possible. Despite the fact that you are suspending the boat’s weight at over a metre’s height, the wide set keels ensure she is very stable, so unless you are on rocks, you should be fine.

Finding a sheltered anchorage without too much swell is vital when drying out. Credit: Alamy

The type of bottom makes a difference too. Rocks will tend to be uneven and could damage the keels, although smaller stones won’t be a problem.

Gravel, sand or mud are ideal and will normally be pretty level. Hard sand is the ideal as you will then be able to walk to and from your boat with ease at low tide, but it’s worth having a pair of wellies on board for the inevitable muddy puddles that will be left as the water recedes.

Before you decide to dry out, it’s crucial to plan ahead. You might have enough water to get in on this tide, but you don’t want to get neaped if the tides are dropping off.

Similarly, have a look at the forecast. If the wind is forecast to change while you are dried out, check that the anchorage will remain protected.

Don’t forget to note the barometric pressure and general wind direction, which can have a significant impact on the predicted tidal heights.

While charts will help, local knowledge is king. Almanacs and pilot books will give useful advice for where to go, but ask other sailors too.

Locals may well know little spots that are well and truly off the beaten track.

2 ANCHORING

Once you have chosen where to dry out, you will need to anchor. If you are in an open bay with plenty of space, a single bow anchor will be fine.

It’s an odd feeling waiting for your yacht to go aground

If it is important which way you are facing when you dry out, however, such as on a sloping beach, in a narrow river, or if there are other boats around, you will need to lay both a bow and a stern anchor to control your position.

In drying harbours, there may already be moorings, often fore-and-aft, to stop the boat from swinging.

3 PREPARING THE BOAT

Fit any legs or transom support

You may need to rig extra gear to keep the boat upright. Some fin keel and lift keel boats will have drying-out legs.

Bilge keelers with reasonably long keels fore and aft will be stable enough fore and aft with no additional gear, but more modern twin-keelers often aim to create a tripod, between keels and a weight-bearing rudder or an additional leg.

The Django 770 has an adjustable transom leg. While this is weight-bearing it’s more of a stabiliser and should be set slightly short in a swell.

4 DRYING OUT

If you are in a place you are familiar with and have dried out in before, you should be safe to anchor or moor the boat securely and head ashore while the tide goes out.

If you are somewhere new, however, it is worth staying with the boat for the critical period that the keels are taking the bottom until the boat is securely aground.

It is worth staying on your yacht while it is drying out if you are stopping somewhere unfamiliar

This is particularly true if your boat has drying out legs, as the relatively small surface area of the leg could end up on a rock or a soft spot, and will need adjusting and tensioning to keep their boat comfortably upright.

5 HIGH AND DRY

If you are lucky, you will be able to walk ashore at low tide without getting your feet wet. If you are going ashore for a while, make sure you check the tides — you may need to carry the tender to the high-water mark if you don’t want to swim back.

It is a good chance to check your hull fittings

In most places, a pair of wellies will help when walking through mud, or over rocks. You may need to lower the bathing ladder to climb down from the boat, and to get back on when the tide is out.

Fabio Muzzolini is the sales director for Marée Haute, the Breton builders of the Django range of twin-keeled yachts

If you’re in a narrow river, low water is a good opportunity to have a look at exactly where the channel goes.

The boat will be very stable once dried out, but be careful about putting too much weight on the bow — it’s probably a good idea not to have more than one person on the bow when dried out.

A couple of buckets will also come in very handy.

Fill one of them up before you lose the water so you can wash your feet once you’ve walked back across the sand or mud.

The other bucket is for calls of nature, as you won’t be able to flush the heads.

6 REFLOATING

Afloat again and ready to sail

Waiting for the tide to return is the easy part, if all crew are back aboard.

As soon as the boat is floating, remove any drying-out legs or supports — these are remarkably easy to forget, but could cause real damage if left down.

Don’t forget to lift the bathing ladder too.

Retrieve your stern anchor first (you can do this when the tide is out if the conditions are right) and then weigh the bow anchor and you’re off.

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Aluminium Strongall Specialist – Sailing and motor yachts

Located in Tarare since 1963, META is the manufacturer of Bernard Moitessier's historical JOSHUA. Thanks to the Strongall ® assembly process, patented by the shipyard in 1977, and its unique know-how the shipyard designs and builds sailboats, trawlers, speedboats and other floating buildings using the deck hull prestressed aluminum technique: our constructions are efficient, innovative, comfortable and very resistant.

The History of the Site

It is in Chauffailles, in Saône et Loire, that Jean Fricaud, an enlightened self-taught metallurgist, takes advantage of his workshops to build his first 11m steel motor-sailer: the SAINTE MARTHE. At the age of 13, Joseph, the eldest son, dreams of cars, drawing and mechanics... and of leaving school as soon as possible in order to start an apprenticeship-which he will do, with his father's blessing.

The workshops, in full effervescence, set up a construction line for hydraulic shovels, Joseph finished his apprenticeship as a mechanic in Lyon and left to enrich his technical knowledge in various regional boiler making workshops hoping, as soon as possible, to practice metallurgy on his own account.

Still in Chauffailles, Jean Fricaud is approached by Bernard Moitessier, for whom he agrees, as a good patron, to build the steel hull of JOSHUA. At the same time, Joseph set up under the name META and became a subcontractor for his father's excavator company.

Jean Fricaud, in Chauffailles, has exhausted all the possibilities for expanding his hydraulic excavator construction company and sets up an additional workshop in Tarare, on the RN7, near Lyon. META, still in Chauffailles, began to diversify and expanded its range of construction equipment.

Jean Fricaud seized the opportunity of a lifetime and sold his prosperous business to an industrial group: he had just built the motorboat NADINE and could finally devote himself to deep-sea fishing. But the buyer does not want to expand to Tarare, where the workshop has just been completed. Sensing "the emergence of a market", Jean proposed to his son to build steel boats there. Joseph obeyed and fate precipitated events: thanks to the publicity generated by Bernard Moitessier's exploits, META became a full-fledged shipyard in Tarare.

After having built more than 70 JOSHUAS, more than 30 DAMIENS II, and many other steel hulls, Joseph launches a big paving stone in the pond and abandons steel in favor of STRONGALL® aluminum, which he has just patented. His pre-stressed aluminum construction technique makes it possible to create extremely resistant deck hulls. The young subsidiary PROMETA, directed by François Fevre, also abandons steel for STRONGALL®.

Patrice Passinge is 17 years old when he joins META as a metal worker, under the supervision of André Ravatier, the company's workshop manager. Joseph carefully follows Patrice's efforts, and despite his young age, he soon proves to be an outstanding journeyman.

Patrice Passinge became workshop manager when, after his excellent career at META, André Ravatier took his legitimate retirement. At the end of the 90's, aware that Joseph was getting older, various buyers came forward with the objective of expanding the company. But Joseph wanted to preserve the family spirit of the company and decided to pass on META to Patrice, who had a solid background and an excellent culture of the business.

Joseph definitively transfers the META Chantier Naval Spécialiste du STRONGALL® brand and all its activities to Patrice Passinge.

Construction and launch of FLEUR AUSTRALE, the magnificent custom sailing boat designed for and by Philippe Poupon. This large expedition ketch travels in all the waters of the world in complete safety, from the Arctic to the Antarctic via the Pacific Ocean.

Design and construction of the Ecotroll 39 in partnership with Jean-Pierre Brouns and the Olbia shipyard. The smallest troller approved for ocean navigation, it sailed from Lyon to Greenland through canals and oceans before returning to Lyon via the Canal du Midi in spring 2011.

50 years of META Shipyard on the island of Frioul opposite Marseille. Great meeting with many clients and personalities owning META yachts.

META is diversifying by proposing hulls for various floating projects, such as the development of a floating restaurant (entre deux ô) visible on Roanne.

Based on our floating projects, Dominique Renouf called on META to build Solar Carriage. Real floating habitats with electric propulsion, the Solar Carriage are powered by photovoltaic panels and can navigate on canals and rivers in an ecological way, an important value of our company. In parallel, META is working on its first production boat, the META 36.

Thursday March 12, a few hours before the first presidential address concerning the containment due to COVID-19, Philippe Brabetz signs the takeover of META Chantier Naval Specialist of the STRONGALL®. Patrice Passinge will launch a carpentry workshop dedicated to the interior fittings of the META 36, at the Tarare location.

The takeover is final and the shipyard, renamed META Yachts—Architect Shipyard—Strongall® Specialist, resists to the COVID wave and follows its course. Philippe conceides his TurboKeels® patent to the company and initiates a range of innovative designs for modern, attractive and highly performing sailboats, new motorboats. META Yachts confirms the desire to invest in environmentally clean projects such as electro-solar housing barge carried by Dominique Renouf, and gorgeous Noé boat, carried by Nicolas Lallemand.

Inauguration de META Yachts Services, à Port Saint Louis du Rhône, sur la côte méditerranéenne, cofondée par Philippe Brabetz et Fréderic Switala, pour l'entretien, le gardiennage et la vente de bateaux META Yachts d'occasion.

Technical Legacy

Bernard moitessier, writer of great talent, exceptional sailor and philosopher recognized well beyond our borders, bernard moitessier (1925 – 1994) has become a legend..

He has given rise to strong vocations by communicating his precious philosophy to all those who, in love with freedom, have “taken the plunge” and are blossoming far from our agitated lands. Everything or almost everything… has been said and written about Bernard, a very unusual character. “I am weighing these words because I fear that his formidable genius of simplicity has escaped some people and has disappeared into the oblivion of history, which would be unjust and regrettable. More than any other sailor, Bernard was haunted not only by the obligation of robustness of the boat, but also by maintenance, hence maximum simplicity. In this perfect sailor’s logic, the deck of JOSHUA – by its very studied simplicity – has always constituted, in my eyes, an essential work reference. Today, every builder (amateur or professional) should be inspired by the best of this masterpiece of practical common sense, on aluminum as on steel.

Drastically simple, but with minimum solutions that have been carefully thought through… On the JOSHUA bridge, nothing should catch, nothing should hurt, nothing should jam: no rails or screwed parts, but welding of sturdy rings instead (to make it easier to surf with the brush, to keep everything clean, and to do away with protective adhesives! Moreover, the most economical solutions were the order of the day, because Bernard was really not rich when Jean, my father, built for him in 1961, the hull number 1 of JOSHUA in CHAUFFAILLES. Among the original features of this deck plan – of a monarchal rigor – the famous “Chinese hood” for example, is worth the detour: 100% watertight thanks to its judicious volumes of depression in spite of the absence of flexible joint, inviolable, reducing thermal bridges, it divides by 3 the times of painting on its perimeter while maintaining the aspect of the new: who does better?

I was very young in the trade when my small team of journeymen started the construction of the JOSHUAS in TARARE, and Bernard’s sponsorship was a great help to me!

More than forty years separate us today from the launching of Bernard’s hull in LYON, and the spirit of the master is still deeply rooted in our reflexes – everything that could be tried differently often turned out to be less convincing, so thank you Bernard for your intelligent contribution to the design of the metal decks of our sailing ships.

Joseph FRICAUD

, Founder of META Chantier Naval

Our Strongall ® construction technique

There is no such thing as the a universal or perfect material, and here is why we have chosen aluminum to replace steel:.

• Aluminum boats are solid: constructions are homogeneous, without joints between welded elements and without weaknesses caused by composite associations of various materials
• Aluminum boats have a great longevity, are a good investment when budgets are under control and if they’ve been well designed and especially well built, they maintain a good rating when resold
• Aluminum grades 5083 and 5086 require little maintenance

Why Strongall ® ?

This aluminum construction method was developed and patented by META Chantier Naval in 1977. The concept is that of a self-supporting aluminum deck hull, based on the use of thick sheets: the transverse structure is then reduced to a minimum (integrated tanks, engine cradle, mast belt, crash-box or watertight bulkhead) depending on the size of the boat. This type of construction is synonymous to robustness and longevity, warrants of the significant investment a boat represents over the years.

The Advantages of Strongall ® :

• Stronger than equal weight steel construction
• About 30% lighter than the same steel shell with comparable strength
• The use of thick sheets allows a greater intensity in welding thus eliminating the risk of “sticking”, and guarantees a better fusion of the metal
• Little or no deformation of the plating sheets
• The thickness of the sheets increases the resistance to corrosion and significantly reduces the risk of metal fatigue (repeated cycles of torsion-bending of the planks where the hull is a hollow beam moving on complex waves and swell phenomena)
• The hull is treated with inorganic Zinc Silicate
• The painting of the dead works and the bridge is only necessary for cosmetic reasons, they can remain raw without consequence for the material.
• A significant advantage for the shipowner, the absence of internal restrictive structures makes the design of the fittings more flexible.

Architectural constraint:

The hulls require developable hull surfaces and lively chine(s)—easily integrated in elegant and efficient designs!

Over 300 sailboats, motorboats and trollers have been built in Tarare since 1977, their extreme robustness secures navigation in particularly difficult areas: Arctic, Northwest Passage, Antarctica… COME MEET US IN TARARE, AND GET A FEELING OF WHAT WE REALLY DO!

TurboKeels®

A solution for ballasting lead from one side to the other….

To displace the center of gravity without relying on complex tilting keels, Philippe Brabetz, new owner of the Meta shipyard, has come up with an ingenious solution: TurboKeels®, or how to ballast lead from one keel to another!

Already used on tilting keel sailboats such as IMOCAs, the system literally involves shifting the center of gravity of the boat—but a tilting keel requires a large draft and a complex, expensive and above all fragile mechanism not suitable for cruising yachts.

With TurboKeels®, Philippe Brabetz applies the above basic premise to twin keel boats. The 2 keels are then used as reservoirs to accommodate the ballast which travels from one keel to the other as needed, and following a closed circuit mechanism activated by a simple pump.

The advantages of Turbokeels are:

• Enhances power
• Diminishes heel angle
• Allows for shallow draft
• Simple, reliable and economical

Stronglite®

—The Stronglite ® technique is undergoing scrutiny by our R&D team—

you can stay tuned and follow our social media networks

Philippe Brabetz

Owner & CEO

Nathalie Simon

Administration & Sales

Marin Ducoux

Design Office Manager

Serge Calka

Export & Communication

Johan Tardif

Naval architect, Engineer

Dockyard Technical advisor

Aluminum Ship Builder

Naval Engineer

Philippe Brabetz has an architecture degree from the Paris-La-Villette School of Architecture. While studying to become a building specialist, he attends Dominique Presle’s naval architecture courses and becomes passionate about the subject.

He graduates shortly after the first Gulf War, when jobs were hard to come round, and nevertheless manages to join the Guignols’ team at Canal+, working at the design and production of TV sets and special effects as of 1995. Ten years later, still passionate about shipbuilding, he joins the Nantes Naval Architecture DPEA which he tops by an internship for the construction of America’s Cup Areva Challenge monohull. During his collaboration with shipyards and naval architecture firms in France, Spain and Morocco, he invents TurboKeels: a twin-keel system whose lest is ballasted from side to side. The invention patented, taking over META Shipyard seemed like the next best thing to do.

His mission is to consolidate the achievements of the legendary shipyard, but also to add the creative touch that will allow META to navigate today’s challenging waters and thus continue its fantastic adventure.

Born in the same valley as META and with a name familiar to windserfers worldwide, her career was mapped out: since 2008, Nathalie has been assisting the shypyard’s management from an administrative, commercial and accounting point of view.

An Executive Assistant by training, she favors positions which allow for the widest diversity of tasks, within human scale structures. It is an interactive and stimulating format that she appreciates and that participates to the great complementarity between her very “maritime” professional activity and very terrestrial personal interests: running, cycling, hiking are all activities which fill her up with the energy and enthusiasm we much appreciate.

Nathalie is a valued collaborator, who faithfully has and does contribute to the welfare of the company .

A naval architecture engineer with a degree from ENSTA Bretagne, Marin’s work at META combines his passion for sailing and his experience of ocean cruising with the technical skills acquired through his training.

As an admirer of Gérard Janichon (Damien) and Bernard Moitessier (Joshua), he says he’s proud to be able to contribute to the development of META and its new series of ocean-going yachts, with modern lines and a spirit of adventure still intact.

Lover of nature, water sports, and concerned about the environment, Victor tackles his new adventure : his meaningful collaboration as a fully-fledged member of the META team.

Profil Linkedin

Specialised Masters in Naval and Offshore Architecture/Engineering Offshore engineering, ENSTA Brest

Fluid Dynamics and Energy in Physics, Université Paris-Saclay

Fundamental Physics, Paris-Saclay University

Lionel has learned and confectioned his skill at aluminum ship building at META, where he’s been a faithful member of the team since 2004. He has become the metalworkers’ go-to person for all questions related to Strongall ® boat building techniques.

Not only is he an experienced boilermaker, he’s got a secret skill up his sleeve: he grows grapes which participate in the making of one of the local Rhone wines.

We’re looking forward to the META vintage 😉

Etudiant-ingénieur en architecture navale à l’ENSTA Bretagne, Marin allie en travaillant chez META sa passion pour la voile et ses expériences de croisières hauturières avec les acquis techniques de sa formation.

Admirateur de Gérard Janichon (Damien) et de Bernard Moitessier (Joshua), il se dit fier de pouvoir contribuer au développement de META et de sa nouvelle série de voiliers hauturiers aux lignes modernes et à l’esprit d’aventure toujours intact.

Le chantier est donc très heureux de pouvoir compter parmi ses équipes ce Marin très compétent—mais aussi parfaitement polyvalent, avec un très bel esprit d’équipe et un sourire communicatif.

Anticorrosion

Your anti-corrosion solution for 50 years.

This zinc-based product is the best protection against hull corrosion so far. We are its historical retailer and use it for all of our boats.

Whether used as antifouling or covered by a regular antifouling, METAGRIP ® welds perfectly to the steel or aluminum hull thanks to the absorption phenomenon.

It does not deteriorate and therefore fully respects the underwater environment.

Do you live in metropolitan France ? Order online

You are not in metropolitan France? Ask for an estimate

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Practical Boat Owner

• Digital edition

Best bilge keel yachts and twin keel yachts for drying out ashore

• Peter Poland
• April 12, 2023

Peter Poland reveals how bilge keel yachts and twin-keel designs won his respect – those that could sail well and stand on their own two feet…

Back in the late 1970s, I found myself on the horns of a dilemma. For the last decade or so I’d dismissed bilge keels and twin keels as ugly and performance sapping appendages. To my eyes, they invariably had the look of casually designed afterthoughts that had sprouted beneath nice hulls just to enable the boat to stand on its own two feet.

The boats that my company built, on the other hand, were aimed at serious sailors and I rashly assumed that anything other than a state-of-the-art fin keel or hydrodynamically efficient lifting keel would never be likely to satisfy this market.

Then my own personal boating needs underwent a change, so I had to take a flyer. Breaking my own rules and ignoring my preconceptions, I went out and spent my own hard-earned loot on a second-hand twin keeled Westerly Centaur.

Why? Because my factory and home were on the East Coast but a lot of high-profile sailing activity took place down south. So I needed a habitable floating base that could be parked on a cheap mud mooring and be able to follow the regatta circuits on which the boats I built (Sonatas, Impalas, Deltas, Medinas etc) competed.

This boat had to provide a general all-purpose home from home. And a bit of undemanding weekend pottering would be an added bonus. With my limited budget, there was only one obvious solution at the time – a Centaur.

Article continues below…

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Classic cruiser boats: Why GRP models are now being welcomed into the fold

Sprawled, glass in hand, in the cockpit of my friend James Stock’s beautiful Stephen Jones-designed Mystery 35, I pondered on…

I soon discovered that the Centaur’s windward performance – while adequate – was hardly stimulating, especially when compared to the close winded precision of a Sonata or Impala to which I’d become accustomed.

As a result, the Centaur’s Volvo Penta motor got a lot of use when the wind went light or ahead, whereas on a reach or a run she performed satisfactorily and got us from A to B with a minimum of fuss and at a respectable speed. And she also offered comfort down below – despite the Centaur being only 26ft long I could stand up.

Design challenge

All of which got me thinking that maybe there could be more to these twin keel things than immediately met the eye. And as the sales of our fin and lifting keel speedsters began to slow over the ensuing years, I could not help noticing that the sales of our bilge or twin keeled competitors seemed to be on an ever-rising upwards trend in the 1970s and 80s.

Around 2,500 twin-keel Westerly Centaurs were built, which means there are plenty on the second hand market. Photo: Peter Poland

If we were to continue as a viable boatbuilding business, maybe we’d have to cast aside our prejudices and take a long look at these two-legged options.

So I took courage in both hands and asked our designer whether he might be willing to consider agreeing to design us some twin keels. I hastily added that of course – being the genius that he undoubtedly was – he was bound to come up with something far better than anything that had ever graced a cruising yacht’s bilge before.

Then I stood back and awaited the inevitable broadside of shock, horror and indignation. “Well,” said David Thomas (who had never designed a slow yacht in his life), “I might. I just might.

“But first I’ll need to think about it. In case you’d not noticed, twin keels have far more variables than a fin keel. The positioning of the roots relative to the centre line, the splay, the angle of attack are all variable and important. I’ll have to think twice as hard and for twice as long.”

I took this as a ‘yes’ so left it at that. And patiently awaited developments.

Gib’Sea 76 (26ft 11in) with ‘swept’ twin keels that draw 3ft 3in. Photo: Peter Poland

History of bilge keel yachts

Of course, bilge and twin keels were not a new phenomenon. They had been around for many years. When researching an earlier article on the Westerly story, I’d been fascinated by the development work done on his twin keel and twin rudder yachts by Lord Riverdale. As had my sales manager, Andy Cunningham, who wrote an excellent treatise on twin keels.

Lord Riverdale’s first twin keel sailboat was the smaller self-designed 25ft Bluebird of Thorne , built in 1924. Later Riverdale built the bigger Bluebird of Thorne (50ft) in the early 60s that he designed in collaboration with Arthur Robb. He claimed that tank-tested models indicated a 15% improvement on his earlier twin keel designs.

Bluebird of Thorne ’s owner, Lord Riverdale, had designed and built a string of cruising yachts (all with twin keels) over a period of around 40 years prior to the culminating glory of his and Robb’s 50ft steel twin keeler.

Riverdale also liked to draw the distinction between what he called ‘bilge keelers’ (meaning boats with a ballasted or unballasted centre keel and two stabilising bilge keels) and ‘twin keelers’ (boats with twin ballasted keels).

To go further back to bilge keel basics, it was probably Maurice Griffiths who did most to put bilge keel benefits into practice and bring creek crawling and ‘upright drying out’ to numerous leisure sailors.

Built from GRP, the Golden Hind 31 is a double chine, shoal draught cruiser. Photo: sailingscenes.com

Classics such as the 1957 Eventide 24 and 26, Waterwitch and 1968 Golden Hind 31 (to name but three of his many popular designs) all came with bilge keel options – featuring a substantial central ballast keel and two supporting bilge plates. The resulting shallow draught would never provide dynamic windward performance; but that was not Maurice Griffiths’s aim.

He set out to supply honest, seagoing small yachts that would be equally at home in the rough and tumble of a hostile North Sea as they were weaving between the withies and nosing their way into peaceful and shallow backwaters.

East Coast pottering is a specialised and delightful pastime that can only be enjoyed to the full in a shallow draught yacht that is capable of drying out – whether by mistake or on purpose.

Then along came Robert Tucker and his popular twin keel plywood pocket cruisers such as the Silhouette that took off in 1954. Around the same time, a French designer began to play with twin keels.

François Sergent designed the attractive 22ft Sargue with a beam of 7ft 5in; generous for that era and with reasonable accommodation. Several of this mahogany strip planked twin keeler (drawing 2ft 4in) were built, and they not only sat happily on the Breton mud – they sailed well.

The designer said: “In passage races in the St Malo-Granville area one won two firsts and a fourth in three starts against deep keel boats and centreboarders.” It’s a pity none of them made it over to our UK shores. With pleasing performance and Gallic grace, the Sargue class looked a cut above what was available over here at that time.

Westerly Nomad’s longer coachroof offered improved accommodation to the Westerly 22. Photo: Carolyn Jenkins/Alamy

Westerly 22

Mass-produced and affordable bilge keel GRP yachts only really began to fill up our foreshores after Denys Rayner set up Westerly Marine in the early 1960s. Enthused by the tractable sailing he had enjoyed in his earlier bilge keeled designs such as the jaunty little Westcoaster, he decided that the time was right to invest in a new GRP cruiser.

And so the Westerly 22 was born in 1963. The twin keels drew just 2ft 3in and gave a ballast ratio of 33.3% while a long central ‘keel’ supported the rudder and gave a secure ‘three-point landing’.

The Westerly 22 sailed adequately, sat happily on a drying mooring, and the 22 Young Tiger was seaworthy enough to make a transatlantic crossing in 1966. The longer coachroof of the later Westerly Nomad (1967) improved accommodation.

Following on from the 22’s success and Westerly’s bursting order book, Rayner pushed ahead with 25ft and 30ft models that used the same keel recipe. The burgeoning market for family cruisers was growing fast after the post war dinghy boom.

In a remarkably short time, Westerly sold almost 1,000 of these Rayner-designed yachts and the bilge keel revolution was well and truly on its way.

But even their greatest fans will admit that the sailing performance of these early models was unspectacular. Their modest draught meant that lateral resistance was minimal, so leeway when sailing to windward was considerable compared to that of a yacht with the extra bite given by deeper keels.

When buying a used twin keeler, like the Westerly Centaur or Mirage, get keel roots surveyed. Photo: Peter Poland

And the drag incurred by all that surface area on three shallow appendages cut speed through the water – especially in lighter airs. But the early Westerlys sold like hot cakes because they brought economical sailing, low cost drying moorings and carefree coastal cruising to thousands of sailors taking to the water ‘en famille’ for the first time.

As Westerly pushed remorselessly ahead, other players soon entered the twin keel market. Thames Marine set up on Canvey Island in Essex and, over many years, produced hundreds of Snapdragon cruisers. Like the early Westerlys, these boats were not – by any stretch of the imagination – racers.

While a few models offered a centreboard keel configuration, the majority were twin keelers. Accommodation was always spacious and later models had a pleasing look, thanks to their nicely proportioned coachroofs.

At the smaller end of the market, makes such as Leisures, Silhouettes, Hurleys, Tridents, Macwesters, Cobras and Alacrities – to name a few – offered twin keels as standard or as an option.

But nobody was yet putting that much thought into the designs of the keels themselves. Some builders even produced twin keels that were an integral part of the hull moulding, then filled the GRP keel cavity with iron punchings.

As a result, the keel had to be vertical (to release from the hull mould) – which is far from ideal from a performance perspective. Add a fibreglass moulding filled with iron, and it is a disaster waiting to happen if the boat dries out on rough or rocky ground.

Once the GRP keel base is worn down or punctured, saltwater can get in and rust the iron, whereupon the rest of the fibreglass keel ‘casing’ can get blown away from the rusting iron ballast inside.

Painting a Westerly Centuar while dried out. Photo: Gary Blake/Alamy

Westerly Centaur

The next real leap forward in twin keel design came courtesy of the originators of mass-produced GRP twin keel cruisers – our old friends Westerly again. As Denys Rayner’s health was fading, he enlisted the young David Sanders to take over the running of the company. Unlike Rayner, Sanders was no yacht designer. “Go to Laurent Giles,” advised Rayner.

He was aware of the bilge keel development work and tank testing that had been done by Jack Giles so reckoned design firm Laurent Giles was the most likely to take twin keel design to its next stage. It was wise advice.

When I asked Barry van Geffen (later the MD of the Laurent Giles design office) how the new generation twin keels as first used on the Centaur came into being, he said that Laurent Giles’s research and tank testing had been very revealing.

Westerly Centaur interior. Photo: sailingscenes.com

“What was learned had a significant impact on keel design, as it was discovered that through various angles of attack, heel and yaw, there was a marked change in efficiency (lift versus drag) with keels that were aligned exactly fore and aft on the hull.

The LG [Laurent Giles] team considered all the implications, along with Westerly’s insistence that for production reasons both port and starboard keel castings should come out of the same mould – and settled on a design with a 2° toe-in and veed keel base.”

Twin keel changes

So what does this tell us about Laurent Giles’s suggested changes in twin keel design? Firstly, Westerly’s insistence on symmetrical keel foils for ease of manufacture and economic considerations was fortuitous for other reasons.

Early twin keel designs were often asymmetrical – as originally advocated by the Lord Riverdale of Bluebird fame before he realised these were less effective than symmetrical keels. The theory was that the foil shape on the inside face of the leeward keel and flat shape on the outside face would generate lift (like an aeroplane’s wing) and therefore lift the boat up to windward.

Unfortunately, however, the reverse could apply to the windward keel. In addition, the water flow between the keels could produce a braking effect, thereby slowing the boat down. The effect is not unlike putting the brakes on by adopting a ‘snow plough’ stance when skiing down a mountain.

So Laurent Giles’s move to a modest 2° toe-in for maximum efficiency combined with symmetrical foils was the right way to go. The result was a marked improvement in windward performance over older bilge or twin keel yachts. And if they had gone for slightly more draught than 3ft, it would have been even better.

Westerly Griffon 22

But perhaps they continued to learn, because Centaur’s later and smaller sister – the 23ft Pageant – drew only 2in less (at 2ft 10in) despite being 3ft shorter overall. The Pageant sails well and even used to win club races in her early days. And when Ed Dubois came to design the Centaur’s successor – the 26ft Griffon – he went for 3in more draught than the Centaur and drew finer foils with less drag. So twin keel performance continued to improve.

But the early Griffon’s finer keels (with finer roots) also brought boatbuilders’ attention to the often-overlooked risks attached to bilge keels. Westerly fitted their symmetric twin keels by bolting them to small GRP ‘roots’ that formed part of the hull – rather like a GRP version of old fashioned ‘deadwood’. So the finer the keel, the finer this ‘deadwood’ stub also became.

As a result, it needed greater internal reinforcement to resist sideways movement. And the greatest ‘force’ imparted to twin keel roots – where they attach to the hull – is not necessarily encountered when the boat dries out on soft mud. It happens when the boat tries to break free from the firm grip of the mud as the tide returns and attempts to lift the hull clear of this grip. The deeper and more glutinous the mud, the harder it grips and the longer the boat’s natural buoyancy takes to lift it clear. And this is what caused damage to the early Griffon’s keel roots.

Westerly repaired the damage and reinforced subsequent models. But the lesson was there for every builder of twin keel boats to learn. It also explains why a buyer and his surveyor should inspect keel roots when assessing any possible second-hand purchase.

Hunter Horizon 26. Photo: sailingscenes.com

Hunter Horizon 26

So – to return to the request I put to David Thomas in the early 1980s for a world beating twin keel design. What did he come up with? Predictably perhaps, he took his time. We all reckoned he’d vanished into a mystical twin keel retreat. But the design that finally emerged was well worth the wait.

Thomas reckoned that the optimum angle of heel for comfortable cruising (as opposed to flat out racing) is around 15°. So he designed the keels to attach to the bilge with a 15° splay and to be slightly ‘toed in’. This way the leeward keel would be vertical when the boat was heeled 15° – thereby working at its maximum draught and presenting the biggest possible lateral area to reduce leeway.

Then he placed the keel roots as close to the centreline as was feasible while still making sure that the boat would be stable when dried out. The reasoning behind this was that the closer the keel roots are to the centreline, the less likely the windward keel is to break surface and ‘thump’ when the boat is heeled in a seaway.

The final ingredient to the new generation Thomas twin keel designs produced the most animated discussions with the builder. Any sensible designer wants as much draught as possible – to lower the centre of gravity, increase overall stability and maximise lateral resistance to reduce leeway.

The builder, however, wants to keep the draught low to increase the boat’s appeal from a marketing perspective. So a compromise always had to be negotiated, although Thomas usually won. As a result his twin keelers invariably drew more than the equivalent sized competitors’ boats .

Hunter Horizon 26 interior. Photo: sailingscenes.com

And how did such twin keels actually perform? Extremely well. Having done initial trials on a Delta 25 hull, the Thomas keels were declared to be a success by boat testers and buyers alike. The time was ripe to introduce the first Thomas-designed spacious family cruiser that could sail well and stand on its own two feet.

The long-suffering Delta hull was dragged into the tooling shop again and given a brand new deck moulding for full standing headroom, an aft heads compartment and a spacious stern cabin. The new model was named the Horizon 26 and duly won the Best Production Yacht Award at the 1984 Southampton Boat Show .

We then walked into an unexpected marketing problem. Boat owners were so used to Thomas performance and handling that they could not believe that a twin keeler would be anywhere near as good. Some potential Hunter buyers even said that they “wouldn’t be seen dead in a bilge keel yacht”.

After a bit of head scratching a solution was found. Every demonstration boat for this and subsequent Thomas cruising Hunters had the twin keel option. Any client asking for a trial sail in a fin keel version would be politely told “I’m afraid we only have one demo boat for each model and it’s a twin keeler. So why not try that and if you aren’t impressed, we can always build you a fin keeler.”

It worked a treat. Initial scepticism invariably turned to disbelief followed by delight. Sometimes a client was taken on a trial sail without being told what sort of keel lurked beneath the waterline. When invited to have a guess after returning to the marina, it was amazing how often the client thought it had a fin rather than twin keels.

This Horizon 32 twin keeler (draught 1.3m) won a Round the Island race division. Photo: Peter Poland

Bilge keel yacht design evolution

As the years passed by, Thomas’s twin keel designs continued to evolve and performance got even better. In one memorable demolition derby Round the Island Race , a Thomas-designed twin keel Horizon 32 took the heavy winds head on and won its class and its entire division.

The twin keel Horizon 21 and Horizon 30 also excelled in the CHS divisions. Recently a twin keel Horizon 232 helped her octogenarian owner Murdoch McGregor win the Yachtsman of the Year Award for sailing solo around Britain .

Meanwhile other designers began to tweak their twin keels. Ranges such as Moody, Sadler and Westerly also moved up a gear in performance. Thomas refined his twin keel designs by adding long hydrodynamically shaped bulbs to their bases. These had the effect of throwing the centre of gravity even lower and lengthening the ‘footprint’ on which the boats stood when they dried out.

The extra weight located in bulbs lower down also meant keel foils could become finer and narrower, reducing drag. Other boatbuilders have taken note, with ranges such as the American-designed but British-built Legends displaying prominent bulbs on their twin keels.

So, as marinas get ever more expensive, will more builders offer twin keels on their smaller models? Interestingly, the answer is ‘yes’. But it’s not coming from the UK. It’s coming from France.

Django 770 twin keel yacht drying out

French bilge keel yachts

In the past there were economical marina moorings aplenty available in France, so twin keels did not feature high on the French agenda. But now things are changing. The cost of a marina berth in France is still reasonable compared to the UK: but only if you can find one.

The French Nautical Federation reckons there is now a shortage of around 50,000 marina berths. As a result, twin keels (or bi-quilles as they’re called over there) began to appear in greater numbers.

Now, with the exception of the traditional and long running Biloup Range, French twin keels are expanding the design envelope. Archambault, the builders of the Surprise range, decided that their hugely successful One Design (7.65m) cruiser-racer would have an increased market if they also offered a two-legged version.

Designer Michel Joubert went for deep (1m) twin keels with narrow chord foils and race boat bulbs on their bases. The roots are well inboard and the performance is said to be exceptional.

RM-Fora Marine specialises in multi chine plywood-epoxy hulled cruisers, invariably with twin keels. The latest models, from the pen of leading French designer Marc Lombard, are anything but conventional.

A new RM890 ready to hit the road. The twin keels draw 1.5m. Photo: RM Yachts

Draught is generous (for example the twin keel RM890 draws 1.5m) with keels that are as fine as you’ll find on a top-level racer. And the bulbs on their bases are just as sophisticated.

These RMs are exciting and versatile boats, although I wonder whether their futuristic looks and multi chine wooden hull construction will find favour with many British buyers. I hope so, because the combination of a plywood-epoxy hull with a GRP deck offers excellent insulation and a substantial strength to weight ratio.

The Django 7.70 designed by Pierre Roland and built by Marée Haute in France has also proved to be a speedy twin keel 25-footer capable of crossing many oceans. Christophe Mora and Carina Juhhova are currently in South Africa after sailing L’Envol across the Pacific and Indian oceans. Their progress reports on intothewind.fr are fascinating.

Django 7.70 L’Envol has a scrub in Brazil on her round the world cruise. An aft strut supports the stern. Photo: Christophe Mora

So far Django 7.70 L’Envol has crossed the Atlantic, cruised down the East coast of South America to Patagonia, across the Pacific and sailed the Australian coastline before moving on to South Africa.

The Django range comprises the 6.70 (lifting keel only), the 7.70 (fin or twin keel), 9.80 (fin or twin keel) and 12.70 (fin or lifting keel). The twin keel Django 7.70 that I tested was a total delight.

The future of bilge keel yachts?

So what lies ahead? With only a handful of French yards offering new twin keel boats, there is a dearth of choice in the new boat market. Of course, sailors can always buy second-hand while they await new arrivals. But be sure to get those keel roots surveyed and check rudder and keel bases for grounding damage.

I can’t help thinking that as designers come up with ever improved twin keel designs, something will soon have to give. As British marina costs move beyond the means of many boat owners and French marinas reach maximum capacity, maybe there’s a new twin keel dawn just over the horizon?

Exciting new twin keel designs might even persuade production boat builders to market new boats under 30ft again? Some may even sprout foils and try to fly!

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Whether you are looking for a coastal cruising sailboat, or planning longer open sea trips, such as Atlantic, Pacific crossing, or round-the-world sailing, there will always be an RM yacht fitting your project.

We are actually the sole shipyard and manufacturer having built over 500 monohull sailboats using this material and this sailing yacht building technique. Needless to say, we know plywood-epoxy in-and-out.

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cruising sailboat 30

Overall length : 9.1 m Width : 3.7 m Draft : 1.9 m

... a fibreglass sandwich hull for greater stiffness, making for a cleaner structure. Choice of a bulb keel inspired by the Pogo40S², or a deep swing- keel (to slip into anchorages). Optionally available ...

cruising sailboat 35DS

Overall length : 10.6 m Width : 3.48 m Draft : 1.98 m

... harbour so you can take in your surroundings whatever the weather. She’s available with two fin keels (one deep fin or one shallow fin), twin keels or a lifting keel . After ...

cruising sailboat META 43DS

Overall length : 14 m Width : 4.52 m Draft : 1.4 m

... engine room under the floor of the day area. The META 43DS Legacy is available in a twin keel version and is particularly well suited to the TurboKeels® system ( twin keel ...

cruising sailboat 39

Overall length : 12.55 m Width : 4.4 m Draft : 1.7 m

... providing an excellent view of the water. Your META The META 39 is available in a twin keel version and is particularly well adapted to the TurboKeels® system ( twin keel ...

ocean cruising sailboat 33

Overall length : 10 m Width : 3.7 m Draft : 1.71 m

... exploration projects. From coastal weekends to round-the-world voyages, there's no stopping it! Its size makes it an all-men sailboat without cutting back on the comfort, habitability and of course the safety that characterizes ...

fast cruising sailboat RM890+

Overall length : 8.9 m

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Overall length : 8.4 m Width : 2.82 m Draft : 0.35, 1.43, 1.7, 1.25, 1.6 m

Maxus 26, as the only Polish yacht in the “Family Yacht” category, has been nominated for the prestigious “European Yacht of the Year 2016″ award. The yacht completes the shipyard’s offering in Poland’s most popular size segment. Maxus ...

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YACHTING SPIRIT Presentation Yachting is the most luxurious boat offering high-end materials and equipments : from the comfort of the furnishings to the quality of the materials. Its basic equipment and available options are going ...

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The layout of the Iroise 48 has been speciallydesigned to provide maximum confort for all passengersTheinteriorcomeswith a forwardcabin, a berthwith a desk, a bathroomwithseparatetoilet, and a large sailspeak. The fittedkitchen has a ...

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Sailing characteristics of twin bulb keel designs

Discussion in ' Boat Design ' started by aramisboat , Jan 31, 2017 .

aramisboat New Member

Do any of you learned guys and girls have theoretical or practical experience of the sailing characteristics of a 40´sailboat with a twin bulb keels? I have been told that such designs have a different feel at the helm and load up in a somewhat different way to boats with a single bulb keel. I appreciate that the devil is in the detail of the design, but are there any general characteristics of such designs worth noting. I ask because I have never sailed a twin ballasted keel design and have identified such a boat that ticks all of my boxes. The boat is a Mercator 40. It was designed by a respected French naval architect Guy Ribadeau-Dumas, so I am sure that it works. I am just trying to understand how it works. This particular boat is constructed in aluminium (that´s aluminum for those whose Queen´s English is a bit rusty ) and it is hard chined. The hull between the canted keels is flat. I am attracted to this particular boat as it is aluminium and can dry out without any additional supports. I am favouring the twin keel arrangement over a lifting ballasted keel for reliability and for the “theoretically” better AVS/STIX compared with the other option - an internally ballasted centreboard design. Thanks and regards  

Attached Files:

Mercator 40 keels.jpeg.

DennisRB Senior Member

Check out RM yachts.  

Rm Know them and love them! I am not sure about the effects of a few tons of water on those large acrylic panels! and the condensation...and I have just spent 12 years with a wooden boat. Other than that, if I won the lottery an RM1270 would be on the list  

Ilan Voyager Senior Member

It's the same boat of this announce? http://www.ayc-yachtbroker.com/mercator-40 Bi-keels have a small but steady group of fans in Europe, specially in the places with high tides like Brittany, Solent, North of France, Holland... a bunch of desolate places with rain, cold climate, harsh seas, tide currents, more than 5 meters tides than leave most of the small harbors and moorings dry and the boats on the sand during long hours. That's the place for bi-keels. Boats for people who do not want to pay for marinas. Against all odds there are plenty of sailors and sail boats of all kind. Bi keels are now very mature but remain rather specialized for big tide seas and dry moorings at low tide.. There is nothing peculiar about sailing them. The owners words say practically all you need to know. 50 degrees angle upwind doesn't seem to be very good at first sight but that means that is the good angle to get get a good ratio speed/angle, with the boat comfortably sit on its chine. It's pretty wide so heeling to much is counterproductive. Better to let it run than struggling to go against the wind. It's a boat looking to be spacious and comfortable, not to be fast. Bi keels have great advantages in the desolate places I have described, with a few inconveniences; a litle loss of upwind ability, and overall speed (not always). In Mediterranean a bi keel has none advantage, but may lack cruelly of spedd in light winds. For transoceanic voyages a ballasted centerboard is far better, being faster, and more adapted for travelling to the Pacific Islands for example with the long downwind runs, and able to pass over a reef in some desperate cases or go up in a river. They are also surer in very high winds. That seems counter intuitive but with with the centerboard up and almost no sail, just to enough have speed to keep the rudder working, a dériveur lesté slides with litlle heel and with soft motions. If you have enough water to run it's the most comfortable way to let pass a tempest.  

Mercator Hi Ilan The ad. is indeed the one - a rather rare beast! Thanks for your comments. The designers web gives some insight in to his brief: http://www.ribadeaudumas.com/naval/...14&PHPSESSID=c2a96aba14f24b800761369a68c50b42 I started this whole process looking at the Atlantic Yacht aluminium designs from the Netherlands. They offer the option of centre board interior ballasted, ballasted lifting or fixed keel. Unfortunately they are very (extremely) expensive but no doubt worth it. Then I came to the Allures 40 or 39.9 dériveurs. However, these are too young to be on the secondhand market (I guess that they are all still out on their 5 or 10 year sailing projects - lucky them!) I have looked at OVNIs (again dériveurs) but they lack the homely live-abord warmth that I am looking for, except for the few that were fitted out in merisier. The OVNIs are also stupid money secondhand even after the paint has fallen off! I don´t have a problem with the internal ballast on the OVNIs/Allures et al - you've just got to keep sailing. I was curious about the twin bulb keel arrangement as an unknown to me. Certainly looking at the RM (Fora Marine) range the performance difference between the single and bi-quille is not so remarked, however, the RM hulls are really designed for speed (at least off the wind). The Mercator hull seems to prioritise easy of manufacture, hence the flat bottom. Someone did say that if you round-up in a bi-quille, they stall in a very different way to a mono-keel and then sort of fall back in to the slot. Hopefully (bank permitting) I shall find out soon.  

The price of the Mercator 40 is rather good. It seems in nice shape. The owner talks of good insulation, a very important thing on a metallic yacht. If the inventory is good it can be very interesting. Yes the boat has very simple lines, a bit in a 1970 style. The lone way to find if it's not too boxy is to see it from all the angles. Pics can be very misleading on chine boats...The NA describes a normal voyaging boat like the yachts the French shipyards made by thousands in a 45 years period. Ribaudeau Dumas knows his job, he began to draw boats before the extinction of the dinosaurs... The small flat bottom is not a problem at all. It's even an advantage: when the boat heels upwind at the good angle, the chine between the bottom and the lower panel becomes a keel that cuts the water, and improves the hydrodynamics. Also in a aluminium boat the welds can be done easier and with better quality. That makes the bulkheads and floors easier to build and the installation of the keels stronger. Lone disadvantage of a flat bottom is to be a bit more difficult to keep it perfeclly dry at the bottom, in a aluminium boat is not a problem. The Dutch yachts are over priced, like the German car they have a hype, not always justified. Plenty of French shipyards are simply as as good in a simpler style. There are also plenty of good second hand polyester boats. Those made by Wauquiez are worth to be examined. They are of excellent quality and very durable, 40 years boats in good shape are common. The lone thing I cannot stand up with polyester boats is the smell of styrene. Even when 20 years old they do smell... So I prefer wood/epoxy or aluminium. Steel is not an option on yachts, the maintenance and perpetual fight against the rust can become a nightmare. A bi keel is very interesting in the Channel, North Sea and some similar places in the world. As the the bi keel becomes av very blatant advantage in "dry" harbors and moorings. They can be left with no risks for months. With a keeler you'll need crutches that can slide. letting fall the boat on the ground. A perspective that makes nervous. It seems you are going to buy the Mercator, I wish you plenty of nice navigations.  

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Price is good? It seems insane. You could get a catamaran with more space speed and comfort and the ability to dry out for that price. I actually like a lot of these twin keelers, but the the centerboarders are even better with even shallower draft. But when I look at the price they are too expensive. 3 times that of a regular fixed keel boat so it makes sense to buy a catamaran. If I could find a centrerboarder with a similar price to other monohulls of the same size I would buy one. The price does not align with the benefit IMO.  

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Aluminium boat for sale (sail)

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What is an aluminium sailing boat?

As the name suggests an aluminium sailing boat is one constructed from aluminium (also know as aluminum in the United States). Aluminium is a stronger metal than the same weight of steel, so aluminium boats can be lighter in weight whilst still being strong, which is an advantage for sailing boats, especially those used for racing where lower weight equals more speed. There are a few disadvantages too though, for example, aluminium does corrode, and more so in saltwater, so aluminium boats need repainting every couple of years and you will need a sacrificial anode.

Which manufacturers build aluminium sail boats?

Manufacturers that produce aluminium sail boats include Alubat , Jongert , Nordia , Allures and Dubble & Jesse .

How much does an aluminium sail boat cost?

A used aluminium sail boat on TheYachtMarket.com ranges in price from £42,100 GBP to £2,410,000 GBP with an average price of £771,000 GBP . Factors including the condition, age, model and specification will affect the price of an aluminium boat.

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What are the pros and cons of different keels?

We all sail for different reasons, in different cruising grounds and use our yachts differently, so it makes sense that there is no one-size-fits-all keel design. At Sirius, however, we like to make the perfect yacht for each individual owner. One of the ways we serve our customers is our choice of keels – at least six different options for each model. It’s one of the ways we stand out – or should that be stand up?

We offer three styles of keel: fin, twin and lifting swing keel. All of our keels excel in many ways, but every design does have drawbacks – this is not unique to Sirius, but the keel affects the way you use the boat, so it’s important to choose the right one for you.

These are the keels we currently offer:

Standard Fin (310 DS, 35 DS, 40 DS) Performance Fin (310 DS, 35 DS, 40 DS) Medium Fin (310 DS, 35 DS, 40 DS) Shallow Fin (310 DS) Shallow Twin (310 DS, 35 DS, 40 DS) Performance Twin (35 DS, 40 DS) Lifting Swing Keel (310 DS, 35 DS, 40 DS)

Does the choice of keel compromise ocean capability?

For Sirius yachts, absolutely not. It’s important to realise that choosing one keel style over the other does not affect the yacht’s righting moment or compromise its ocean-going capabilities at all!

Whichever keel you choose, deep or shallow, twin or fin, they all have the same stability. This is achieved by putting more weight in the bulbs of the shallower keels as the shorter lever can be balanced with higher weight. Most of the blue water cruising and circumnavigations in Sirius Yachts have been made with twin-keel or reduced/shallow fin keel yachts.

Does keel choice affect performance?

As our shallow keels are heavier the weight dampens the yachts’ motion at sea, but as a downside, you have more weight to move with sails or engine. Once you’re moving there isn’t a difference but when tacking or gybing, or when not steered well, you will lose a bit in sailing performance. The shallower draught yachts also lose a few degrees to windward compared to their deeper keeled sisters, but they are still good all-round performers. Our customers with racing backgrounds always try to go for a keel as deep and light as their sailing area permits, either with a single or twin keel.

Pros and cons of fin keels

The standard keel on our yachts is a fin keel. Most sailing boats today use a fin keel because it gives a good all-round performance on all points of sail. By keeping the ballast lower it gives the most comfortable motion. The main downsides are that the draught (the depth of water required to stay afloat) is the greatest, and it’s very important to avoid running aground on a falling tide. Fin keel boats cannot dry out without additional support, either from a harbour wall or by fitting a pair of beaching legs. Some fin keel yachts are not built strongly enough to stand on their keels when out of the water, so they can’t dry out alongside a harbour wall and they need to be kept in a special cradle when stored ashore to avoid the risk of the hull deforming under its own weight. By contrast, all Sirius yachts can stand on their keels for any length of time with no problem at all.

We offer four types of fin keel. The standard fin is available on the 310 DS, 35 DS and 40 DS and is fully cast-iron. It offers the best value, good performance, and excellent responsiveness. It is the deepest of our fixed-keel options, so if you want less draught you may want to look at our other fin keels.

We also offer a performance fin keel for all our models. This uses a cast iron fin with a lead bulb at the tip (bottom). The structural strength of cast iron means the fin is the slimmest profile, but lead is denser than iron so the same volume of lead will weigh around 1.4 times more than cast iron, giving more righting moment. The heavier, softer lead down low has less volume in the bulb so achieves a slimmer profile with less drag and therefore better performance.

A lead bulb is also safer if it hits something. Lead can absorb 60% of the energy in flexing and deformation so that only 40% of the force will be transferred to the laminated structure of the keel reinforcement. A lead bulb is very forgiving and easy to reshape and will not start to rust where the coating is damaged. We can use less volume of lead than iron, and achieve better stability than a wholly cast-iron keel. We can also reduce the depth of the keel and retain excellent stability. However, lead is more expensive than cast iron and the bulb must be attached very securely to the iron fin, so this option does cost more.

If you want less draught, we also offer a medium fin. This reduces the draught of the 310 DS and 35 DS by around 40cm/1ft 4in and 55cm/1ft 9in on the 40 DS. Like the performance fin, it uses a cast iron fin with a lead bulb. To retain the keel’s grip in the water it has to have a longer chord (the distance from fore to aft). While this gives the boat better directional stability, it does make her a little less responsive and a little slower to manoeuvre.

On our 310 DS, we offer a shallow fin option – a special version for very shallow cruising grounds. This fin keel offers the least draught of any of our fixed keel options at 1.15m/3ft 9in and draws 10cm/4in less than the twin keel version. The keel has a significantly longer chord (2.24m/7ft 4in compared to 0.7m/2ft 3in of the standard keel) so she has the reassuring directional stability of a long-keeled yacht but with better manoeuvrability.

Pros and cons of twin keels

Our twin keels are the most popular option. About 70-80% of all Sirius Yachts are delivered with them – and on the 40 DS it’s 90%. Some folk still believe there is a big performance penalty with twin keels. In the past this used to be true but it’s no longer the case with modern twin keel designs, from Sirius at least. We have conducted many two-boat comparison tests, often battling for hours, by ourselves, with owners, and for sailing magazines and we have found that there may only be one or two boat lengths of difference at the end of a long windward leg, if at all. At the end of many of these comparison tests, the crews could not point out which of the boats had the twin keel.

If you cruise tidal areas, twin keels will reward you time and time again. Not only do they give you a shallower draught than the typical fin keel, they also give you the ability to dry the yacht out, whether that’s for a motion-free night’s sleep, to explore cruising grounds others cannot reach, or just for cheaper mooring and maintenance costs.

We offer two styles of twin keels; performance and shallow draught. Both options have a cast iron fin with a lead bulb. The performance keels have a deeper draught and a thinner chord so they act and feel a bit livelier when sailing and manoeuvring. The shorter keels have a longer chord, but give you the ability to navigate shallower areas. Like all keel designs, twin keels do have some downsides. They are more expensive than fin keels, and when you’re sailing fast in choppy seas at a steep angle of heel, you can occasionally get a slapping sound when an air pocket is caught and pressed out under the windward fin. Lastly, we’ve yet to meet an owner who enjoys antifouling between the keels. Thankfully it only has to be done once a year and with twin keels you might get away with doing it less frequently. A twin keel yacht can be kept on a drying mooring, where fouling is reduced because the hull spends more time out of the water. And when you’re off cruising it’s easy to give the bottom a quick scrub while the yacht is dried out.

Our yachts will happily sit on their keels on a hard surface, like a drying grid, or for winter storage but on softer surfaces we use the rudder for additional support. The rudders on our twin keel yachts are specially reinforced for this: we use a Delrin sheave to take the weight of the hull and the tip of the rudder has a wide, foil-like foot to spread the weight.

A lifting swing keel

We are one of a few manufacturers to offer a lifting swing keel. There’s a lot of confusion with the term ‘lifting keel’, it seems to encompass all yachts that have centreboards, variable draught, lift-keels or swing keels. To us, a lifting keel boat should have all the ballasted weight of the boat in the keel, and that keel needs to be retracted into the hull.

Technically, a lifting keel is a keel that can be lifted or lowered and gives the boat the ability to dry out when the tide goes out. A lift-keel is a ballasted keel that raises and lowers vertically. A swing keel has a ballasted fin that has a single pivot point and the keel swings up into the boat. There are other variants of design, for example some have a lifting keel to reduce the draught of the vessel but they cannot dry out on it, others have a ballasted keel and ballasted grounding plate. All these examples have a keel that does two things: keep the boat upright and stop her sliding sideways. Our swing keel is designed with a NACA profile to give the most efficient performance.

Centreboard yachts have a centreplate to provide grip in the water and reduce leeway. The plate may carry only 15-20% of the ballast but the rest of the yacht’s ballast is within the hull and/or in the grounding plate. This is called an “integral keel” and is more common as it’s less complicated to build. The lower a yacht’s ballast is located, the better her stability, the more comfortable her motion and the better she stands up to her sail area. The most efficient place for the ballast is as low down on the deepest keel possible – this is why race boats have deep skinny keels with large torpedo-shaped bulbs on the bottom, but they don’t make practical cruising sailboats.

Our keel designs have more weight in the tip (bottom) – using a bulb on the fin and twin keel design and flaring the lower sections on our lifting swing keel yachts. You don’t have this with centreboard and integral keel yachts.

It might be surprising, but a lot of owners come to us thinking that a lifting swing keel is the best option for them. Sometimes it is, but about 98% of customers who approach us because we offer swing keels end up sailing away on a twin-keel Sirius.

The downsides of a lifting keel

A lifting swing keel does give you more cruising options. It will lift should you run into something and, of course, it gives you the shallowest draught. But that difference is only 40-50cm (1ft 4in to 1ft 8in) less draught than our shallow twin keel option. The lifting keel increases the complexity of the build and the final cost of the yacht; it also sometimes limits the internal layout and engine drive options, and you need to have twin rudders too. Twin rudders make the boat less manoeuvrable in a marina – you can opt for a third central rudder which does improve the handling, but again comes at an extra cost.

On the lifting swing keel, 40 and 310 owners are restricted to the use of a shaft drive, which is less efficient and you have to accept a bit more noise and vibration. When drying out, the drive is more vulnerable to damage, whereas it’s totally clear when taking the ground on twin keels. With twin keels, you also do not have to worry about something sticking out of the beach or stones lying around because the hull is high above the ground. With the hull up high, you do not have to dig a hole in the sand and slide down on your stomach to check or change your anodes as you would on a swing keel.

Sailors who are attracted to the idea of a lifting swing keel should carefully consider the pros and cons to compromise the least. When owners understand the repercussions of choosing a lifting keel yacht, many of them feel it restricts their options too much. They could have a lifting keel or they can sail with twin keels, dry out, have better close-quarters handling and save money in the process. Unless you need the shallowest possible draught – 0.75m (2ft 5in) on the 310 DS, 0.9m (2ft 11in) on the 35 DS or 0.95m (3ft 1in) on the 40 DS – a twin keel might well be a better option.

How are the keels attached?

The design of the keel is important but the way they are attached is just as important, if not more so. All of our fixed keels are through-bolted. Every keel has a wide flange at the root (top) of the keel and the flange sits into a reinforced recess in the hull. The flange and the recess work together to spread the loads of the keel/s into the yacht’s hull. The keels are bonded and bolted to the hull. We use up to twelve 20mm and 24mm bolts (per keel) and these go through rolled stainless steel backing plates inside the hull to spread the bolt loads evenly into the fully laminated keel grid which goes all the way up to the chainplates and also carries the mast support.

For our lifting swing keel, we laminate a substantial keel box as part of the hull to accept the keel and the hydraulic mechanism needed to retract the keel into the hull. Unlike most other boatbuilders we don’t use a grounding plate to take the weight of the yacht, our yachts sit on the length of the leading edge of the keel. Integral keels with the majority of the ballast in the grounding plates move the ballast (weight) from low down in the keel to inside the hull. This negatively affects the stability as the more weight you have lower down, the better.

We also don’t like grounding plates because they bring the hull in contact with the ground. By leaving 10-15 cm (4-6in) of the keel out of the hull when it’s retracted, most of the time the hull is kept clear of the beach and anything that could damage it.

The problem with too much form stability

With only 15-12% of their ballast in the centreboard, most lifting-keel yachts cannot rely on keel weight for stability so their hulls need to be designed with extra form stability instead. This means the hull sections have to be much wider and flatter. A flat-bottomed hull is not what you want for a comfortable ocean cruising yacht; it isn’t sea-kindly or easy to steer in waves and gusty winds conditions. We don’t make that compromise at Sirius. With all the ballast in the swinging part of our swing keel design, we can use the same seaworthy, ocean-capable hull shape designed for our yachts with fixed keels.

If you don’t know which keel would be best for your Sirius, contact us to discuss the type of sailing you intend to do, where you want to sail and what your cruising aspirations are.

General Manager – Torsten Schmidt SIRIUS-WERFT GmbH Ascheberger Straße 68 24306 Plön/Holstein

Fax: 0049 – 4522 – 744 61-29

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13 Most Popular Swing Keel Sailboats Worth Considering

A swing keel sailboat allows you to explore shallower waters and launch your boat at shallow ramps with greater ease than a fixed keel. Additionally, swing keel sailboats are typically more affordable than fixed keel sailboats. In this article, we will introduce you to the 13 most popular swing keel sailboats that you may want to consider.

The 13 most popular swing keel sailboats that you may find worthy to consider are the following: Catalina 22, MacGregor 26, Hunter 22, Precision 23, O'Day 22, Beneteau First 235, Seaward 25, Islander Bahama 24, Watkins 27, Com-Pac 23, Montgomery 17, San Juan 23, and West Wight Potter 19.

The estimated pricing for the boats with swing keels ranges from $5,000 to $40,000. Let's take a look at which models are the most affordable and which are priced higher.

• Catalina 22 has a swing keel that is made of lead and can be raised and lowered using a winch system.
• The MacGregor 26 has a water ballast system in addition to its swing keel, which provides additional stability and helps keep the boat upright in rough conditions.
• The San Juan 23 is a fast and responsive swing-keeled sailboat that has a sail area-to-displacement ratio of 18.8.
• The Watkins 27 is a fast swing keel sailboat that has a reported top speed of around 7 knots.
• The O'Day 22 features a swing keel that is retractable and allows it to sail in waters as shallow as 2 feet.

On this page:

Catalina 22, macgregor 26, precision 23, beneteau first 235, islander bahama 24, san juan 23, west wight potter 19, montgomery 17.

Below is a table summarizing why each of these swing keel sailboats is worth considering, as well as their estimated market price in case you'd proceed with buying them:

The Catalina 22 is a popular sailboat model that has been in production since 1969. It is known for its versatility, ease of use, and affordability. One of the key features of the Catalina 22 is its swing keel, which allows it to be easily trailered and launched in shallow waters.

The swing keel on the Catalina 22 is made of lead and is attached to a cable that runs through a slot in the hull. The keel can be raised and lowered using a winch system, which allows the boat to navigate in shallow waters or be easily transported on a trailer.

When the keel is lowered, it provides stability and helps the boat sail upwind. When the keel is raised, the boat can be easily maneuvered in shallow waters or on a trailer.

This makes the Catalina 22 an ideal sailboat for those who want the flexibility to sail in a variety of conditions and locations. Catalina 22 is also a very affordable swing keel sailboat option. If you're curious about how much it costs to buy and own a sailboat , you can take a look at our article.

The MacGregor 26 is a popular trailerable sailboat that was first introduced in 1986. One of its unique features is the swing keel water ballast system, which allows the boat to be easily transported on a trailer and launched at various locations.

The swing keel is a retractable keel that can be raised or lowered depending on the water depth. When it is lowered, it provides additional stability and helps the boat track better through the water. When it is raised, the boat can be easily transported on a trailer.

The water ballast system is another unique feature of the MacGregor 26. The boat has two water tanks located on either side of the keel, which can be filled with up to 1,500 pounds of water. This water ballast provides additional stability and helps keep the boat upright in rough conditions.

If you're interested to know more about how sailing ballasts work , here's an article that can give you more information.

The Hunter 22 with a swing keel is a great sailboat for those who are looking for a versatile and easy-to-handle vessel. The swing keel allows the boat to navigate in shallow waters and provides better stability in deeper waters, so it is ideal for those who enjoy sailing in a variety of conditions and locations.

In addition, the Hunter 22 is a relatively affordable sailboat, making it a great option for those who are just starting out in sailing or who want to own a sailboat without breaking the bank. It is also a popular choice for families, as it can comfortably accommodate up to four people.

The Hunter 22 has a rich history, with the first model being introduced in 1973. Since then, the boat has undergone several design changes and upgrades, with the current model featuring modern amenities and technology.

The Precision 23 is a popular swing keel sailboat that is well-regarded for its versatility and performance. The swing keel design allows the boat to be easily launched and retrieved from a trailer.

One of the benefits of the Precision 23's swing keel design is its ability to sail in shallow waters. With the keel up, the boat has a draft of just 1'8", which allows it to navigate in areas that would be inaccessible to deeper-draft boats, such as coastal areas, bays, and estuaries.

When the keel is lowered, the Precision 23 has a draft of 5'0", which provides excellent stability and performance under sail. The boat is designed to be easy to handle, with a simple rig that is easy to set up and adjust. The spacious cockpit provides plenty of room for the crew to move around, and the cabin is well-appointed with all the amenities needed for comfortable cruising.

The O'Day 22 features a swing keel that is retractable and can be raised or lowered depending on the depth of the water. This feature allows the O'Day 22 to sail in waters as shallow as 2 feet, making it ideal for exploring shallow coves and bays.

This sailboat has a spacious cockpit, making it comfortable for day sailing or weekend trips. The cabin is compact but efficient, with a small galley, a portable toilet, and sleeping accommodations for up to four people.

The O'Day 22 is a popular choice for sailors of all skill levels, from beginners to experienced sailors. Its ease of use, versatility, and affordability make it a great choice for anyone looking for a reliable and fun sailboat.

The Beneteau First 235 is a popular sailboat that was first introduced in the early 1980s. It is a swing keelboat, which means that it has a retractable keel that can be raised or lowered depending on the depth of the water.

The boat is 23.5 feet long and has a beam of 8 feet so it is a relatively small boat that is easy to handle. It has a displacement of around 2,500 pounds, making it light, and can be easily towed behind a car.

The Beneteau First 235 is a popular boat because it is a well-designed and well-built sailboat that is both fast and easy to handle. The boat has a relatively narrow beam, which allows it to cut through the water with less resistance and achieve higher speeds.

Additionally, the boat has a relatively large sail area, which means that it can catch more wind and generate more power. The boat's hull shape is also optimized for speed, with a deep V-shaped hull that helps to reduce drag and increase stability. Deep-V hulls are one of the most stable boat hull designs .

The Seaward 25 is a swing-keeled sailboat that was designed by Hake Yachts and is popular among sailors who are looking for a versatile and easy-to-handle boat for both cruising and racing.

In addition to its swing keel, the Seaward 25 is also known for its spacious and comfortable interior. The boat has a large V-berth and a convertible dinette that can comfortably sleep up to four people. The boat also has a galley with a sink and a stove, as well as a private head with a marine toilet.

Another reason why the Seaward 25 is popular is because of its speed and maneuverability, making it a great choice for sailors who want to race or cruise at a fast pace. The boat is also relatively easy to handle so it can be sailed even by beginners.

The Islander Bahama 24 is a popular swing keel sailboat designed by Robert Finch and built by Islander Yachts from 1977 to 1982. It is a small, versatile sailboat that is great for day sailing, weekend cruising, and even racing.

The Bahama 24 has a spacious cockpit that can comfortably seat four people, and its interior is surprisingly roomy for a boat of its size. It has a V-berth forward, a dinette that converts into a double berth, and a quarter berth aft. There is also a small galley with a sink and a portable stove, as well as a marine head.

The Bahama 24 is a solid performer. It has a moderate sail area and a well-balanced rig, which makes it easy to handle in a variety of wind conditions. It is also known for its stability and its ability to sail close to the wind.

The Watkins 27 is a popular swing keel sailboat that was manufactured in the United States by Watkins Yachts from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s. It was designed by Walter Scott and is known for its spacious interior and good sailing performance.

The Watkins 27 has a length overall of 27 feet and a beam of 9 feet, 4 inches. It has a displacement of around 6,000 pounds. The boat has a spacious interior with a comfortable salon, galley, head, and sleeping accommodations for up to six people.

In terms of sailing performance, the Watkins 27 is known for being a good all-around performer. It has a moderate sail plan and a relatively low aspect ratio, which makes it easy to handle and forgiving for novice sailors. It is also a reasonably fast boat, with a reported top speed of around 7 knots.

The Com-Pac 23 is a popular swing keel sailboat that has been in production since the early 1980s. It is a versatile boat that can be used for cruising, racing, and day sailing. It is also a fast boat that can easily reach speeds of 6-7 knots in moderate winds.

The Com-Pac 23 has a spacious cockpit that can comfortably seat up to six people. The boat is also equipped with a cabin that can sleep up to four people and has a galley with a sink, stove, and icebox. The headroom in the cabin is generous for a boat of this size, and the layout is designed to maximize space and comfort.

The San Juan 23 is a popular swing keel sailboat that was first introduced in the early 1970s. It was designed by Bruce Kirby and built by Clark Boat Company in Kent, Washington. The boat was designed to be a versatile and affordable sailboat that could be used for cruising, racing, and day sailing.

Another feature that makes the San Juan 23 popular is its spacious cockpit and comfortable interior. The boat can accommodate up to four people and has a small galley, a head, and a V-berth. The cabin is well-ventilated and has plenty of natural light, making it a comfortable place to spend time below deck.

The San Juan 23 is a fast and responsive sailboat. It has a sail area-to-displacement ratio of 18.8, which means that it can achieve high speeds even in light winds. The boat is also very stable, which makes it easy to handle in rough conditions.

The West Wight Potter 19 is a popular swing keel sailboat that has been in production since the early 1970s. It is known for its versatility, durability, and ease of use, making it a popular choice among sailors of all skill levels.

Aside from its swing keel, it also has a relatively wide beam and a low center of gravity, which helps to keep it stable in a variety of conditions. The cockpit is spacious and comfortable, with plenty of room for passengers and crew.

In terms of performance, the West Wight Potter 19 is not the fastest sailboat on the water, but it is known for its ability to handle a variety of conditions. The boat is easy to sail and can be handled by a single person, so it is great for solo sailors or couples.

The Montgomery 17 is a popular sailboat designed by Lyle C. Hess and built by Montgomery Marine Products. One of the unique features of this sailboat is its swing keel, which allows it to be easily transported on a trailer and launched in shallow waters.

The Montgomery 17 has a classic design with a cabin that can sleep up to four people. It has a simple rigging system that makes it easy to sail, even for beginners. The sailboat is also known for its durability and has been used for long-distance cruising and racing.

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Professional BoatBuilder Magazine

Notes on sailing-yacht hullforms, part 2.

By Jay Paris , Mar 22, 2022

In “Notes on Sailing-Yacht Hullforms” ( Professional BoatBuilder No. 196, page 32) naval architect Jay Paris, citing drawings and photographs of his own designs as well as the lines of other designers, detailed some characteristics, attributes, and design methods used to develop monohull sailboat hullforms. Because of space constraints in the print magazine, we are publishing Paris’s additional notes and reference material on Proboat.com. In addition to his sections on fin-keel variants and parent hullforms, Paris includes a reference list of hullforms worthy of note for a number of reasons—aesthetics, excellence as examples of their type, historic significance, or design methodology. All but one of the hullforms in this Part 2 are round bottomed, and all the yachts cited, which were built during the past century, are wooden boat designs. The lengths for the hullforms in this article are length of hull (LOH) since length overall (LOA) includes extensions to the hull such as bowsprits and boomkins and length on deck (LOD) is often less than the hull due to bulwarks and reverse transoms. —Ed.

Twin-Keel and Retracting-Foil Variants

A variant of the fin-keel design is the twin-keel. Most common on coastal cruisers intended to take the ground when the tide is out, they reflect an empirical approach to their design. A few are serious offshore passagemakers, including the noteworthy Bluebird of Thorne .

This design is the combination of Robb’s talent and tank testing along with Lord Riverdale’s experience with his previous Bluebirds when he was R.A, Balfour. Bluebird of Thorne ’s keels canted outboard at 20°, and normal to her near circular midsection, were low aspect ratio, highly swept back asymmetrical foils that Robb implied were towed inboard and certainly were more sophisticated than those of almost all other twin keelers. Robb’s strong favorable opinions about this design concept have been frequently quoted in detail.

A more current fin-keel variation is the use of canting keels, with or without lift-generating sections, employed on offshore racers to shift the ballast bulb to weather to increase their righting moments.

Parent Sailing-Yacht Hullforms and Evolution

Historically, designers have used specific earlier boats as the basis for follow-on designs, in some cases very closely but with changes in the overall size and proportions. For example, Nathanael Greene Herreshoff had noticeable success using his 26 ’ (7.92m) Alerion III NGH 718 of 1912 as the parent for designs as large as the 33.42 ’ (10.19m) Newport 29 of 1914 and the 43.25 ’ (13.18m) Fishers Island 31, designed by his son Sidney using NGH’s offsets.

The lines shown incorporate the cutaway deadwood aft with a balance portion of the rudder forward of the rudderstock as found in the Alerion copies by the Sanford Boat Company. Eliminating these features would restore the lines to the original NGH configuration.

Maynard Bray, in his book Aida , includes a photograph of Herreshoff’s offset booklet pages used in the mathematical expansion to create the 33.67 ’ (10.26m) Aida of 1926. The Buzzards Bay 25 of 1914 looks perhaps to be the least likely of being an Alerion derivative.

L.F. Herreshoff said the Buzzard’s Bay 25 was his favorite of his father’s designs.

Another famous parent hullform is the Pilot S&S 539, 32.92 ’ (10.03m) wooden stock class sloop of 1945. Olin Stephens wrote in Lines 2002 that the Pilot was “drawn in the Boston office by K. Aage Nielsen, who was, in theory, working under my supervision.” The later S&S 1727 fiberglass version from the New York office was lengthened to 36.07 ’ (10.99m).

Since there are not lines available in my references for the 1962 Pilot, this rendering by Al Mason gives a good sense of her hullform. Mason drew perspectives for many S&S designs.

The beautiful Anitra S&S 1358 48.42 ‘ (14.76m) yawl of 1958, the largest of the Pilot family, was the overall winner of the 1959 Fastnet Race.

In my own practice, The Paris Design P-32 (9.75m) Petrel is the parent of the later P-37, G-37, and OCC-47 designs.

While the P-32 hullform had many atypical features, a number of them were optimized for her longitudinally framed wood-foam-wood composite construction.

The P-32’s longitudinals are shown fitted into the molds setup at her stations. The clamps and longitudinals are laminated mahogany with the latter located on her waterlines ready for the double-diagonal planking to be glued and fastened. The temporary pine longitudinals in the underbody will be protected from any glue by duct tape prior to the first layer of planks being installed. The staples into the longitudinals are pulled as the second layer of planking is glued and stapled to the first. All permanent staples are Monel. The uppermost pine longitudinals are just above the tops of the bulwarks.

Those using state-of-the-art yacht design software often morph parents to the extent that their design “DNA” is no longer apparent.

Hullform evolution is similar but less slavishly derivative than the use of parent hullforms. The Viking ships of a thousand years ago are candidates for the most elegant hullforms of all time. The Scandinavian preference for double-enders has followed this fashion in some degree to modern times. Colin Archer’s Redningsskoite (rescue boats), which evolved from them, have inspired designers to this day. William Atkin’s 38 ’ (11.58m) ketch Ingrid , his highly refined granddaughter of this type, is considered to be one of his best designs.

Ingrid ’s fine lines with a wineglass midsection and 6 tons of outside and internal ballast contribute to the design’s good performance.

Knud Reimers’s Cohoe is a 1932, 32 ’ enlargement of his famous and beautiful 27 ’ (8.23m) Tumlare of 1927. These designs introduced lighter displacement and finer lines than earlier Scandinavian double-enders. Many consider the Tumlares to have the most beautiful hullforms of all time.

Knud Reimers, well-known for his Square-Meter boats, applied the same design philosophy to this double-ended cruiser. Reimers and I discussed his diagonals and contracted fairing approach during a week of sailing in the early 1970s.

A small Danish fishing boat type with very full sterns typical of the sound north of Copenhagen was the parent of the Spidsgatter classes of sailing yachts. Aage Nielsen, a Dane, was familiar with the type. Some of his smaller designs from 15 ’ to 26 ’ (4.57m to 7.92m) were referred to as Nielsenized Spidsgatters. Their full sterns were models for that of Holger Danske , his 42.5’ (12.95m) cruising ketch that won the 1980 Newport-to-Bermuda Race by a large margin.

One of Aage Nielsen’s favorite designs, Holger Danske , had a slippery hull, a low rating, and sailed like fury on a reach.

Over time, many working craft have served as models for sailing yachts. The danger, at times, has been designers ignoring the original function, loading, and the wind and sea conditions for which working craft were developed.

Design evolution can also be seen amongst ocean racers. Olin Stephens’s Stormy Weather came seven years after the famous Dorade of 1929, which had introduced the forms of his earlier inshore Six-Meter designs to the offshore world. These two sisters established a trend for blended-body ocean racers for some four decades.

Stormy Weather , slightly longer than Dorade , of similar displacement but with 22% more beam, was a favorite of her designer.

Sources From My Library

Starting before high school with the original five Uffa Fox books of 1934/1938, my office library has grown to almost a thousand books on sailing and sailing yachts with most containing technical material as well as numerous technical reports. I also have some 100 volumes addressing hydrodynamics, aerodynamics, and aerospace design containing material applicable to sailing yachts not addressed in yachting publications.

Lines drawings from my library that I consider worthy of note and reference but not embedded in the text are shown below with captions and sources. Note: Lines in the early five Uffa Fox books were redrawn by Fox.

Starling Burgess. Nina , 59’ Staysail Schooner, 1928.

Just one of Starling Burgess’s many beautiful sets of lines from the multi-talented aviation pioneer and yacht designer. Nina ’s blended body hullform was a very early example of the long waterline with short overhangs concept currently (2022) in vogue.

Howard I. Chapelle. Clipper-Bowed Centerboarder, 1936

Howard I. Chapelle was an eminent yacht designer and a historian who chronicled the designs of American working sailing craft. He chose a traditional clipper-bowed centerboarder to illustrate the steps in developing a lines drawing in his classic text on design of 1936.

Frederick A. Fenger. Diablesse , 38’ Wishbone Ketch, 1935

Frederick Fenger was an advocate of the dhow hullform with its unusual maximum draft near the bow. Diablesse ’s maximum draft was 23% of the waterline abaft the bow. Her forebody had V-shaped sections, hollow waterlines, and easy diagonals.

William Garden. Oceanus , 60’ Narrow Doubled-Ended Sloop, 1954

An example of a designer’s atypical boat for himself. An elegant, narrow sixty-footer (18.29m) intended for a crew of two, Garden and his wife. Interestingly, to quote an article in the January 1961 issue of Motor Boating : “ Oceanus was launched bottom up; there were considerable advantages in building her hull that way, and she was run into the water, parbuckled, and pumped out at insignificant cost and no risk compared with the tricky job of turning a hull of that size on shore.”

N.G. Herreshoff. Aida , 33.67’ Keel/Centerboard Yawl, 1926

Lines drawn by Doug Hylan from Original HMC 1002 Offsets. For the subtitle of his book, Maynard Bray wrote, “N.G. Herreshoff’s finest shallow-draft yawl.” Adding to the praise is the quote in the Preface that L. Francis Herreshoff called her “probably the finest boat of her size in the world.” In his book, Bray documents the evolution of Aida from Alerion through Pleasure NGH 907, the second of his shallow keel/centerboarders with low-aspect-ratio triangular foils.

L. Francis Herreshoff. Rozinante , 24’ Canoe Yawl (Ketch Rig), 1956

LFH’s graceful and leaner interpretation of the English canoe yawl was the only example of its type to be widely seen on American waters. Roger Taylor quoted LFH: “A canoe yawl can be about the safest that can be had since her design is based on those most seaworthy open boats ever known—whaleboats.”

George Holmes. Trent , 25’ Canoe Yawl, 1910

George Holmes, a designer and artist, was in the forefront of the English canoe yawl world. The term canoe yawl deserves explanation. It has nothing to do with the rig but rather with size, it being the same size or smaller than a ship’s yawl boat. The term canoe relates to it being either a day boat or coastal cruiser.

Robert Perry. Amati , 40’ High-Aspect-Ratio Fin-Keel, Spade-Rudder, Wood-Foam-Wood Composite, Fast Cruising Sloop, 1999

A significant departure from Perry’s early double-enders, this is one of his light-displacement sleds, for a couple with the emphasis on off-the-wind speed. His early designs were often double enders including the iconic Valiant with its full-ended cruiser stern. The term cruiser stern refers to the sterns on the cruiser class of warships prior to World War II.

Knud Riemers. Moose , 43.0’ 30-Square-Meter Sloop, 1934

Moose was the 1935 US 30-Square-Meter champion. Uffa Fox stated in 1936 that she was “probably the finest example of a 30-Square-Meter in the world.”

Sparkman & Stephens. Babe , 30.5’ Fractional Sloop, 1935

Babe , a favorite of Olin Stephens, was one of the 49 designs he illustrated and commented on in his book Lines. The modern S&S 30, purported to be an update of Babe and assigned a “1935” based design number 97-c2, has nothing in common with the original’s hullform.

Sparkman & Stephens. 1834 Intrepid , 64.25’ 12-Meter Sloop, 1967

Although conventional thinking states that deep draft is required for optimal windward performance, the heavily ballasted 12-Meters with minimal salient keel prove the exception. While articles about S&S designs often stated new from the board of OJS, it was not so during my time at the Madison Ave. office. Olin’s board did not have any room for drawings, so he would come into the main portion of the office to review a designer’s work and suggest changes, for example, to Mario Tarabocchia’s 12-Meter lines. I had the privilege of being involved in this process with the preliminary design of S&S 1770 Ta Aroa a New Zealand A Class racer. Olin had me start with a 5.5 meter’s lines, doubling their size, and proceeding under his guidance.

E.G. van de Stadt. Zeevalk , 41’ V-Bottom Plywood, Fin-Keel, Spade-Rudder, Fractional Sloop, 1949

This second design of E.G. van de Stadt’s and the first for Bruynzeel established his reputation as an innovative designer with a preference for fin-keel, spade-rudder configurations. This perspective or isometric illustrates Zeevalk ’s V-bottom hullform and the short-chord trim tab on the trailing edge of her fin keel.

Joel White. Dragonera , JW Design 49 74’ Fin-Keel Ketch, 1993

Joel White’s designs varied from traditional hullforms and construction in the fashion of Herreshoff and Nielsen to cold-molded fin keel types.

Jay Paris Designs:

No. 10 Aeromarine 50, 50 ’ Tall Mizzen Ketch 1968

No. 24 Lone Star, 54 ’ LOH Clipper Bow Ketch 1976

No. 27 Freedom 33, 33 ’ Cat Ketch for Gary Hoyt 1977

No. 33 P-32, 32 ’ Keel/Centerboard Sloop 1982

No. 40 P-45/Y-45, 45 ’ Ketch for YW/CW Contests 1988

No. 43 OCC/Sail, 43 ’ Sloop for Sail Article 1992 (An Ocean Cruising Club member survey design)

No. 48 P-37, Yawl for IBEX and METS Lectures 2007

No. 51 G-37, Keel/CB Yawl for a CCA Lecture 2014

No. 53 OCC-47, Keel/Centerboard Ketch 2018 (A rethink of the 1992 OCC member survey requirements)

Lines Drawings Reading List

In the following books, design examples illustrate the step-by-step creation of the lines reflecting the hullforms in fashion when the texts were written:

Chapelle, Howard I. Yacht Designing and Planning , 1936.

Clipper Bow 33.33 ’ DWL Shoal-Draft Centerboarder.

Kinney, Francis. Skene’s Elements of Yacht Design , 8th Ed., 1973.

Pipe Dream 25.42 ’ DWL Cruising Yacht.

Phillips-Birt, Douglas. Sailing Yacht Design , 3rd Ed., 1966 and 1976.

Full Keel 30 ’ DWL Fast Cruiser Including design using Diagonals.

Larsson, Lars and Rolf Eliasson. Principals of Yacht Design . 3rd/4th Eds., 2007 and 2014.

YD-40 39.5 ’ 2007 and YD-41 41 ’ 2014 Fin Keel Fast Cruising Yachts.

These books discuss various technical design details and parameters used by yacht designers:

Brewer, Ted. Ted Brewer Explains Sailboat Design , 1985.

Killing, Steve. Yacht Design Explained , 1998.

Perry, Robert H. Yacht Design According to Perry , 2008.

For a more theoretical explanation of the factors influencing sailing yacht design, I recommend:

Marchaj, C.A. Sailing Theory and Practice , 2nd Ed., 1982.

Marchaj, C.A. Seaworthiness: The Forgotten Factor , 1996.

Fossati, Fabio. Aero-Hydrodynamics and the Performance of Sailing Yachts , 2007.

Slooff, J.W. The Aero- and Hydrodynamics of Keel Yachts , 2015.

Bruce, Peter. Heavy Weather Sailing , 7th Ed., 2016.

About the Author: While attending Webb Institute Jay Paris worked two winters and one summer at Sparkman & Stephens. His graduate studies at MIT focused mostly on oceanography and research-vessel design. He also managed the MIT towing tank and operations of the yacht-testing program and participated in the international investigations into the 1979 Fastnet Race disaster. After MIT he was involved in the design of winches for the America’s Cup and high-end racing yachts, the design and construction of various sailboats, and the writing and editing of articles on sailing yachts for a number of different journals.

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