full keel sailboats

Better Sailing

Full Keel Vs Fin Keel On Sailboats

There are many types of keels, but the main two categories are Full and Fin Keels. Traditionally, cruising boats had a full keel, and that made them very stable in the water. This design prevailed for decades until the industry began to realize the emergence of a new type of consumer, the weekend vacationer, or sailor. For this new client, those high benefits were not a priority because rarely, if never to say, would he move away from the coast.

What is the Keel For?

Sailboats have keels to reduce the amount of slippage to leeward (the opposite side of the boat the wind is coming from). In essence, the keel of a sailboat has the function of compensating the action of the wind on the sails, preventing dejection, converting that force into thrust, and making the ship stay on course. As a general rule, the heavier and deeper a keel is, the more stable a boat is. 

Full Keel or Fin Keel?

Each keel shape has advantages and disadvantages, you will never have the “perfect” keel for your boat. But, the best keel for you and your boat completely depends on the style of sailing that you are planning on doing. 

Full Keel Sailboats

Although full keels are by far the least efficient design, they offer incredible strength and versatility. If we want to explore new waters in which we could run aground, or travel offshore, a complete keel will keep our backs better than any other. One thing is certain though, a full keel will never fall off your boat as a fin keel can.

Full Keel Advantages: 

• Handles better in tough weather
• Better directional stability
• Maneuver well in downwind conditions
• Better for offshore sailing and ocean passes
• Their movements are softer to be more in tune with the movement of the sea itself.
• Since the full keel runs through the entire hull, the forces exercised on it are transferred to a very large area, so it is often said that they are more robust.
• Thanks to their shape, they respond better to an impact against the bottom than a boat with fin keel, which could be seriously damaged.
• The rudder and propeller are more protected against a possible collision.
• If you stranded with a complete keel sailboat, the forces will be well distributed, the damage will be (in theory) minimal and your biggest concern (although not small) will be to see how to get the boat out of there.
• More stable when sitting still at anchor

Full Keel  Disadvantages : 

• Slower compared to a fin keel boat
• Handles poorly in winward conditions
• Usually more cramped than fin keeled boats.
• The turning radius is larger, which makes maneuvering in tight spaces difficult, and turning them with a weak wind can be difficult.
• You have to help more with the engine, which translates into increased wear and an increase in fuel consumption.

Fin Keel Sailboats

The fin keel is, by far, the most common type in modern sailboats. A fin keel is a flat, narrow and hydrodynamic piece located under the hull. Unlike the running keel, it is not an integral part of it but is screwed to it. To compensate for the relatively small ballast it provides, the fin keel is usually deeper.

Fin Keel  Advantages:

• They are faster than full keel boats
• They maneuver better
• Better for daysailing
• Less resistance to rudder rotation
• Short turning radius
• They usually fit better with tight schedules, such as weekend cruises.

Fin Keel  Disadvantages : 

• Less robustness and have to be repaired sooner.
• They offer less lateral resistance, which can lead to a strong and sudden heel when a wave or gust of wind hits the boat.
• They do not keep their course as well as a full keel boat and demand more effort and attention at the helm.
• The rudder is more exposed and is more vulnerable to shock and material fatigue. In this sense, an important variation of the rudder is the rudder with skeg. The skeg is a sturdy element that offers support and protection to the rudder.
• If we are stranded with a sailboat with a fin keel, we can find cracks or fissures at the junction of the keel with the hull.

Full Keel Vs Fin Keel – Summary

It is said that fin keels are made to outrun a storm and full keels ara made to weather a storm. So, a full keel sailboat will be slower but more stable during bad weather where a fin keel will be faster but more unstable. A fin keel boat will not have a problem sailing during a storm and you will make it out just fine but you will not be as comfortable or “safe” as in a full keel boat.

Your choice also has to do with the length of the boat you will buy. A very small boat will benefit from a full keel and heavy displacement in terms of seaworthiness and safety. However, a small boat with these characteristics will be a slow one. If speed and time are not your concerns then maybe a full keel is a better match for you.

Like so many things in sailing, there are many tradeoffs in this particular choice, and only you can decide what’s best for you.

So, as you can understand, there not a clear winner in this competition. The answer to this question really does depend on what is the purpose of the boat’s design and your individual needs. Will you be using your boat to cruise, make passages, offshore cruising, offshore racing, coastal racing, etc? You first need to answer these questions and get a boat the checks most items on your “wish list”.

Peter is the editor of Better Sailing. He has sailed for countless hours and has maintained his own boats and sailboats for years. After years of trial and error, he decided to start this website to share the knowledge.

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How I became a Full-Keel Convert–Part One

Over the years that I have been sailing, I have logged miles on a number of different craft from an International Sabot up to a steel schooner of about 200 gross tons.  Most of my time has been in small, shoal-draft centerboard sailboats up to about 20 feet long; racing keelboat designs like the J-29; and the few cruising sailboats that I have owned over the years.  I benefitted from spending time in a broad variety of different sailboats by getting a taste of how different types of boats perform in various conditions.  This has given me the opportunity to compare the merits of the different classes of boats.

When I was younger, I craved performance.  I wanted nothing more than to just go as fast as possible on the water.  My desire for speed eventually led me to become a windsurfing enthusiast, but that is a whole other story.  During my high-school and college years I spent a lot of time in International, and then Collegiate 420’s, a two-person dinghy.  I thought they were slow and longed to spend time in a more performance-oriented dinghy, even though the 420’s could easily plane and give a good ride when the whitecaps showed up.  When I started sailing keelboats, it was mostly the smaller J-boats (24’s and 29’s, mostly), but there was time spent on numerous other designs.  I loved the taste of performance multi-hull sailing that I experienced as fill-in crew aboard a Nacra 6.0.  The boats that I sailed in my teens and twenties were mostly well-regarded classes that taught me what a fun, responsive boat felt like.  They sailed well in a wide variety of conditions with good speed and few bad habits.  There is a reason that the one-design dinghies and keelboats that I sailed in were such popular designs–they were good all-round boats.

When I finally had enough money to consider buying my own sailboat I began to consider all aspects of its use.  I couldn’t really justify spending a ton of money on a boat that was only good for racing.  By this time my sights were fixed on the far horizon rather than outright speed.  I wanted to explore the world from the deck of my own sailboat, so I decided to look for a reliable design that could take me anywhere I wanted to go.  What I ended up with was a Pearson Vanguard–a 32-foot racer/cruiser designed to the old Cruising Club of America rating rule.

Buying the Vanguard was a huge step for me in many ways.  It was the first “big” boat that I had ever owned, it was my first home on the water, and it allowed me my first significant experience with something other than a centerboard or fin keel design.

The Vanguard has a “cutaway” keel with the rudder attached to the trailing edge.  Looking at the profile of the boat, there is a lot of area that has been cut away, or hollowed out, making the deep part of the keel start a long way back from the bow.  This is done in an effort to reduce the amount of boat in contact with the water, or wetted surface, to make the boat faster when the wind is light.  This design achieves its intended goal of reducing wetted surface, but pays the price of introducing a couple of undesirable handling characteristics.  The one that I remember most is how the bow would blow downwind when trying to maneuver at low speed.  The high bow and long forward overhang on the Vanguard would catch the wind, turning the boat broadside to the wind very quickly.  There was no underwater surface to counteract this tendency, and the rudder was way under the boat at the end of the shortened keel. This reduced the rudder’s effectiveness by giving it a shorter lever arm for turning the boat.  Fin-keel boats don’t have a surface underwater up forward to stop the bow from blowing away from the wind either, but their rudders are placed farther back on the boat, which gives a stronger turning force and allows better control in low speed situations (especially in reverse) compared to the cutaway-keel boat.

On the positive side, I really came to appreciate some of the good qualities of the cutaway keel on the Vanguard.  The keel on the Vanguard is molded with the boat as one unit.  The shape transitions smoothly from the hull to the keel, which prevents the front part of the keel from loading up with seaweed when sailing–a real plus when there is a lot of weed in the water!  The shape of the keel also helps reduce shock loads in some grounding situations, such as when running onto a sloped sandbar.  Not having a long fin keel sticking out of the boat also reduces structural loads when running aground–in particular eliminating the point-loading at the trailing edge of the fin keel that can cause it to push up into the hull and cause a lot of damage.  Having the rudder attached to the trailing edge of the keel helps prevent seaweed, lobster and crab pot floats, and other fishing gear from getting trapped on the rudder. The keel shields the propeller as well.  I never once had a pot or fishing line caught on my Vanguard, though I often sailed in waters thick with fishing gear.  Besides making my life easier, fishermen don’t exactly appreciate having yachtsmen cut their floats from props and rudders, either…

A cutaway-keel boat tracks better than a fin-keel boat.  The Vanguard didn’t need constant, minute attention to the helm.  I could count on her to track well if I needed to adjust a sheet or otherwise divert my attention for a moment.  This is a great characteristic to have in a cruising boat.  I could balance the boat and let her sail herself for a while if I needed to go forward to attend something or use the head.  I have had some luck locking the helm down on a fin-keel boat to keep them going straight for a short while, but this technique is not as effective as when used on a cutaway-keel boat or a full-keel boat.

Overall, the cutaway-keel Vanguard was a surprisingly enjoyable boat.  I didn’t feel too handicapped by the speed penalty that I paid for the extra wetted surface of the cutaway full keel.  She still had good speed even in light airs, and offered a more comfortable motion than most fin-keel boats that I have been on.  The comfort was due in part to her keel design, but also because the Vanguard was heavier, deeper, lower in freeboard, and had a more moderate beam than the other cruising sailboats that I had experienced.  I don’t want to contribute to the myth that there aren’t any comfortable fin-keel boats out there!  Those boats do exist. They are just more difficult to find (it’s not fashionable to build relatively narrow boats with easy bilge sections these days) and still won’t offer the other advantages of a keel with an attached rudder, like weed-shedding, or a rudder that doesn’t rely solely on the stock for attachment to the boat…

When I went searching for a small, versatile cruiser a few years ago I settled on the Contessa 26.  This design is based on an older design than the Vanguard, and has a much longer cutaway keel.  It is getting pretty close to a full keel, but still has a concave shape to the forward end.  The longer keel eliminated some of the poor handling  characteristics of the more dramatically cut-away keel on the Vanguard.  Having a longer keel gave the rudder a longer lever arm and actually improved steering, even though there was a much longer keel to drag through tight turns.  She tracked like a dream and worked very well with her self-steering gear in all conditions.  I loved sailing this boat.  The Contessa 26 design was close enough to a proper, old-school full-keel boat that it seemed only a small leap to go all the way to a full-keel the next time that I went boat shopping…

Continue reading Part Two here. 

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4 thoughts on “ How I became a Full-Keel Convert–Part One ”

Oh wow Such a useful article! I own more than 15 boats but in the middle of lockdown I became interested in building one. So you article is really helpful and inspiring for a beginner like me. I own a web directory about boating as well. Would you mind if I add your article to my directory?

You’re absolutely welcome to link to this article, Kris! I am happy to read that you enjoyed it. Thanks for the positive feedback.

Great article! Maybe you can help me with something about locating and deciding on the boat I want. Any suggestions about what years or manufacturers or actual sailboats that have full keel rudder systems? It’s not something that is openly stated in most of the classifieds of used sailboats unless there is a photo included. I’m thinking about a 39′-50′ sailboat.

Thanks John

Hi John- There are a huge number of full-keel boats out there. I would suggest that if you find a boat that seems interesting to you as far as size, condition, and price go, that you then check out the specs available on and do an image search looking for a line drawing or a picture of that type of boat out of the water. I prefer to look at line drawings myself, but they are not always easy to find on the web, so the pictures are helpful there.

I am not as familiar with boats in the size rang that you are looking at, but you will probably find that there are fewer full-keel boats in that size range. Yachts larger than about 45 feet have only become common in large numbers relatively recently, and the true full-keel boats are mostly older designs. There are some great designs out there in your size range, though. “Little Ranger” by William Atkin comes to mind on the traditional end of things. See for drawings. There was a fiberglass one for sale a while back in Massachusetts… The Westsail 42 and 43 appear to be well-proportioned, more modern production boats that would be easier to find.

Looking in your size range, especially if you would consider modern-looking boats, I would not ignore boats that have a rudder hung on a heavily-built skeg, as that will greatly expand the number of designs available for consideration. There are some modern designs that have reputations for strong rudders, such as the Amel “Maramu”, the Pacific Seacraft 44, or the Valiant 42, or 47. –Barry

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• Sailboat Reviews

A Look at Sailboat Design: Fin Keels vs. Full Keels

Details like keel design count when considering cruising sailboats..

Photos by Ralph Naranjo

When a keel tears away from a sailboats hull, it makes the loss of a rig or rudder seem like a minor inconvenience. History shows that its an uncommon occurrence, but because we now annually hear of such incidents, weve decided to take a closer look at keels and see what keeps the ballast where it belongs.

The International Sailing Federation (ISAF) Offshore Special Regulations devotes pages to helping sailors prevent and respond to a crew overboard incident. There is nothing about how to handle the loss of a keel or ballast bulb. Some might say this is because such occurrences are so infrequent, while others note that, if youre still upright once the ballast breaks off theres not much you can do other than blow the sheets, douse the sails as quickly as possible and attempt to stop any leaks.

When solo sailor Mike Plants Open 60 Coyote lost her lead bulb in 1992, Mike was lost at sea. Other adventure-sailors have survived near instantaneous capsize precipitated by keel loss. In 2003, round-the-world racer Tim Kent and his crew capsized when Everest Horizontal lost its ballast on the way back from Bermuda. US Sailing Safety at Sea Committee Chairman Chuck Hawley was aboard the racing sloop Charlie, on the way back from Hawaii, when a loud groaning sound led to a deep heel as the lead peeled away from the keel bolts and ballast headed straight to the bottom. This encounter at least had a happy ending thanks to the crews quick actions to douse sail. Apparently the keel had been cast with too little antimony (an additive that causes lead to become a harder alloy). The point here is that keeping the keel attached is as important as keeping the crew safely on board. And for the offshore monohull sailor, preventing a keel loss, like preventing crew overboard, requires some informed forethought.

A ballast keel on a sailboat is a classic example of potential energy poised in a balancing act. The buoyancy of the hull itself offsets the effect of thousands of pounds of lead or iron. At rest, gravitys attraction for the dense material strains against the buoyancy of the hull, and the adjacent garboard region is continuously in tension. Few sailors spend much time contemplating how keel bolts corrode and what cycle-loading does to the resin matrix comprising the garboard region just above the ballast. What is apparent, is that the attachment material, whether it be wood, metal or fiber reinforced plastic (FRP), must be able to support a mass of metal weighing as much as a small truck-and do so day in and day out for decades.

Underway, every tack causes the rig and sailplan to try to lever this ballast package free from the hull. And when the helmsman starts daydreaming about lobster for dinner and wanders off course onto a granite ledge Down East, the keel designed to handle sailing loads takes it on the chin. Its easy to see why experienced designers and builders lose sleep over their decisions about keel shape, structure, and what kind of safety factor should be built into the structure.

Its surprising to discover that with better materials and computer-aided design, we still hear about incidents such as the Rambler capsize in the 2011 Fastnet Race (PS, May 2012). Just as significant is a spate of smaller race boat keel-ectomies that have caused ISAF to send out a cautionary note to sailors around the world, and introduce new structural standards for race boats. Keeping the ballast attached to the boat involves an awareness of a chain-like set of failure points. And one of the most difficult decisions each designer must make is how to marry foil efficiency with a structural safety margin that covers the boats intended usage and the unintended use of the keel as a depth sounding device.

For decades, engineers and naval architects have had to contend with some racing sailors Icarus-like quest-a trend that prioritizes shedding weight and making the keel foil a long, thin appendage with a high-aspect ratio. Though not quite a flight toward the sun with wings made of wax and feathers, some race-boat scan’tlings walk a fine line between lightweight and structural failure. The challenge lies in attaching a lead bulb on a high-tensile steel foil to a lightweight, high-modulus, FRP hull. Interconnecting the dense metallic ballast to the lower-density foam/fiberglass hull structure is a true engineering puzzle. Part of the challenge lies in the dissipation of point loads (confined to a relatively small area) and how to handle the resulting stress risers. A stress riser is the point at which theres an abrupt change in a materials flexibility, such as where a stiff, fin keel meets the more elastic hull bottom. In FRP composites like those found in a balsa-cored hull, stress risers are a likely place for delamination to occur. Over time, these can result in the failure of the FRP composite.

The see-saw effect of the keel counteracting a vessels righting moment is a mathematically predictable energy transfer. Even the effect of groundings such as those that turn hull speed into a dead stop can be quantified. But its the cumulative effect of fatigue (localized structural damage caused by cyclical loading) and corrosion that are harder to pin down.

The term allision refers to hitting a fixed object such as a granite ledge or coral reef. Naval architects analyze the energy transfer and evaluate the stress and strain characteristics that occur. The recognition that the keel-to-hull connection must endure even more punishment than is doled out in heavy-weather sailing episodes is at the heart of how structural specs are devised.

Designers also must consider the jack-hammer-like pounding of a keel on a reef in surf, and realize that there are limits to the abuse a keel and hull can endure. With this in mind, its reasonable to assume that sailboat keels should be built to handle sailing induced loads for decades. It is the extra safety factor built into the boat that defines what happens when the sandbar is a rock pile.

What is harder to anticipate are the unusual encounters that can inflict serious damage to the keel connection. Take, for example, what happens when a sailboats deep fin keel is wedged in a rocky cleft and a good Samaritan with a big powerboat attempts to pivot the sailboat using a line attached to the bow. The distance from the keels vertical centerline to the stem may be 20 feet or more, and with a couple of thousand pounds of bollard pull, the 20-foot lever arm creates a rotary force that can spike to 40,000 foot-pounds or more. This level of torque goes well beyond what most designers and builders model as sailing loads, and its likely to seriously damage the boat.

In plain low-tech talk, extreme fin keels provide a valuable performance edge, but they come with their own set of downsides that every owner needs to be aware of. In essence, the more radical the keel shape, the better the crew must navigate.

A couple of decades ago, PS Technical Editor Ralph Naranjo ran a boatyard and had a client who liked to cut the corners during Block Island Race Week. His first spinnaker reach into a granite boulder stopped the boat and shoved the companionway ladder upward six inches. This underscored how an allision that causes the keel to stop abruptly transfers a shock wave through the entire hull. The resulting compression cracked several transverse members in the New York 40 and damaged the core in the canoe body near the garboard.

The FRP repairs had to be tapered and all delamination problems resolved. The moderate-aspect-ratio lead fin keel absorbed a good deal of the blunt trauma. Judging from the cannonball-size dent on the leading edge of the lead keel, it was clear that the impact was significant. The dent offered grim proof of the advantage of having soft lead instead of steel as keel ballast. New floor frames were added, the broken transverse members were replaced, and the boat was off and sailing.

The next season, the boat had another Block Island encounter, and only because the Petersen-designed New York 40 was a pretty ruggedly built boat was a second repair even considered. This time, an equally violent keel-to-hull trauma came from an on-the-wind encounter with a different rock. The extent of the delamination was greater than it had been in the first go round, and more extensive core removal and repair was required. The keel was dropped in order to check the bolts and the garboard. With the bilge fully opened for the FRP repair work, the repair crew made a pattern of the canoe body dead rise and fore and aft contour. As the glass work was being completed, they fabricated a stainless-steel grid that would spread keel loads fore and aft as well as athwartship. The new grid reinforced the keel attachment and returned the sloop to the race course.

Afterward, Naranjo and the owner discussed the details of the repair, including the possibility of hidden, widespread damage from the two groundings. These included the dynamic loads imposed upon the chainplates and rigging, the likelihood of hidden resin-cracking, and potential for more delamination and core shear linked to the torque induced by the accident. In short, any serious allision causes overt and hard-to-detect damage far from the actual impact zone, and these can lead to more problems down the road. When buying a used boat, look for a good pedigree, but also look for signs of previous blunt-force trauma. A good surveyor will be skilled in such structural forensics, and he or she will do more than comment on the gelcoat shine.

In the early days of wooden ships and iron men, a lack of dense metal ballast put less point-loading in the garboard region of the hull. Bilges free of cargo were filled with rocks or tighter-fitting granite blocks cut for more compact stacking. The principal of ballasting a vessel was to lower her center of gravity (CG) and create both an increase in the righting arm and a greater righting moment to offset the heeling moment created by the rig and sail plan. The keel also helped lessen leeway and would evolve into an appendage that added lift.

Movable ballast had a few downsides, not the least of which was its propensity to move in the wrong direction at the very worst moment. Even small boat sailors have found out what can happen to unsecured pigs of lead ballast when the boat heels far enough over for gravity to overcome friction. Whether stones, lead, movable water ballast, or a can’ting keel are used to augment the boats righting moment, a sailor must anticipate the worst-case scenario. This is when the weight ends up on the leeward side of the boat and a bad situation can turn into a real catastrophe. Fixing or locking ballast in place, controlling the volume of water put in ballast tanks, and limiting the can’ting keels range are sensible compromises.

Internal ballast, the ballast inside a keel envelope thats contiguous with the hull, is still seen in many new boats. Island Packet is an example of a builder has stuck with this traditional approach of securing ballast without using keel bolts. Its a sensible design for shoal-draft cruisers, and the upsides are numerous. These high-volume, long-range cruisers arent encumbered by the demands prioritized by light displacement, performance-oriented sailors. Instead, Island Packets combine a rugged laminate and a long-footed, shallow-draft keel. This may not place the lead or iron ballast as deep as the tip of a fin keel, but it does keep the all-important CG low enough to deliver a powerful righting moment along with shoal draft.

In order to deliver the high angle of vanishing stability (AVS) also known as limit of positive stability (LPS), designer Bob Johnson puts what amounts to an internal bulb in the very lowest point in the boat. This long slug of iron or lead (depending on the model) is then covered by Portland cement, locking it in the Island Packets monocoque structure. The result is a contiguous FRP structure spreading keel loads efficiently over a considerable amount of hull skin. Keel bolts and the infamous garboard seam are completely eliminated. This approach to sailboat keel design dates back to the Rhodes Bounty II and other prototypes in the production world of sailboats. Now over 50 years old, many of these boats continue to have a tenacious grasp on the lead or iron that they hold.

Encapsulated iron ballast is much less desirable than encapsulated lead, and its sad to see builders skimp on this. Iron, or even worse steel, has been used in many Far Eastern encapsulated keels. It works as long as water and the resulting oxidation havent caused expansion and cracking of the seal. Lead is also denser than ferrous metal, and therefore, the same amount of ballast will have a smaller volume and create less drag.

Encapsulated ballast starts to be less appealing as keels become more fin-like and high-aspect ratio. The reason for this is that the geometry of the support changes, focusing more load on less area of the hull. As hull shapes evolved into canoe underbodies with hard turns in the bilge, and fin-like keels became thinner, deeper, and with shorter chord measurements (thickness), the concept of encapsulated keel became impractical. The Cal 40, Ericson 39, Pearson 365, and a long list of similar genre boats signified the end of an era when performance racer/cruisers would be built with encapsulated ballast.

External Ballast

Performance-oriented sailors and race-boat designers quickly latched on to hull shapes marked by deep-draft, foil-shaped, high-aspect ratio fin keels. From the late 60s to whats currently glowing on CAD screens in designer offices around the world, keels have grown deeper and shorter in chord length, and bulb or anvil-like tips have grown more and more common.

The design development was sound, lift was enhanced, and deeper-not longer-became the answer to getting to windward faster. The challenge was not only in designing an efficient shape, it lay in creating an attachment means that minimized foil flex and twist, retained the low drag coefficient, and still had the ability to withstand an occasional, albeit modest, grounding.

During this same period, marine surveyors and boatyard techs began to see moderate groundings result in major structural problems. The classic example was the allision that produced a moderate dent in the lead at the leading edge of the keel tip. In many cases, further inspection revealed cracks radiating outward from a knot meter or depth sounder mistakenly placed just ahead of the keel. An even closer look often revealed grid damage or a cracked bulkhead just aft of the last keel bolt. Like the New York 40 mentioned earlier, this was a result of a shock wave radiating through the hull structure. As we learned in Mrs. McCrearys science class, Bodies in motion tend to stay in motion, unless acted on by an equal and opposite force. Fin keel sailboats encountering abrupt energy transfers,tend to endure more damage than their long-keel counterparts.

A forensic look at the Achilles heel of external ballast highlights a few pitfalls. First the good news: Lead absorbs impact well, consuming much of the imparted energy through deformation. However, the translation of the remaining energy from the metal keel foil and keelbolts into an FRP hull is where we often find stress risers, and point loading linked to material and hull shape changes. The near right-angle interface between a modern sailboats canoe body and its deep fin keel is a classic load-path hotspot. In the old days, fiberglass techs spoke of oil-canning or the dimpling of a large section of the garboard as tacks were swapped.

Today Naval Architects use Finite Element Analysis (FEA) to better engineer hull structure. Colorized graphics pinpoint load concentration, glowing bright red in the region where the keel joins the hull, the epicenter of the oil-canning. A common solution to coping with this high-load focal point, is to eliminate core in the region and to gradually increase the unit schedule (layers of FRP), or to add an internal FRP grid. Maximum thickness of a keel stub is located where the keelbolts penetrate the stub. In this region, the solid glass thickness is often equal to the dimension of the keel bolt diameter or even greater.

Laminate thickness at the keel bolts is only part of the equation. Just as important is how the transition to the general hull laminate transpires. A bullet-proof keel stub that immediately transitions into a core hull comprising two units of laminate on each side of the panel creates whats equivalent to a tear-on-the-dotted-line weakness. Transitions that involve sharp angles and marked differences in panel strength require a well-reinforced taper that spreads loads gradually rather than abruptly.

Occasionally, we see massive metal frameworks used in the bilge as support for keel bolts; these structures need to be carefully engineered to not create the same hard spot fracture points. When carefully tapered in order to gradually introduce more flex, the problem is abated, as it was in the repair of the New York 40 mentioned earlier. The stainless-steel grid built to support the keel loads incorporated a gradual decrease in stiffness to the framework. The keel was carefully mated to the underside of this grid to ensure full contact (See Keel Bolt Repair Options, online). As a result, the crew relieved the hard spots at the end points and made the transition to the more flexible FRP hull less dramatic.

For cruisers, the take-away lesson is that extra reinforcement, a long garboard keel-to-hull interface, and internal transverse and longitudinal reinforcement really do pay off. Keep in mind that the extra weight this entails is all below the center of gravity and contributes to the secondary righting moment as well as keeping the water out.

This is a big departure from the way many modern production boats are built. They carry a skimpy ballast ratio of 30 percent or less, have less structure to support the keel and are not designed to handle unintended cruising consequences. There are exceptions, and its worth looking at the keel design and structure of the Navy 44 Mark II and the USCG Leadership 44 (see PS, August 2012). These boats utilize external ballast and are examples of rugged keel attachment. They have a relatively long keel-to-stub garboard junction, the laminate scan’tling meets American Bureau of Shipping recommendations, and both utilize an overabundance of 316 stainless-steel keel bolts and an FRP grid to keep the keel where it belongs.

There are many reasons why were seeing more keel problems today. On one hand, light, fast, race-boat design pushes the envelope, and thats probably OK. But when mainstream racer/cruisers start to suffer from lead loss, too much of one good thing (high-aspect ratio) and too little of another good thing (reinforcement) can begin creeping into design and construction.

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Sailboat Keel Types: A Complete Guide

Last Updated by

Daniel Wade

June 15, 2022

A keel is a very important part of a sailboat, crucial to its stability and ability to sail upwind. This article will discuss the fundamentals of all keels down to the details of the best keel for your boat. We will answer questions including what it does, what it's made of, and even some problems that a keel can cause. By the end of this article, you will be an expert on all things keels!

Table of contents

What Is a Keel?

A keel is the robust underwater centerline of a boat, and often extends into a long, hydrodynamically shaped blade.. It can vary in size and shape depending on the make and model of the boat. But, generally, it will look very much like a fin. If you imagine the fin on the underside of a surfboard you will have a pretty good idea of what it looks like under the boat.

It is crucial to helping with steering and control. The word keel itself comes from Norse and Dutch roots. The word simply means a structural component of the boat. You may have heard the term keel-haul, where pirates would drag someone underneath the boat across its keel. This is pretty barbaric, but it shows just how long a keel has been an important part of the boat. From Vikings to pirates to modern sailboats it has always remained an important part of a sailboat.

What is a keel made of?

A keel will typically be made of whatever the rest of the hull is made of. If the boat is wooden, it will most likely have a wooden keel. If the boat is metal, the keel will be metal, and so on. Sometimes, particularly on fiberglass boats, the core of a keel will be reinforced with lead or a similar ballast while the outside is covered with fiberglass.

The keel needs to be strong enough to withstand a lot of pressure and strain. Traditionally Viking sailing boats would have a wooden keel with some metal plating on it. Casting metal was tedious so putting it on your boat was seen as a waste. Traditional wooden sailing boats, like you would imagine pirates sailing, would also have a wooden keel. It would be made from thick hardwood like oak and could also be metal plated.

Since it is used to control the direction it must brunt the force of the change of direction. If you imagine a boat turning sharply, there will be a lot of pressure on the side that is on the outside of the turn. The hull of your boat will stand up to this pressure easily, as it is very large and very strong. The keel must be strong enough to withstand this too. The keel also can drag on the ocean floor or the boat ramp as the boat is lowered into the water. For this reason, it needs to be strong enough to hold up to the weight and pressure of the boat too. If it were made of plastic it would break every time you brought the boat in and out of the water.

What does a keel do?

The keel is there primarily for stability and guidance. The keel provides all sorts of benefits to the boat. It improves the righting moment and controls the boat’s sideways movement. The keel will also typically hold the boat’s ballast. The ballast keeps the boat weighed down and helps prevent capsizing. The ballast is typically made of lead, sand, or water.

Keels can be fixed or moveable. Some keels can be removed completely or may just retract slightly so they aren’t damaged when the boat enters or exits the water. When a boat leans to one side, because it is turning or there is strong wind/waves, the keel provides the righting moment that keeps the boat from flipping. On larger boats, it is designed to be so heavy that ig will be able to recover a boat from almost any angle of heel. Without a keel, your boat may tip too far or roll completely. On bigger ships, this can be disastrous. In its ability to prevent this alone, the keel is one of the most important parts of the ship.

Does my sailboat need a keel?

Yes, you do need a keel. Pretty much all sailboats have a keel, with exceptions for multi-hulled and/or smaller boats.  

In the case of catamarans, the very design principles that lead to the dual-hull design render the keel obsolete. The stability introduced by the outrigged, dual-hulls replaces the necessary righting moment from the keel. Because almost all the structure of a catamaran is between the two hulls, unlike a monohull which builds out from and around its centerline, there is not a lot of weight pressing out to flip the boat. Related to this, since most catamarans have the length of their hulls pressing into the water, the steering force normally placed on a keel is distributed across the length of the two hulls, which additionally will carry their own ballast.

On smaller dinghies, a small swinging centerboard or daggerboard will suffice to play the role of a keel. The centerboards can be big enough to keep the boat flowing nicely through the water without the need for a large keel. Additionally, it is not a disaster for a small sailing or racing dinghy to capsize, as they are designed to do so and recover rather easily, so the ballast from the keel is also not terribly necessary. 

If you have a motorboat you wouldn’t need a keel, unless it is a very large container ship or military vessel. The reason being that they are outboard propelled. The leg provides enough stability on its own. This is only the case with full plane powerboats. Displacement (even semi-displacement) craft will still need a keel of sorts for stability purposes.

What are some downsides to having a longer keel?

If you have a long keel that doesn’t retract or detach, you may have some problems coming in or out of the water. The keel extends far below the bottom of the boat, so if you are bringing your boat up or down a boat ramp you may find that it scrapes on the bottom. If you are not careful, you may damage the keel rather badly.

Since the keel is made of metal, wood, or fiberglass it can bear the brunt of the weight quite well. If you are putting your boat in the water and cannot retract the keel, it is a good idea to go as far into the water as possible before taking your boat off its trailer. The deeper you are in the water when the boat is released the better.

Are there any nautical traditions about the keel of the boat?

The keel is interestingly very important when it comes to boat or shipbuilding.

Traditionally, the keel is one of the first parts of the ship to be made, as the rest of the ship must sometimes be built around it. This tradition is called “laying the keel,” and is a momentous occasion. It is essentially the boat’s birthday. The boat’s age is dated from this moment, and there is also typically a celebration of sorts. This goes back to the days of seafaring exploration. The only day more important in a boat’s life is the day it is finally launched.

Can other types of boats have keels?

Yes! Many other types of boats have keels, not just sailboats. A good example would be a big shipping trawler. These trawlers are very large and need all the help they can get to stay balanced. Because of this, they often have what’s called a bar keel. This is a large rectangular piece of metal that runs along the bottom of the boat’s hull. It is very thick and heavy. The idea is that it gives the boat some more directional control when steering.

Furthermore, it helps keep the trawler balanced when out at sea in rough conditions. The extra weight keeps the boat’s center of gravity as low as possible. This makes tipping the boat almost impossible. It does slow it down a bit, but that is a small price to pay for increased safety.

Huge cargo ships also have a keel, though it is different from a bar. Their keel is known as a plate keel. It is essentially another layer of the boat under the hull. Its only purpose is added weight and protection. A plate keel runs along the centreline of the bottom plate of the ship so the weight is all concentrated in the lowest place possible. This kind of keel works similarly to how the spine of a person does. It keeps your back strong and as straight as possible.

How important is it to keep my keel clean?

It is very important to keep your keel clean, just as it is important to keep the rest of your hull clean.

For any boat kept on the water rather than hauled out every day, there is always the need to clean the hulls and keels of any barnacles and other sea growth. Barnacles not only affect your performance, but can, in the long run, greatly increase your maintenance costs if not regularly addressed. 

To do so, you have to do what is known as scraping. Scraping is the process of physically scraping off all the barnacles and other sea life that has attached itself to the underside of your boat. Many marinas offer this service, but you can do it on your own with a basic plastic paint scraper and a wetsuit. When you do this, it is key to get all the way down to the bottom of the keel and all across the hull. If you don’t scrape it off, it can start to erode your boat away over time. It can also slow you down.The barnacles and other marine life create a very rough bottom. This creates more friction and will reduce your speed more and more the worse it gets. 

It is important to check with your port authority before you start scraping. Scraping is not allowed in some places as you may introduce invasive species to the area. It depends where you have been more than where you are. If you sailed from New York to Chicago, you will be fine. If you sailed from Cuba to New York, probably not so much.

How to maintain a sailboat keel

As mentioned above, it is important to scrape your keel from time to time. While racing boats will actually do this before every day at an event, it is at least a good idea for you to do this a couple of times a season. A great time to do this is when you plan on applying that season’s bottom paint, though anytime you plan to go on your boat is a good excuse to maintain!

You may want to cut off any of the kelp and seaweed that wraps itself around the keel. This is more likely to happen if you have a fin keel. If you do find that there is a lot of kelp and seaweed wrapped around it, you will want to buy yourself a kelp cutter. Unfortunately, the only way to cut the kelp off without taking the boat out of the water is to dive in and do it yourself. It is a good idea to do this in shallow-ish water with the proper flags displayed to inform other boaters that there is someone in the water. Swimming around under your boat, even when it isn’t moving, can be dangerous.

What do I do if my keel breaks at sea?

It is very rare for keels to just break off. It is even rarer at sea. After all, what is going to break it off? The only way a keel will break off ordinarily is if you run aground.

If you should accidentally make your way into shallow waters and break your keel off it is a good idea to set sail for home. You will manage well enough in the short term but will struggle over time. You are far more likely to capsize without the keel keeping you balanced.

If you have a detachable keel it is a good idea to keep a replacement. If one breaks off, you can just install the spare one. This isn’t the easiest thing to do at sea in rough conditions, but it is possible. Make a judgment call using your common sense whether it is worth the risk or not.

Another reason your keel might break or come loose is if the keel bolts come out. These bolts are what holds the keel in place. If you happen to have a keel held on by bolts, then doing proper maintenance is even more important. If the bolts come loose, the keel can come loose.

Since the keel is typically welded on to the boat’s hull the chances of it coming off completely are slim to none. Most often, running aground on a sandbar or anything short of an incredibly rocky bottom in heavy weather will crack off a piece or severely bend the keel, which requires a major repair. If you do notice that the keel is loose, you are better off taking it back to the marina. The bolts may not come off without using some machinery, meaning you might have to take your boat out of the water. If your keel starts to rust, you may need to speak to a professional.

What are the different keel types?

Now you know what a keel is, what it does, why it is important, and how to care for one it is time to learn about the specific types of keels. Big trawlers and cargo ships have bar or plate keels, but sailboats do not. Here are the 6 different types of keels typically found on sailboats and their purposes:

The full keel is one of the most common types of the keel that you are likely to see on a sailboat. A full keel runs from end to end of the boat lengthways. A full keel, as the name implies, runs almost the entire length of the boat. At a minimum, it must run 50% of the length of the boat. A full keel is one of the most stable keel types, which is why it is so common. Full keels are also safer should you run aground. If a boat with a full keel should come ashore, it will cut its way through the sand and eventually land on its side. Whether you are grounding your boat intentionally or not, your boat will have far better odds of surviving the ordeal with a full keel.

A fin keel is similar to a full keel, just shorter. There may be one or two fin keels along the length of the boat hull. A fin keel is defined by being less than 50% the length of the boat. The fin keel works almost entirely the same way that a shark's fin does. When you wish to turn, the keel provides the resistive force that keeps you turning. This means that it essentially acts as your tires going into a turn. Whereas a full keel is essentially just a long fin, a fin keel has very different benefits. A full keel is more stable and safer overall. A fin keel is sleeker, smaller, and most importantly makes you faster. Most racing sailboats have fin keels.

A bulbed keel is very similar to a fin keel. In fact, it is possible to make a bulb keel by shaving off part of a fin keel and attaching a bulb. Once the keel has been made substantially shorter, the bulb is fitted. The bulb is shaped similarly to how a torpedo would be on a submarine. This keel works the same as a fin keel does, offering a slightly more stability without sacrificing speed. The biggest difference between a bulb and a fin keel (besides shape and length) is where they are used. Bulb keels are most commonly used in places with very shallow waters and lots of rock/shale/coral outcrops. Somewhere like the Caribbean would be the perfect place for a bulb keel. The rounded bulb bounces off the rocks and is less likely to break off. It just isn’t going to be as quick as if you used a fin keel.

The wing keel is another alternative to your standard fin keel. Just like the bulb keel, a wing keel is an extension to the standard fin keel with an extra fitting at the bottom. A wing keel is far more streamlined than a bulbed one, at the expense of being more susceptible to breaking. A wing keel looks very similar to the tail of an airplane. It works the same way, too. The water can pass by either side of the wings, allowing you to adjust your course easily. But, a wing keel does have one major problem. If you do run aground, digging out a wing keel can be very difficult. Whereas digging out a standard fin is as simple as scraping sand away from the sides of it, a wing keel must be dug out completely. The wings act like little shovels and wedge themselves into the sand. These are generally limited to higher performance racing classes.

Centerboard Keel

A centerboard keel works similarly to a fin keel but it can retract slightly. It works by having a dagger that folds out downwards. When you are sailing, the dagger protrudes outwards and offers you all the stability and balance of a fin keel. When you are in shallow water, the dagger can be retracted upwards, essentially shortening the keel temporarily. This should be done when you are sailing in shallow waters or removing the boat from the water entirely using a boat ramp. Some centerboards work on a loose hinge. When the boat is sailing along, the dagger is out and the fin works as normal. If you should bump into something though, like some shallow rocks, the hinge would push the daggerboard back inside. This stops the keel from breaking, instead, it just moves out the way. This only works if you are only just deep enough. If you are in very shallow water you would just break the centerboard off.

Canting Keel

A canting keel also works on a hinge. Instead of working end to end, it works port to starboard. When the boat turns a corner, the canting keel swings from side to side. This allows the boat to maximize its balance and speed. Eventually, this will become the norm in racing. But at the moment it is still quite experimental. The biggest downside is that the hinge works on hydraulics, and hydraulics can fail. If they should fail at sea there is very little you can do to repair them. Once they have perfected these canting keels, they will move first into the racing classes and high performance boats, then to all new cruising boats as boatbuilders improve the technology. .

Hopefully, you now have a good idea about what a sailboat keel is,how it works, why it is so important, and, of course, all the different types. Chances are, when you buy a sailboat , the keel it has is going to be at the bottom of your list of priorities. That being said, if you are planning on sailing somewhere in particular, it is a good idea to think about what keel type you are using. Replacing them doesn’t have to be expensive, but you can go a long way to saving yourself that money either way by being prepared for your home waters!

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I've personally had thousands of questions about sailing and sailboats over the years. As I learn and experience sailing, and the community, I share the answers that work and make sense to me, here on Life of Sailing.

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Lit’l Coot 18 Full Keel

Devlin Boats , Sailboats

The Lit’l Coot 18 Full Keel is a is seaworthy and capable motorsailor with enough space on board for the organized sailor and enough potential to keep serious travelers satisfied. She is the sister to the original Lit’l Coot  with the same hull and the same tendency for balanced performance and maximal use of space, but the change to a fixed centerline keel allows her to stand up to weather that the original could not handle. This change also frees up space in the cabin, which makes her more comfortable for longer cruises. Twin rudders surround the outboard motor on the centerline to allow efficient motor cruising on an economical 9.9 hp outboard.

Read Sam’s design notes below for the big picture on the Lit’l Coot Full Keel.

The Lit’l Coot 18 Full Keel is available in study and full construction plans .

Precision cut CNC hull kit available here

Lit’l Coot Design Notes

Recently I was working on the plans for a small under 20ft. Pocket Sailor design but found during the process I couldn’t help but think about another design, one roughly the same size and in many respects similar in use, but the type I zeroed in on was a small Motorsailor.  This “Litl Coot” design is the result of my musings and dreams.  Now in this case, despite being my own design customer, I still needed to stay focused and set up a list of design parameters that the new design would accommodate.  First of all she needed to be very trailerable with the capability of sitting on a powerboat type trailer low and compact enough to be able to be backed into a garage or storage shed without any special needs.  So right away that got rid of any notion that I would need to design a deep keel for her.  I flirted with the idea of leeboards but quickly realized that a couple of hardwood Bilge Keels,  along with a centerline small shoe keel and aft skeg, would be just the ticket. The bilge keels also had the additional benefit that they would allow her to beach out level and upright if I got caught by a quickly receding tide in some of the shallow and very tidal bays that I was dreaming of using her on.  If you are a fan of classic literature, there is an excellent novel written just before World War One titled “Riddle of the Sands”.  The story is based near the Friesian Islands located off the N.W. shore of Holland and Germany.  These waters are a very tidal area and the descriptions of the main character straying off the dredged and poorly marked channels and getting caught on the sands in his shoal draft boat with all the extra adventures that one would have with that scenario, has always been appealing to me.  Anyway, it’s a great read. As I recollect, this is either one of the first or the very first Mystery Adventure novels written by Erskine Childers and it has had a prominent position in my library for many years.

But back to the “Litl Coot” design – once I had made the decision to give her bilge keels, that meant all her ballast needed to be in the bilge and my plan is to use recycled lead shot (I buy mine from one of the local trap and skeet shooting ranges) which is very nice to work with, all cleaned, in small canvas bags weighing 30 lbs. each and ready to be mixed with epoxy and set into her bilge.  I usually plan on casting about 75-85% of the anticipated ballast (in this case 600 lbs) before launching and then finish off the final ballasting after checking her trim in the water and re-assuring myself that the weight is located where it is most needed to keep her floating level and on her lines.  That reminds me of a story, several years ago my long-term landlord at my main shop (which I have rented for 28 years now) told me one day just after we had launched a new boat, that one of the things that amazed him most of all about my designing and building boats was how accurately I could predict the floating of the boat level and on her lines.  Well that was quite a compliment and I think that if I remember properly that I tried to pass it off as not being that hard to do! Within just a couple of weeks we had occasion to launch another new build (different design, one that we hadn’t built before) and the new vessel floated down on her lines by the stern. We had to add some (actually read quite a lot of) extra chain in her anchor locker to get her settled down on her lines (as designed). I often wondered if my landlord had somehow jinxed me by saying that they all floated on their lines so nicely, and having missed the mark on the very next boat project, the whole experience sobered me considerably.   It should go without saying that on the next design I spent almost twice as much time as I usually did on the weight study trying to not make the same mistake twice.

But back to our musings about the “Litl Coot” – now that we’ve got the keels on her and the ballast settled, it’s time to think about that engine package.  This is a pure 50/50 Motorsailor and on this size boat, I think the little 9.9 horsepower Yamaha 4 cycle engine in hi-thrust configuration is just about ideal.  It’s a great little engine, barely sips fuel, is almost soundless at idle and will work on this design very well.  But here I was confronted with a problem. With many small sailboats, if we make a centerline rudder and hang the outboard on some sort of scissoring bracket to one side of the stern, when sailing on the tack where the outboard is to the lee side, you will find the end of the lower unit of the outboard dragging in the water.  There might be a couple of solutions to this problem, we could move the outboard closer to the centerline, but if we are not really careful then there is a really good chance that sooner or later you will hit the prop with the rudder while doing some short maneuvering in a docking or mooring situation.  If you place the engine further away from the rudder you’ve exaggerated the problem of the drag of the lower unit and prop of the outboard (and I hate dragging something like that when trying to sail).  So my solution for the “Litl Coot” was to place the motor on the centerline of the transom, and by using a long shaft outboard we will be able to keep the lower unit from dragging on the lee side tack (as there is no lee side to a centerline mounted engine) and both the motoring and the sailing will be without compromise.  Now with the engine on the centerline that meant in order to be able to steer her under sail, I needed to find a way to either mount a rudder off the centerline or an even better solution was to use twin rudders that have tillers that tie together into a common link arm. The additional benefit of the twin rudders allowed them to not extend into the water quite as deeply as if I had used just a single rudder and conforms rather nicely with our requirement of being able to sit level and upright in grounding situations without any necessity to lift the rudders up or have some sort of swing blades on them.  Once we joined the two tillers together into a single link arm then my next problem of how to allow an inside steering station to be rigged was easily assisted by having one common link with simple shackles made up to fixed lines (when desiring the inside steering station) and led through turning blocks to a fore and aft pivoting vertical tiller that will be fixed in the pilothouse on the starboard side. If I desire to steer from this inside station, I can sit in a comfortable seat on the starboard side facing forward and steer her by either pushing or pulling on the tiller. There is enough drag in this type of steering system to keep the helm steady for short periods of time if I needed to have her self steering while fixing a spot of tea or perhaps making a snack.

One of the main ideas with this design is that all functions could be done while sailing, or motoring, solo. There is room to take a buddy along but you don’t necessarily have to, in fact there might be a lot of days when just my dog “Bella” might be the perfect crew for an adventure on the “Litl Coot”.  So all the halyards, topping lifts, etc. are lead aft to the sides of the pilothouse. With her little mizzen sail set up and left rigged most of the time either under sail or under power, she will have the wonderful capability to have a balanced helm under different wind and tacking conditions, and the mizzen would help to keep her steady on a mooring, or at anchor when holed up for a rest.

For easy and quick set up when launching from trailer I designed a tabernacle hinged Mainmast setting a rig that I would call a Cat Yawl (although under some definitions this might also be described as a Cat Ketch, the mizzen being stepped ahead of the rudders) configuration.  This style of rig keeps the sail area where it is needed for balance under sail and is a very simple to use, with literally no re-sheeting necessary as one tacks from board to board.  With the process of rigging the Mainmast simply being a matter of rotating up the mast in its tabernacle, set up the forestay on the bail above the Stainless Steel anchor roller up on the bow, and insert a pin into the bottom of the tabernacle and you are ready to launch.  Keeping the mast up in the eyes of the boat also allowed me to have a top hinged window on the front of the pilothouse for sailing or motoring on warm days.  This allows lots of wind in the face but reduces the chance of getting too much sun on my already overly exposed face, if I choose to be inside in the shade of the pilothouse.

So we now have a boat that can sit on a trailer, fit in a normal sized garage for berthage when we aren’t using her, an inside and outside steering arrangement, a couple of berths for doing some simple cruise/camping, and one that will sail or motor at a fairly efficient level whether the wind is blowing or not.  And did I add that she is towable behind most of the small-to-mid sized SUVss or Pickups? She also is a boat that will allow me to explore the really shallow and fringe cruising areas that more conventional sailboats with their deep keels can’t even think about sailing in.  I can sail her either on my own or with crew, but again all systems and setup can be done on my own if that is the way I choose to use her.  In final expression I have found the “Litl Coot” to be absolutely beguiling during her design stages and my armchair cruises have been wonderful, built around her platform.  My best guess is that her real life adventures might be just as good or better, and that adds a lot of spice to my life, just the ticket for a modern, busy world!

Amateur plans are $195 and consist of 16 drawings printed on 24X36 inch paper and a simple building booklet. You can either buy printed sets of plans directly from us or buy a download version and print on your own. We are now producing basic hull kits for her or we could build you the whole boat if you would like, and very soon I look forward to seeing many of these little Cat Yawls on the water. — Sam Devlin

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40 Best Sailboats

• By Cruising World Editors
• Updated: May 24, 2024

Sailors are certainly passionate about their boats, and if you doubt that bold statement, try posting an article dubbed “ 40 Best Sailboats ” and see what happens.

Barely had the list gone live, when one reader responded, “Where do I begin? So many glaring omissions!” Like scores of others, he listed a number of sailboats and brands that we were too stupid to think of, but unlike some, he did sign off on a somewhat upbeat note: “If it weren’t for the presence of the Bermuda 40 in Cruising World’s list, I wouldn’t even have bothered to vote.”

By vote, he means that he, like hundreds of other readers, took the time to click through to an accompanying page where we asked you to help us reshuffle our alphabetical listing of noteworthy production sailboats so that we could rank them instead by popularity. So we ask you to keep in mind that this list of the best sailboats was created by our readers.

The quest to building this list all began with such a simple question, one that’s probably been posed at one time or another in any bar where sailors meet to raise a glass or two: If you had to pick, what’re the best sailboats ever built?

In no time, a dozen or more from a variety of sailboat manufacturers were on the table and the debate was on. And so, having fun with it, we decided to put the same question to a handful of CW ‘s friends: writers and sailors and designers and builders whose opinions we value. Their favorites poured in and soon an inkling of a list began to take shape. To corral things a bit and avoid going all the way back to Joshua Slocum and his venerable Spray —Hell, to Noah and his infamous Ark —we decided to focus our concentration on production monohull sailboats, which literally opened up the sport to anyone who wanted to get out on the water. And since CW is on the verge or turning 40, we decided that would be a nice round number at which to draw the line and usher in our coming ruby anniversary.

If you enjoy scrolling through this list, which includes all types of sailboats, then perhaps you would also be interested in browsing our list of the Best Cruising Sailboats . Check it out and, of course, feel free to add your favorite boat, too. Here at Cruising World , we like nothing better than talking about boats, and it turns out, so do you.

– LEARN THE NAVIGATION RULES – Know the “Rules of the Road” that govern all boat traffic. Be courteous and never assume other boaters can see you. Safety Tip Provided by the U.S. Coast Guard

40. Moore 24

39. Pearson Vanguard

38. Dufour Arpege 30

37. Alerion Express 28

36. Mason 43/44

35. Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 43DS

34. Nor’Sea 27

33. Freedom 40

32. Beneteau Sense 50

31. Nonsuch 30

30. Swan 44

29. C&C Landfall 38

28. Gulfstar 50

27. Sabre 36

26. Pearson Triton

– CHECK THE FIT – Follow these guidelines to make sure your life jacket looks good, stays comfortable and works when you need it. Safety Tip Provided by the U.S. Coast Guard

25. Islander 36

24. Gozzard 36

23. Bristol 40

22. Tartan 34

21. Morgan Out Island 41

20. Hylas 49

19. Contessa 26

18. Whitby 42

17. Columbia 50

16. Morris 36

15. Hunter 356

13. Beneteau 423

12. Westsail 32

– CHECK THE WEATHER – The weather changes all the time. Always check the forecast and prepare for the worst case. Safety Tip Provided by the U.S. Coast Guard

10. Alberg 30

9. Island Packet 38

8. Passport 40

7. Tayana 37

6. Peterson 44

5. Pacific Seacraft 37

4. Hallberg-Rassy 42

3. Catalina 30

2. Hinckley Bermuda 40

1. Valiant 40

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> > Please support our sponsors and let them know you heard about their products on Cruisers Forums. 07-04-2021, 22:55   Boat: Tom Gilmer, Roughwater 33 sailor who has been looking for a solid wooden gaffer for a few years now that I intend to and . I Have crewed on two Atlantic crossings in a traditional gaffer and have significant and coastal experience in these types of vessels. Problem is I live on Island and I have been finding out in the course of my search that the wooden scene has been dead here for atleast a couple decades. Almost no new wooden cruising are being built here and I've been sifting through the dregs of the last generation trying to find a boat with solid bones, good fasteners without significant wastage, built with the right combination of woods etc.. The only ones I've seen w'ere dilapidated well beyond the point where they would be safe to take offshore, and the rare one or two I've seen in very well kept shape I havn't managed to wrestle from their owners yet.. Not for lack of trying. In short I never thought I'd be saying this but I'm considering looking for a boat. But one that is based on some of the older designs that I love, that I could convert to gaff rig to suit my needs/experience and philosophy. Just to be clear what I'm looking for is a or , has to be stepped mast/masts, , heavy , double ender preferable, but i'd entertain others.. Just a simple solid cruiser with minimal gadgetry. 30-35' on , preferably 10' beam and above. Must have . So heres what I'm already aware of, I'd love to hear boat suggestions from you guys. - Mariah 31, - Bristol Channel 28, - Westsail 32's have stepped masts, and I think it would alter the below decks too much to try and step them - Ingrid, A little bigger than I want but still an option. (not sure if they usually have deck or keel stepped masts) - Southern Cross 31 Of course even these are a rarity around here. Hoping the border opens up soon so I can go boat in . Still have my ear to the ground for a good William Atkin Woody but it's good to have a plan B. Cheers Ryan 08-04-2021, 13:46   Boat: Bayfield 32 . The 32C has more sail area on the same , with 4 more feet of and 2 more feet of bowsprit. Both were built in . 08-04-2021, 13:56   Boat: Rafiki 37 is 36' 9", which is exactly the same as Joshua Slocum's famous "Spray". How's that for tradition was Stan Huntingford, a Canadian who called the his home. They only made about 50 of them, but most seen to call the North American home. They come up occasionally on the used market. 09-04-2021, 01:33   Boat: 1976 Sabre 28-2 ??? Do you have a need for leaking down the mast and into the . No matter how the mast is stepped, losing a cap or all the lower shrouds on the same side is going to result in the loss of the stick in most situations. If the mast is deck stepped it just goes over the side and is relatively easily released from the boat. A keel stepped mast will kink at the deck and may either tear up the mast partners leaving significant hole in the deck or require cutting through the mast to release it. Neither are a fun operation in nasty conditions. Have done a fair amount of ocean passages, all with deck stepped masts and they've done just fine. 09-04-2021, 05:08   Boat: Rafiki 37 leaking down the mast and into the . ... Have done a fair amount of ocean passages, all with deck stepped masts and they've done just fine. 09-04-2021, 09:22   30/32 or not though great history 09-04-2021, 09:34   Boat: Gulf 32 to make ready. Alajuela 38? Baba 30 or 35 ticks almost all your boxes I think most Cape Dorys were ? -- Bass 09-04-2021, 09:37   Boat: Ta Shing - Baba 35 . Cape George’s and such. I’ve seen plenty on Craigslist around here, but most like this: 1968 Atkin Barrie Anne ketch I am not sure if you want such a . May be worth checking out? Granted that’s state side. 09-04-2021, 09:44   09-04-2021, 09:57   Boat: Pearson 34-2 certainly has a proven . I myself am a fan of the Seabreeze. There is a YouTube channel called "How to Sail Oceans" with this guy Kevin in an engine-less Gillmer 31. A very traditional boat, a full keel, gaff rigged cutter with tan bark , that has many ocean miles under her keel. 09-04-2021, 09:58   Boat: Bristol 35.5 1978 , albeit in . . But once pandemic is under control and not an issue could ship your cross country. enjoy the hunt. 09-04-2021, 10:58   . I myself am a fan of the Seabreeze. There is a YouTube channel called "How to Sail Oceans" with this guy Kevin in an engine-less Gillmer 31. A very traditional boat, a full keel, gaff rigged cutter with tan bark , that has many ocean miles under her keel. 09-04-2021, 11:23   and offshore. I Have crewed on two Atlantic crossings in a traditional gaffer and have significant offshore and coastal experience in these types of vessels. Problem is I live on Island and I have been finding out in the course of my search that the wooden boat scene has been dead here for atleast a couple decades. Almost no new wooden cruising boats are being built here and I've been sifting through the dregs of the last generation trying to find a boat with solid bones, good fasteners without significant wastage, built with the right combination of woods etc.. The only ones I've seen for w'ere dilapidated well beyond the point where they would be safe to take offshore, and the rare one or two I've seen in very well kept shape I havn't managed to wrestle from their owners yet.. Not for lack of trying. In short I never thought I'd be saying this but I'm considering looking for a fiberglass boat. But one that is based on some of the older designs that I love, that I could convert to gaff rig to suit my needs/experience and philosophy. Just to be clear what I'm looking for is a cutter or ketch, has to be keel stepped mast/masts, full keel, heavy , double ender preferable, but i'd entertain others.. Just a simple solid cruiser with minimal gadgetry. 30-35' on deck, preferably 10' beam and above. Must have bowsprit. So heres what I'm already aware of, I'd love to hear boat suggestions from you guys. - Mariah 31, - Bristol Channel Cutter 28, - Westsail 32's have deck stepped masts, and I think it would alter the below decks too much to try and keel step them - Fiberglass Ingrid, A little bigger than I want but still an option. (not sure if they usually have deck or keel stepped masts) - Southern Cross 31 Of course even these are a rarity around here. Hoping the border opens up soon so I can go boat in . Still have my ear to the ground for a good William Atkin Woody but it's good to have a plan B. Cheers Ryan 09-04-2021, 17:21   to or most years. She is in now in a nice marina since 2019. If you are interested a description is on https://m.sailboatlistings.com/view/59018 Thank you for your interest and would love to hear from you. Lou Marcoux 09-04-2021, 17:27   Boat: 31' Cape George Cutter over decks. Used ones are available in a wide range of condition, and of course you could start a new one with the . I know of one 31' that is in bad condition - needs new deck and house, plus a beam or two, and most systems - but is a good with a installed with a MaxProp. The new owner is a so he is going to look for a profit, but one can assume he has little in it to start with. Only look if you are ready to do a lot of though. Greg , , Thread Tools Rate This Thread : Posting Rules post new threads post replies post attachments edit your posts is are code is are are are Similar Threads Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post lyl Monohull Sailboats 6 15-12-2020 14:16 chowdan General Sailing Forum 13 03-11-2020 11:37 john61ct Monohull Sailboats 17 27-05-2018 09:36 nematon785 Monohull Sailboats 16 10-03-2017 09:08 RedDragonSails Monohull Sailboats 23 06-10-2008 12:09 No Threads to Display. - - - - - - - Privacy Guaranteed - your email is never shared with anyone, opt out any time. The Six Defining Features Of The Best Rough Water Boats Six features that every rough water boat should include! The Best Rough Water Boats must have stability, handling, and ride smoothness. You invest a lot of money in your boat, and it’s no use having a great boat that costs a lot of money if you can’t use it in all weather conditions, including rough water. In the following guide to the best rough water boats, we’ll cover hulls, beam length, horsepower, handling, and comfort. If you’re ready to invest in a high-performance wakeboarding boat, Moomba Boats offers a full range of boats that are perfect for all levels of experience and budget, including the Mondo , Max , Tykon , Kaiyen , Craz , Mojo , and Makai . 6 Must-Have Rough Water Boat Features 1. hull shape & design. Your hull shape and design significantly affect how your boat rides on the water. Early in their development, Moomba Boats recognized their customers demanded speed and performance. Compared to boats from other companies such as Centurion, Moomba Boats’ superior hull shape is designed to deliver peak rough water performance thanks to their broader beam and revolutionary hull design. 2. Deep V & Deadrise Moomba’s deep-v-shaped hull is designed to provide stability and better track through the water, with less pounding and bouncing . Instead of bouncing on top of waves, you’ll carve through them, delivering a smoother ride. A Moomba boat will perform superiorly, with less rattling, bouncing, and slapping. 3. Heavy Duty Hulls While some manufacturers try to keep hull weight as light as possible, a heavier hull leads to better performance in rough water. With Moomba’s advanced hull design concepts, they’ve taken the best of both worlds, leading to a hull that optimizes speed and comfort. 4. Draft & Center of Gravity Unlike their competition, Moomba boats feature a low center of gravity and heavy-duty keel for optimal rough water performance. High-performance boats at Moomba are designed with a heavy-duty keel, low profile, and perfectly balanced to deliver high speed and stability. 5. Horsepower & Speed No other boats, including Centurion, offer the same high-speed options combined with rough water stability and handling as Moomba Boats. When you’re out on the water, you want that raw horsepower. 6. Don’t Forget Comfort Moomba Boats are designed for comfort and performance and feature high-quality seating, premium materials, aerodynamic windshields and toppers, patented wake surf technology, and a wakeboard autopilot system for a smoother ride. Searching for the features we mentioned above, including boat handling and comfort, is a great place to start. However, the Best Rough Water Boats include all those features and fly across the water. The best rough water boats combine the abovementioned features with speed, performance, and handling to deliver the ultimate rough water experience. If you’re looking for the best rough water boats, check out the full range of Moomba high-performance boats and watercraft. Written in partnership with Tom White Related Articles A Martin Katz Suite, A Rare Spirits Bar, And A Robot Masseuse: All About The Lotte New York Palace A Martin Katz suite, a rare vintage spirits bar, AND a robot masseuse. This is what a stay at The Lotte New York Palace is REALLY like. A James Bond Bar, Liberace’s Piano + A Full Refresh: Inside The Dorchester’s Renovation London’s storied five-star hotel, The Dorchester, has revealed a major refresh that includes the Bond-inspired Vesper Bar. Take a look! Sailing Into Victory: Louis Vuitton Designs The Trophies For The 37th America’s Cup In Barcelo Louis vuitton continues the prestigious legacy for the Louis Vuitton Cup and the 37th America’s Cup in Barcelona. The New Power Of Celebrity Activations, Sponsorships, And Influencer Marketing: Why Brands Use A-Lis As an agency, c4n2 has developed strategies that match A-Listers with like-minded brands, helping those brands grow exponentially and allowing them to reach their desired audiences. Haute Living Celebrates Andrey Rublev At Hunt & Fish Club In NYC Haute Living celebrated cover star and ATP professional tennis player Andrey Rublev at Hunt & Fish Club in NYC. Boxing Champ Floyd Mayweather Is About To Make Some Good Money With His Latest Venture Boxing champion Floyd Mayweather is getting back in the ring and expanding his horizons with two new ventures: whisky and champagne. Latest Story Trending Articles Meet Moonrise: A Nouveau Circus Experience At Paradise Club In The Times Square Edition Have An Endless Summer At These Beautiful Hotels By The Beach The Must-Try LA Restaurants Of Summer Subscribe to haute living. Receive Our Magazine Directly at Your Doorstep Embark on a journey of luxury and elegance with Haute Living magazine. Subscribe now and have every issue conveniently delivered to your home. Experience the pinnacle of lifestyle, culture, and sophistication through our pages. Haute Black Membership Your Gateway to Extraordinary Experiences Join Haute Black and unlock access to the world's most prestigious luxury events Superyacht sinks latest: Investigators reveal where bodies were found as probe looks at 'crew's responsibility' Italian officials revealed at a news conference there could be "a question of manslaughter" as they opened a shipwreck investigation and said the probe is also looking at the "crew's responsibility". Saturday 24 August 2024 18:33, UK Superyacht sinking Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player Prosecutor: There 'could be a question of manslaughter' Probe 'concentrating' on crew's responsibility Seven bodies recovered after five-day search of superyacht wreckage off Sicily Saturday's papers pay tribute to youngest victim Hannah Lynch Hannah's sister pays tribute to 'my little angel' Explained: Inside the superyacht | What challenges have faced divers? Eyewitness: Sombre scenes greet rescue teams as final body is brought ashore Live reporting by Niamh Lynch We're ending our live coverage for this evening but here is a recap of what we know: Prosecutors have opened a manslaughter investigation into the Bayesian sinking; Officials have revealed more details on their investigation and the difficult five-day rescue mission; The six bodies found during the search in recent days were all in cabins on the left-hand - and highest - side of the ship. Five were found in the first cabin and the sixth was found in the third; Prosecutors said the six passengers were most likely asleep when the boat sank; The probe is now focusing on the crew and their responsibilities, with the captain set to undergo more questioning. Monday 19 August The Bayesian yacht, flying a British flag, sinks at around 5am local time when the area was hit by a tornado. Fifteen people are rescued from the 56 metre vessel - including a mother and baby - but another seven remain missing. One body, later confirmed to be the yacht's chef Recaldo Thomas, is found near the wreck. It emerges that British technology tycoon Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah are among six people that remain missing. Tuesday 20 August The search continues for the six tourists missing. It is reported that among those missing are Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer; his wife, Judy Bloomer; Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo; and his wife, Neda Morvillo. Police divers try to reach the hull of the ship, resting at a depth of 50 metres. Italy's fire brigade Vigili del Fuoco say early inspections of the wreck were "unsuccessful" because of limited access to the bridge and furniture obstructing passages. The operation is later described as "complex", with divers limited to 12-minute underwater shifts. Tributes pour in for Mr Thomas, with his friend Gareth Williams saying: "I can talk for everyone that knew him when I say he was a well-loved, kind human being with a calm spirit." Wednesday 21 August The search for the six people unaccounted for enters a third day, with crews carrying out inspections of the yacht's internal hull. A team of four British inspectors from the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) arrive in Porticello to look at the site of the sinking. A helicopter is drafted in to help with the search effort and remotely controlled underwater vehicles are being used, with naval units and cave divers also taking part in the search. Five bodies are found inside the yacht on Wednesday afternoon. Only four of them are brought to shore. Body bags are seen being taken to Porticello in the afternoon where dozens of emergency services staff wait. Searches finish for the day just before 7.30pm. Thursday 22 August The search resumes for the remaining missing person. The body of the fifth missing person, found but not recovered the previous day, is brought to shore. A fire service boat with flashing blue lights returns with a blue body bag to the port of Porticello just after 8.45am local time on Thursday. Tributes pour in for Mr Lynch and Mr and Mrs Bloomer after they are identified as having died. The search is called off at around 8pm in Sicily, with divers expected to begin again at 6.30am on Friday. Friday 23  August The search continues for the final person missing from the wreck of the Bayesian, Hannah Lynch. Vincenzo Zagarola, of the Italian Coastguard, says the search for Hannah has not been "easy or quick", comparing the sunken yacht to an "18-storey building full of water". The coastguard confirms in the late morning that her body has been found. A green body bag is brought to the port of Porticello from the site of the sinking. A spokesperson announces on behalf of the Lynch family that they are "devastated" and "in shock" after the deaths of Mike and Hannah. Hannah's sister Esme pays tribute to her "little angel". Saturday 24 August A press conference is held in the court of an Italian town, Termini Imerese. Public prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio tells reporters that his office has opened an initial investigation against unknown persons into manslaughter and negligent shipwreck. As the focus now turns to the manslaughter investigation, here's another reminder of the seven victims of the sinking and the 15 people who survived.  A close friend of the Lynch family has added to the chorus of tributes for British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, who died in Monday's superyacht sinking. Susannah Gurdun, who lives in Suffolk, recalled being "daunted" when she first met Mr Lynch at a dinner party, before discovering he was "so much more than the corporate cliche". "He was riveting.  He was funny, and kind, and endlessly interesting; capable of talking about anything and everything," she said. Ms Gardun said the businessman also had a "thrilling ability" to make complicated subjects "accessible to those of us less blessed with a science acumen". "In particular, he was wonderful with children.  I will never forget hearing him explain to a group of them - including our ten year old son - the physics of why the sky went pink at sunset," she said. She went on describe Mr Lynch as a "true genius" and "phenomenal creative". Ms Gardun said his daughter Hannah was also showing "serious literary promise", and added that it was "beyond tragic that we will never know where her own particular brilliance might have led". "I still feel blessed to have shared that time with them in Spain.  Not just because I witnessed Mike’s incredible storytelling; but because I was given a chance of understanding what that moment said about all four of them as a united vibrant loving family," she said. "He was an extraordinary human being and it was - truly - a privilege to have known him." A yacht crew member who survived the sinking has paid tribute to Hannah Lynch, calling her a "diamond in a sea of stars". Sasha Murray, chief stewardess of the Bayesian, has released a statement after divers recovered the final missing body from the wreckage, which is believed to be 18-year-old Hannah. "Those who knew her will know that Hannah was a diamond in a sea of stars," she said. "Bright, beautiful and always shining. What most people may not have seen was the extraordinarily strong, deep and loving relationship she shared with her parents, whom she adored more than anything.  "While swimming with them she often said, if anything ever happened she would save them.  "I have no doubt that the Irish, Latina fire that burns in her soul kept that spirited determination alive." Ms Murray's statement comes as a new image of Hannah Lynch and her father Mike Lynch is released: Prosecutors announced in this morning's news conference that they have opened a manslaughter and negligent shipwreck investigation. Officials were unable to answer several queries from the media, saying they needed time to establish the facts, but what are the key questions facing prosecutors?  Why weren't passengers who remained on board the vessel warned about escaping from the yacht? The prosecutor in charge of the case, Raffaele Cammarano, suggested that some passengers may have been asleep when others were awake. Asked why they were not woken up or alerted, he said that is something investigators are trying to work out from the statements of the survivors. He called it an "essential" part of the inquiry. Why were several of the passengers in one cabin? The press conference heard several bodies onboard the sunken yacht were found in a single cabin which was not theirs. Mr Cammarano said investigators currently do not know the reason for them being discovered in the same cabin. The chief of the Palermo fire service, Bentivoglio Fiandra, said the yacht pinned to the right and suggested people tried to go on the other side, taking refuge in cabins in the higher part of the wreck. Why did the boat sink? The vessel had been deemed "unsinkable" by its manufacturer - Italian shipyard Perini Navi. The Bayesian was hit by a downburst, according to Mr Cammarano, which are powerful winds that descend from a thunderstorm and spread out quickly once they hit the ground. Officials will look into the safety equipment on the sunken vessel. Mr Cammarano was asked about whether there is a black box and if the hatches were left open. He said investigators do not have exact information about the black box and that the first phase of the inquiry will look into it. Why were nearby vessels not similarly affected? Another yacht, the Sir Robert BP, was about 150 to 200 metres from the Bayesian when extreme weather hit. Its crew helped to rescue 15 people from the stricken vessel. Italian officials said they would be looking at how the downburst could affect one vehicle and not other nearby vessels. What weather warnings was the Bayesian alerted to? Maritime director of western Sicily, Rear Admiral Raffaele Macauda, said the weather at the time of the yacht's sinking was abnormal and there was nothing to suggest such an extreme situation would arise. He said there were forecasts of winds and a storm alert, but there was no warning of a tornado. "Given that the conditions were such, there wasn't anything to suggest there could be an extreme situation arising," he said. "There are vessels that can monitor, after all, these events and one would have thought that the captain had taken precautions." How long will it take to recover the sailing vessel? Mr Macauda could not confirm how long it would take to retrieve the shipwreck of the sunken yacht. "Everything depends on the availability of the owners and the timeframe of the retrieval of the wreck and of course all that has to be submitted to the port authorities and in parallel of course there will be the inquiry results and it's only really then that we will be able to authorise the operation," he said. "I can't say, like some experts who have already spoken on the subject, [said] that it will be eight weeks." He made clear that the owners will bear the full cost of retrieval, although he could not estimate the figure. Italian authorities detailed the challenging and meticulous rescue operation to recover the six missing people from the Bayesian wreck (see 9.18am post). But why was the five-day search so difficult?  Read more below... More on this morning's press conference.  One of the main updates from prosecutors was that they have opened manslaughter and shipwreck investigations after the deaths of seven people in the Bayesian sinking.  Watch the announcement below... Prosecutors have given a lengthy news conference this morning on their investigation into the sinking of the Bayesian.  Read the full report on the prosecutors' probe below... Marine investigator James Wilkes has been speaking to Sky News after this morning's press conference. "Naturally, there are more questions than there are substantive answers at the moment - that's the nature of investigative work. "Something forced that yacht to roll beyond its nominal stability limits, such that it wasn't able to right itself with the ingress of a certain amount of seawater that was coming into the yacht.  "So the investigators are going to ask themselves one initial question - what must the conditions have been for this to happen?  "Then they are going to look at the contributing factors to the yacht, sinking, and, and the unfortunate loss of life."  Prosecutors said this morning that the future of the investigation is reliant on recovering the wreck.  Mr Wilkes said the yacht is a "major piece of physical evidence in and of itself."  "It's lying at 50 metres, which is a recoverable depth.  "If it was significantly deeper, then I'm not sure they'd be considering salvage at this stage or certainly, the salvage question would be a lot more complicated to answer.  "But if there was the ability to raise that yacht in one piece safely, then it gives the investigators physically more to look at." Mr Wilkes said he was unsure if the yacht would have a "black box" - called a voyage data recorder in shipping.  "It would record things like GPS position, heading speed, engine telemetry, whether the radars were on, what they were recording, alarms, communications from the yacht itself, any audio on the bridge. "But more often than not, these are on merchant ships. The yacht was a commercial yacht in the sense that it could be chartered out so it's quite possible it has a voyage data recorder on, but I'm not sure that it does. I don't know that as a matter of fact," he said. Be the first to get Breaking News Install the Sky News app for free 13 Popular Trailerable Sailboats with Lifting Keels Sailboats are awesome, but they do come with their drawbacks. Storage and transport, for one, tends to be a demanding matter, which excludes their owners from many ways of sailing - you are unlikely to store one in your garage and drive it anywhere you please on the weekends, so finding a long term berth and sailing in the near vicinity is what most do. Luckily, there are models designed with precisely this issue in mind - so without further ado, here are 13 sailboats that you can easily put on a trailer and drive to a body of water of your choice. 13 popular sailboats with lifting keels that can be trailered Beneteau first 18, catalina 22 sport, yacht yard focus 750, norseboat 21, bayraider 20, parker 235 mini cruiser, alubat ovni 365, gunfleet 43, franck roy solenn 27, maree haute django 670. Now some of these are better at transport than others and some had to sacrifice space or performance for mobility. Let's have a look at them in detail so that you know which one fits your needs the best. This one has to make the list because it is immensely popular. Rightfully so. It is small enough to be transported on a trailer, plus it has a lifting keel that makes the draft only 30 centimeters when up - but over a meter when down, so it still has to say a lot in terms of performance. It has a spacious, open cockpit for six people and a v berth in case you want to spend the night. It is then not just a daysailer, but a weekend cruiser. And if it is too large for you, it even has smaller brothers, Hunter 15 and 18. Those won't let you sleep under a roof, but their dinghy-like character makes them even more mobile. I can't not mention a European brand - Beneteaus are made in all shapes and sizes, but this time, let's give a shoutout to their First 18, a tiny daysailer. It looks spectacular and has a significantly sportier character than the above Hunter - and even at 18 feet, it will let you sleep inside. Just as is the case with the Hunter, First comes in more sizes - 14, 22, and 27 feet. Make no mistake, this is not a boat to chill on. You can, technically, but its racing pedigree won't let you. And thanks to its retractable keel, it is easy to pop out of the water and take back to your garage where you can admire its prettiness until the next time. Before we get into more unknown brands, let's get this one out of the way - also an incredibly popular model, that is, if you are in the USA. With the board down, its draft goes all the way to 1.5 meters and retracted, up to 0.5. You can trailer it easily, but at the same time it sleeps four people, so it isn't just a one-day pleasure craft. A nice thing about Catalina 22 is that the model has around five decades of existence behind it, constantly improving on its design. So you won't be getting into experimental waters, so to say. It is a bit conservative conceptually, but that is the price to pay for being on something that knows what it's doing - as it has been doing it for more than half a century. Now here is something you have probably never heard of if you are from the USA. A polish brand, established by former sailboat racers - and it shows. For those unfamiliar with European geography, Poland borders the mighty Baltic Sea - so just as Scandinavian boats, their projects are properly seaworthy. The N Fun 30 is a trailerable, lifting keel little vessel, in fact, the only model the company makes, but it is unlike any other boat in its class. It looks gorgeous, has a racing pedigree, comes with a teak deck option (though it's not really teak, just a lookalike) which is so rare in the day sailing racers' class, and most importantly, is configurable to your liking. Fully specced, this boat costs nearly $180,000. Yes, that. But if you can do without all the extras and are looking for something relatively traditional, it can be yours for $70,000. Even for this lowest configuration, you will still be getting one hell of a racer. Another Polish project - that's why the numbers here mean meters, not feet. This approximately 24 ft long boat gets in and out of the water easily and is similar to the above N Fun in its good looks and racing character. It is a forgiving single-handed sailor but can accommodate up to four people both on and under the deck. Just as the N Fun, it comes with an optional 50 square meters gennaker. This boat is modern both in terms of design and materials used. Multi-directional fiberglass with a foam core, spacious, light interior design - quite a contrast to projects like Catalina. Its aim is modernity and it does it well. Back into more familiar territories. Norseboats are known for their rugged, bluewater designs. They can survive pretty much anything since they are made to withstand the North Sea formerly populated by Vikings and the Kraken. Trailering is a breeze, as the keel can be taken out almost completely, it looks beautiful, especially if you get the all-wooden version, new, it costs around $35,000 and it was made with performance in mind. What sets it apart from the rest is its seaworthy nature. You can take it across oceans if you choose so. Then there are the old-fashioned, rugged looks. This boat is serious about its abilities and it shows. On the water, you will be envied by vessels much larger than yours. This one's a project from Swallow Yachts, a company that focuses on a classic look with modern performance. Not my words, this is their tagline. But it is more than just a marketing gimmick. An interesting feature with the BayRaider is its water ballast, giving you a choice between greater righting ability and lightness, thus speed. The company also offers a 17 ft version as well as a 23 ft one - all of which feature a lifting keel, making the trailerability uncompromised. The aforementioned performance part is taken seriously here. All foils have been calculated and constructed so that their shape helps with windward performance. In other words, the rudder and centerboard aren't just flat - their cross sections resemble those of airplane wings. That's racing boat territory. The draft variability is also quite unique. Board up gets you to some 8 inches, the smallest here yet, board down gets you all the way to 4 ft 4 inches - something rather rare with a boat this size. On the surface, this is just your normal, well-built, nicely designed trailerable family weekend cruiser. What differentiates it from, say, the above Hunter 22, is its interior. Trailerable boats often have to compromise on space, but on this Parker, you will find enough space to sleep four, plenty of storage, and even a sink. So if you wanted to cross an ocean on this boat with two people, you'd have enough space for all the equipment and crew. As well as a boat actually capable of such a crossing. It is a vessel made well, it is sturdy enough for choppy waters and stiff enough to handle well in trickier conditions, all the while staying in the reasonably priced, small boat range. As I like to stretch limits, let's touch the length ceiling. This aluminum boat has everything you would expect from its size. Two cabins, salon, galley, heads, captain's corner… simply a nearly 40 ft cruiser. And a comfortable one at that. But a trailerable one. Lift the keel up and you can put it on a trailer. You'll need a larger one, and a car capable of towing around 10 tonnes, but all that is still within an easily reachable range. With a boat this size, you can expect versatility. Long crossings, weekend cruises, all that is possible. It performs very well, looks stylish, and the aluminum gives you extra sturdiness. Lifting the centerboard up will give you a draught of 2.5 ft, putting it down results in nearly 8 ft. The total sail area with a spinnaker is 177 square meters, the water tank is hundreds of liters… this is a boat for all occasions. And as if that wasn't big enough, here goes another one. We won't go higher, because although even larger boats are trailerable, that would start to be unrealistic for the average Joe, so let's consider this the top. As with the Alubat, you can expect everything you would from this size. It is roomier than you would think, comfort and good use of space was the aim here. It features a center cockpit design, something rather unseen in boats this size these days, which makes for a pleasant on-deck experience. Yes, trailering it might need some planning, but with its liftable keel, it will still be possible. The French always had an eye for design. Solenn is a brand making classically looking, classy boats, with, of course, modern features. Solenn 27 is a retro-looking vessel that comes in three variants - weekend, day, and cabine, each for a slightly different way of use. So whether you are looking for a daysailer or a small boat capable of several day journeys, you will get what you need. It comes equipped with a sink, stove, a few berths, and plenty of storage for a week-long journey. Given its small size and weight, transporting it is not an issue, even without a big truck. It does come at a price, for around $150,000 you could certainly get a larger, or better-equipped boat, but as far as style goes, you can t beat the varnished mahogany cockpit. Seaworthiness is often an issue with these small boats since they are designed mostly for one-day coastal cruises. Not so Django 670. If you want to race it across the Atlantic, it will suffice. Both in its seaworthiness, and speed. It is a pureblood racer but has comfort in mind too. From the saloon, you will get a panoramic view, which is something you usually find in much larger boat designs. All that while still belonging on this list - that is being a boat that is easy to trailer, or beach. The keel up will get you to a draft of just below 2 ft, while 5.2 ft is what you get if you drop the keel down. Now, this is a bit of a weird one. A divisive project, for sure. Nuva MS6 didn't want to decide to be a sailing yacht or a motor one. So it became both - a small, motoryacht-looking project with sails. Of course, it has a fully retractable keel and is easy to pop on a trailer and take back to your garage. But what is the most curious about this boat, aside from its ambiguity, is that it can change shape. Once you anchor somewhere, you can, with a push of a button, literally widen the cockpit area so that more people can enjoy the space than you would normally fit on a boat 19 ft long. It has gained quite a lot of hate in the sailing community, because of its design ambiguity, but it definitely has a target audience. Since the dawn of sailing, many things have changed as far as designs go. These days, the need for boats that can sail properly but fit on a trailer is there, so this list could be easily three times as long and one still would only touch the surface of the pool. So if you are in the market for one, you are in luck. Leave a comment You may also like, sailboat keel types: illustrated guide (bilge, fin, full). The keel type is one of the most important features of your boat. But the different designs can be confusing, so I've set out to create a very clear guide that will … What Is a Sailboat Keel and How Does it Work? Fin Keel vs Full Keel: Pros and Cons & When to Choose Which What's the Largest Sailboat You Can Trailer? Advertisement Supported by Questions for Investigators Trying to Unravel Mystery of Luxury Yacht’s Sinking The investigators searching for answers about the shipwreck, leaving seven dead, face questions about extreme weather and possible human error or problems with the yacht itself. Share full article By Alan Yuhas More than 180 feet long, with a mast towering about 240 feet and a keel that could be lowered for greater stability, the Bayesian luxury yacht did not, in the eyes of its maker, have the vulnerabilities of a ship that would easily sink. “It drives me insane,” Giovanni Costantino, the chief executive of the Italian Sea Group, which in 2022 bought the company that made the ship, said after its wreck last week. “Following all the proper procedures, that boat is unsinkable.” But the $40 million sailing yacht sank within minutes and with fatal results: seven dead, including the British technology billionaire Michael Lynch, his teenage daughter, four of Mr. Lynch’s friends and a member of the crew. Fifteen people, including the captain, escaped on a lifeboat. Mr. Lynch had invited family, friends and part of his legal team on a cruise in the Mediterranean to celebrate his acquittal in June of fraud charges tied to the sale of his company to the tech giant Hewlett-Packard. The Italian authorities have opened a manslaughter investigation, searching for answers from the survivors, the manufacturer and the wreck itself. They face a range of questions and possible factors. An ‘earthquake’ in the sky? When the Bayesian sank around 4 a.m. on Aug. 19, the waters in its area, about half a mile off the Sicilian port of Porticello, were transformed by an extremely sudden and violent storm, according to fishermen, a captain in the area and meteorologists. But what kind of storm is still a mystery, compounded by the fact that a sailing schooner anchored nearby did not have its own disaster. Also unclear is whether the crew was aware that the Italian authorities had issued general warnings about bad weather the night before. Karsten Börner, the captain of the nearby passenger ship, said he’d had to steady his ship during “really violent” winds . During the storm, he said, the Bayesian seemed to disappear behind his ship. Severe lightning and strong gusts were registered by the Italian Air Force’s Center for Aerospace Meteorology and Climatology, according to Attilio Di Diodato, its director. “It was very intense and brief in duration,” he said. The yacht, he said, had most likely been hit by a fierce downburst — a blast of powerful wind surging down during a thunderstorm. His agency put out rough-sea warnings the previous evening, alerting sailors about possible storms. Locals have said the winds “felt like an earthquake.” A fisherman in Porticello said that he had seen a flare go off in the early-morning hours. His brother ventured to the site once the weather had calmed about 20 minutes later, he said, finding only floating cushions. The Italian authorities have so far declined to say whether investigators had seen any structural damage to the hull or other parts of the ship. Open hatches or doors? The boat executive, Mr. Costantino, has argued that the Bayesian was an extremely safe vessel that could list even to 75 degrees without capsizing. His company, the Italian Sea Group, in 2022 bought the yacht’s manufacturer, Perini Navi, which launched the ship in 2008. Mr. Costantino said that if some of the hatches on the side and in the stern, or some of the deck doors, had been open, the boat could have taken on water and sunk. Standard procedure in such storms, he said, would be to switch on the engine, lift the anchor and turn the boat into the wind, lowering the keel for extra stability, closing doors and gathering the guests in the main hall inside the deck. At a news conference on Saturday, almost a week after the sinking, investigators said the yacht had sunk at an angle , with its stern — where the heavy engine was — having gone down first. The wreck was found lying on its right side at the bottom of a bay, about 165 feet deep. 12 guests occupied the yacht’s six cabins. There were also 10 crew members. Open hatches, doors and cabin windows could have let in water during a storm, according to the manufacturer. Open hatches, doors and cabin windows could have let in water during a storm, according to the manufacturer. Source: Superyacht Times, YachtCharterFleet, MarineTraffic By Veronica Penney Water pouring into open hatches or doors could have contributed to the sinking, experts say, but that on its own may not account for the speed at which such a large boat vanished underwater. Asked about the hatches at the news conference, the authorities declined to comment on whether they had been found open at the wreck. The authorities have also not specified whether the boat had been anchored, whether it was under power at the time or whether its sails had been unfurled. A retracted keel? The Bayesian had a keel — the fin-like structure beneath a boat that can help stabilize it — that could be retracted or extended, according to its manufacturer. On some yachts, keels can be raised to let the large vessel dock in shallower water, and extended downward to help keep a boat level. But like the hatches, the status of the keel alone may not explain why a large ship sank with such precipitous speed. Investigators have not disclosed what divers may have seen at the wreck, aside from saying divers had faced obstacles like furnishings and electrical wiring in tight quarters. Officials want to raise the wreck to better examine it, a process that may take weeks. Human error? Ambrogio Cartosio, the prosecutor in charge of the case, said at the news conference that it was “plausible” crimes had been committed, but that investigators had not zeroed in on any potential suspects. “There could be responsibilities of the captain only,” he said. “There could be responsibilities of the whole crew. There could be responsibilities of the boat makers. Or there could be responsibilities of those who were in charge of surveilling the boat.” It remains unclear what kind of emergency training or preparation took place before the disaster, or what kind of coordination there was during it. So far, none of the surviving crew members have made a public statement about what happened the night the ship sank. Prosecutors said they want to ask more questions of the captain and crew, who have been in a Sicilian hotel with other survivors. They said that neither alcohol nor drug tests had been performed on crew members, and that they have been allowed to leave Italy. Prosecutors also said they were also investigating why the captain, an experienced sailor, left the sinking boat while some passengers were still on board. Besides possible manslaughter charges, the authorities are investigating the possibility of a negligently caused shipwreck. The bodies of five passengers were found in one cabin, on the left side of the yacht, the authorities said. The five were most likely trying to flee to the higher side of the boat and were probably sleeping when the boat started to sink, they said. 251 IMAGES Tips for Finding a Bluewater Cruiser full keel Popular Cruiser Yachts under 30 feet (9.1m) Long Overall 1987 Hans Christian Full Keel Cutter Sail New and Used Boats for What Does The Keel Do On A Sailboat And How It Works Nor'Sea 27 Sailboat : A Small Cruising Sailboat to Take You Anywhere COMMENTS 13 Popular Full Keel Sailboats Worth Considering Here are 13 good full keel sailboats that are worth considering: Nicholson 32. Island Packet 380. Folkboat 25. Cape Dory 36. Vancouver 32. Freya 39. Wylo 2. Tradewind 33. 5 Surprising Advantages of a Full Keel Sailboat That full keel stops a lot of roll and motion in the anchorage. Small fin-keeled boats thrash and roll violently when a big wake hits an anchorage, only the bigger, heavier boats are spared. But with a full keel you'll roll like a boat twice your size, spill a lot fewer drinks, and sleep better. 5. Less Draft as Other Designs (but As Stable) Fin Keel vs Full Keel: Pros and Cons & When to Choose Which The full keel is the oldest style of keel, used since the earliest sailboats. A full keel is integral to the hull and runs the entire length of the under-body of the boat. The rudder is hung at the end of the keel if it's not transom mounted. Most "full keel" boats from recent decades are modifications of the centuries-old full keel. Full Keel Vs Fin Keel On Sailboats Full Keel Sailboats. Although full keels are by far the least efficient design, they offer incredible strength and versatility. If we want to explore new waters in which we could run aground, or travel offshore, a complete keel will keep our backs better than any other. One thing is certain though, a full keel will never fall off your boat as a ... 5 Top Affordable Bluewater Cruising Sailboats Learn about five different models of cutter-rigged or sloop-rigged sailboats that have full keels and are suitable for long-distance cruising. Compare their features, prices, tankage, and design characteristics. Full Keel Sailboats ... Favorable Argument MODERN ARGUMENT IN FAVOR OF FULL KEEL BLUEWATER SAILBOATS: Aesthetics, robustness of structure, and bullet-proof reputation are the characteristics of the full keel design that molded my confidence to build/own one as a young naval architect drawing boats between the age of 12 to 23 before actually purchasing a Cape George 31 bare hull in 1991 ... How I became a Full-Keel Convert-Part One How I became a Full-Keel Convert-Part One. Posted on April 10, 2013 by Barry. A line drawing of Sirocco, a true full-keel boat. Sirocco is a "Ben Bow" designed by William Atkin. Over the years that I have been sailing, I have logged miles on a number of different craft from an International Sabot up to a steel schooner of about 200 gross ... A Look at Sailboat Design: Fin Keels vs. Full Keels Keel bolts and the infamous garboard seam are completely eliminated. This approach to sailboat keel design dates back to the Rhodes Bounty II and other prototypes in the production world of sailboats. Now over 50 years old, many of these boats continue to have a tenacious grasp on the lead or iron that they hold. 10 best long keel yachts The Frances 26 is a 1980s Chuck Paine designed double-ender. This eye-catching small double-ender was designed by Californian Chuck Paine in the mid-1980s but built in the UK by Victoria Marine. It's an ideal short-handed boat, with accommodation to match, along with sufficient displacement to give the solid feel that many long-keel ... Sailboat Keel Types: A Complete Guide The full keel is one of the most common types of the keel that you are likely to see on a sailboat. A full keel runs from end to end of the boat lengthways. A full keel, as the name implies, runs almost the entire length of the boat. At a minimum, it must run 50% of the length of the boat. Sailboat Keel Types: Pros And Cons 2024 Full keeled sailboats. A full keel is one that runs pretty much the whole length of the sailboat. This is one of the most stable types of keel, and is popular with offshore cruisers looking for a solid, rugged sailboat. A full keeled sailboat will usually fare better in heavy weather. They tend to track better in big waves and there is less ... Lit'l Coot 18 Full Keel Devlin Boats, Sailboats. The Lit'l Coot 18 Full Keel is a is seaworthy and capable motorsailor with enough space on board for the organized sailor and enough potential to keep serious travelers satisfied. She is the sister to the original Lit'l Coot with the same hull and the same tendency for balanced performance and maximal use of space ... 40 Best Sailboats, Types of Sailboats & Manufacturers With its full keel, round stern, lapstrake fiberglass hull, solid bulwarks and extended anchor roller and bow pulpit, the Nor'Sea 27 is a salty looking classic. ... is a fine example of a late '70s-early '80s moderate displacement, long fin keel, center cockpit sailboat, with roomy accommodations below and good sailing performance in any ... List of the best small 30-35' full keel cruising boats based on A very traditional boat, a full keel, gaff rigged cutter with tan bark sails, that has many ocean miles under her keel. Ruth Avery is a Southern Cross 31, for the record . Designed by Gillmer, as you say. Sailboat Keel Types Compared: Pros and Cons of 13 Types Lastly, full keel sailboats are less likely to be damaged when grounding, as the keel's large surface area allows for better weight distribution. This characteristic can be especially useful when navigating shallow waters or exploring uncharted territories. Cons of full keel. Despite the many advantages of a full keel, it also has some drawbacks. Full Keels November 15, 2016. A full keel sailboat is not known for high speed or performance, they are known for being sturdy. The full keel provides a lot of wetted surface area which leads to more drag through the water and slower speed. The low aspect ratio appendage extends out below the hull and provides little lift for its size which translates ... Full Keel Sailboat Boats for sale Equipped with a full-roach, laminated Mylar mainsail, and a roller-furling jib, this sailboat is tailored for superior sailing efficiency in light winds, with an optional deep lead keel for added stability and speed. An added bow thruster makes docking on the windiest days less stressful. Full Keel Blue Water Sailboats Boats for sale It is quicker than most full keel boats.The long-keel design ensures a comfortable ride at sea, and the center cockpit layout allows for an extremely roomy and useful live aboard arrangement for cruising. Soon more pictures and specs... 1986 Canyon Industries 43 Sloop - Refurbished 2014. $150,000 ... Formosa Full Keel Sloop boats for sale Find Formosa Full Keel Sloop boats for sale in your area & across the world on YachtWorld. Offering the best selection of Formosa boats to choose from. ... 1987 Formosa Full Keel Sloop. US$139,000. ↓ Price Drop. Denison Yachting | Marathon, Florida. Request Info; Sponsored Boats | related to your search. 2025 Jasper Marine Defender 22. US ... Does anybody still produce full keel sailboats? : r/sailing Most of the inventory seems to be 70s-90s sailboats. Island Packets have a full keel with a cutaway forefoot, I don't know if you'd count that. They're sailed all around the world and the company really prides themselves on their keel design. They still build folkboats to the original specifications. Full keel and all. What are the Best Small Bluewater Sailboats? Cruisers Top Picks We chose a Tayana 37 for our small cruising sailboat, which features a fairly deep full keel, a super thick fiberglass hull, a moderately heavy displacement, two good sea berths and a small, sea-going cockpit. The best 5 small bluewater sailboats for sailing around the world Bayesian yacht sinking: What factors might have caused boat to sink A keel is a weighted, fin-like part of the boat that protrudes from its base and helps keep the boat stable. When the wind pushes the boat onto its side, the weight of the keel counteracts the ... Sailboat Keel Types: Illustrated Guide (Bilge, Fin, Full) The most common sailboat keel types are full-length keels, fin keels, bulb keels, wing keels, bilge keels, and lifting keels. Full keels are popular among cruisers, while fin keels are generally used for racing. Bilge keels and lifting keels are typically used in tidal waters, on small fishing boats for example. The Six Defining Features Of The Best Rough Water Boats High-performance boats at Moomba are designed with a heavy-duty keel, low profile, and perfectly balanced to deliver high speed and stability. 5. Horsepower & Speed Bayesian yacht: What we know about the luxury boat sank by a ... According to the Associated Press, the boat has been available for charter for $215,000 (€195,000) per week. Lynch's wife is linked to the yacht. The Bayesian is held by the company Revtom ... Bayesian superyacht was 'virtually unsinkable', claims shipbuilder When divers searched the Bayesian 165ft underwater, it was reported that they found the vessel's retractable keel was partially raised, sparking questions about the boat's stability at the ... Superyacht sinks latest: Investigators reveal where bodies were found A fire service boat with flashing blue lights returns with a blue body bag to the port of Porticello just after 8.45am local time on Thursday. Tributes pour in for Mr Lynch and Mr and Mrs Bloomer ... 13 Popular Trailerable Sailboats with Lifting Keels Hunter 22. This one has to make the list because it is immensely popular. Rightfully so. It is small enough to be transported on a trailer, plus it has a lifting keel that makes the draft only 30 centimeters when up - but over a meter when down, so it still has to say a lot in terms of performance. Questions for Investigators as Italy Tries to Unravel the Yacht's Standard procedure in such storms, he said, would be to switch on the engine, lift the anchor and turn the boat into the wind, lowering the keel for extra stability, closing doors and gathering ... catamaran gulet motorboat powerboat riverboat trimaran yacht