Very cool! I love hearing first hand accounts ⛵️

They are super useful for that!

That’s a sweet setup!

make?

@@cancrittercancritter9360 Cecil Boden, marine architect. Cutter rigged sloop.

That is true. Having space to get your tools in there is a game changer! When we plan to work on the bottom of the keel, I always put extra tall blocks under the keel to give me more room. I can’t imagine how cumbersome it must be to try and work on a bottom when the keels are partway into the mud bottom.

I have been very jealous of bilge keel boats every time the tide would go out and leave us somewhere dry! They really are incredible boats with an added benefit!

Righting moment is a function of the horizontal difference between the center of gravity and the center of buoyancy. Once the hull is heeling the weight of the leeward keel is under the center of buoyancy and has no righting moment. Like the vessel when on an "even keel". Therefore the windward keel is the only one exerting righting moment and that moment is the horizontal difference between the windward keel and the center of buoyancy.

@@PaulHarris-sl1ct you can't have it both ways. You're correct, RM is CB over CM but the CM doesn't change it's relative position just because the yacht is healed. In effect yes, the keel becoming vertical does less than a single keel but the keel becoming horizontal, does more than a single keel so in effect, twin keels CM, if it's the same position as the single keel, there definitely will not be more RM. If you don't get that, go ask your physics teacher or a naval architect. I design yachts so I do know a little about this stuff, what's your qualification?

If you want to see a bilge keeler that goes well in light winds, see Mingming 2. Her rig was specially designed for light weather. kzfaq.info/love/qbPTJgSLaMhf0BkdG6t72A

@@Garryck-1 Taylor is a legend . It was him and the other jester challenge boys that 1st really got my imagination going .

There's also the hydrodynamics of a canted fin keel to take into account. One of the bilge keels will be pointing directly downwards when heeling, this will reduce leeway compared to the canted over fin keel.

They are worse for racing because of a couple of reasons. They need to have a larger area than half a single keel so that's extra wetted area drag. That's why center board cats sail better to windward than a fixed low profile centerboard and the other reason is large aspect foils have more lift than low aspect foils, the reason glider wings are long and thin, for example.

@@KarlFullerNZ The wetted area makes a bit of difference but not very much (unless heavily fouled), it's usually offset by a bilge keel's better hydrodynamic profile. Horizontal water flow will flow around something short height long length much easier than something tall height short length. Which is why bilge keels can often compete with fins downwind but not upwind. Agree with your 2nd point, that's just another way of wording what I was saying. Very difficult to summarise it in a short comment.

wisenber catamaran or tri-hull boat?

@@Mikinct I have a a trimaran. I have to bury a hull under water to heel more than 10 degrees. I reef before that.

wisenber awesome to learn that info, thanks & happy sailings! How long have you been sailing for. Did you start out with a day sailor like a Catalina 22’ boat to learn or a Hobbie Cat?

@@Mikinct I started out paddling a kayak for a few years. Then I decided to add a sail to my kayak for a few years. Then I built a small trimaran a few years ago. Still less than six years of sailing, but building the boat really helped understand more of how they work. I found small boats really help simplify the process of learning to sail. The complexity of a split rig and all of the hardware is a pretty big distraction from learning the basics. My next boat is still in the planning phases. I'm looking to build a 13 meter trimaran that is capable of crossing oceans but still able to be trailered. That one will be more carbon fiber and less marine ply. Should be quite a bot faster too. Thanks for your interest.

Short and sweet!

That’s a great bit of information! I have come to learn that in England they have a distinction between full keel and long keel, while in the states they are lazy and everything that is “not” a fin keel is a full keel.

👍

This was an academic perspective of keeling not the conventional opinion of keeling. What people do is not what they should do. Common keeling is off keel.

That is an excellent point!

The center of mass of the two keels is still in the middle of the boat, so no difference from it to a single keel

@@RiggingDoctor Thank you this makes me feel so much better, as the plan is to sit on its keels at low tides rather than a harbour.

You will find one mate . British people sail them to the med and leave them there.

Just curious how does the effect rolling?

@@andrewyork3869 Sadly, I don't know for a fact, as the boat was never built. It probably wouldn't roll much mainly because it would never be sailed dead down wind. It also wouldn't be too hot going up wind, so it's upwind sailing would be more like glorified close reaches. Because the amount of side to side motion of the bilge keels would be greater per roll, I suspect they would provide better roll dampening than a single keel of the same proportions.

@@bobcornwell403 ah that makes sense!

V isn't a very efficient design wrt. wetted surface area. A rounded bottom is better as it has better volume to surface are ratio.

@@DaveWatts_ejectamenta Dave, you are about half right. A round bottom has the least surface area per section. An ideal round bottom would be a perfect half circle, which would be half as deep as it is wide at the WL. Look in any marina dry storage, and you will almost never find one. Such a boat would have a massive displacement. This kind of section would work great on a mulihul. This is because the hulls are so narrow. Most monohul sailboats have either "V" or flat bottom sections with rounded corners at the top. This is because skin friction matters most at speed/length ratios (square root of wl in feet in knots) of 1.0 or less. There are other considerations as well. Initial stability is one of them. A half circle section (from sheer to sheer) does not offer a lot of initial stability (required to stand up to the sail area). We do see a few of those around, and with enough ballast, stand up to their sail area well enough. But the major problem of a boat is to get water around it while making as small waves as possible. This is governed mostly by the waterlines. A 'V" bottom boat has wider waterlines at the top of its underwater sections, but much narrower ones near the bottom . This is the reason we see a great number of heavy displacement sailboats with deep "V" like sections. A deep "V" section has the most draft per volume. This allows the ballast to be placed lower where it is most effective for its weight, without adding all that much surface area. The most ruinous adder of whetted surface are the twin keels. This is why we never see them on racing sailboats. Twin keels offer just two major advantages, and none of them have anything to do with increased performance. These two advantages are: 1.) Ability of the boat to stand up on its bottom, when beached, and 2.) Ability to sail in shallower water. These two advantages are why I chose them for my LOLA design. LOLA was designed to be relatively easy to build and maintain. That and lower building cost and adequate seaworthiness were the primary design considerations. Ease of construction followed those. The floating draft of LOLA would be about 2 ft (for a 5 by 20 ft sailboat). The ballast is meant to assure self-righting only, so it is minimal (about 30% of total displacement or less),and it isn't very deep. So, to get adequate ability to stand up to her sail area, she has a wl beam equal to her maximum beam.

1. They come in both forms. 2. Encapsulated keels have no keel bolts. Bolt on versions have the issues with keel bolts. 3. If you drop a keel, the boat will list a bit and be ok on one tack and really heel on the other tack. Not to mention list while at rest.

Rigging Doctor thanks 4 feedback! Really enjoy your videos

Very true. Fiberglass won’t fall off as easily as a bolt failure can! I sleep much better with my encapsulated keel. I never need to think about it :)

Those boats are so solidly built!

having a slight 'toe in' on the bilge keels helps in righting. A lot of them have this.

.Inverted stability , I can ' t say as I have not been rolled in a bilge keel . but in theory after avs is reached and she flips the stability upside down would be much higher than a fin keel . I need to do some scale testing unless someone has data on that ? Did you find some data on this? I´ve been thinking the same thing.. And i have not choosen weather to go with Bilge or not... And this is an importent factor..

We did accidentally once...I believe the video is called "Totally Beached"

It does not. The only big advantage is when the tide goes out. Otherwise, the extra keel is just extra drag while sailing to windward.

@@RiggingDoctor thank you.

They work on the ocean, but their big advantage shows when the tide goes out.

I agree! These boats really are excellent cruisers. It’s like if the family minivan was styled after an F1 car. No one will be happy in that situation, so why should your cruising boat be subject to the same mistake.

If they are all the same length, it wouldn’t be able to stand on the keels level, so it would have to be an adjustable center board. Being a board, it could be really long which would give wonderful performance when going upwind while still being retracted when going downwind. The only downside would be the complexity of the board where most of these boats are built for simplicity. They need a keel so they get one, then they need to stand up at low tide so they get a second leg. The designer then looks at it and says “that’s enough to get the job done” and moves onto some other part of the boat. If you find one with that, I would not shy away from it as it would be the best from all worlds!

@@RiggingDoctor thank you Herb, this makes me feel good coming from someone of your level of experience. However, I've never seen one with three keels but it is something I'd like to build one day. I've studied a few years to create my perfect boat. Although I know there's no such thing as a perfect boat but there is a such thing as the perfect boat for me. I've also left a comment on another video about props please check in out as I feel I've given you a great idea. But I trust and respect your thoughts on it. (Potential money saver but your the judge of that) P.S. in my three keels design I planed on making the third keel raise slightly higher than the other two and go lower as well. I just have to determine how low so I could take advantage of low tide and possibly beaching and have a bit of comfort in rough water. Thanks again and cheese to you and your lovely wife.

The closest thing to a three keel boat would be the modern vendee boats. They have the ballasted keel which cants side to side to help with righting moment, a dagger board in front of the keel that acts as the keel, and then port and starboard dagger boards. When sailing, the windward dagger board is raised to reduce drag, and you have from windward to leeward: ballasted keel, Center dagger board, leeward dagger board. It’s a three keel system that definitely can not support the boats weight at low tide 🤣 but it might be an idea generator for how they are placed while in use to avoid interference between the boards.

@@RiggingDoctor cool I'll look it up but I want something solid as a rock because my boat will be a heavy girl and I'm loving the idea of standing upright in low water or on the hard. I thought a third keel would give more stability in rough water if it could drop below the other two keels and raise higher. At least this would not affect my draft in a negative way. And like you said the boat will still stand on the two main keels. I'm just trying to build a safe one of a kind comfortable boat to spend lots of time on and will not have to come to shore if I don't need to. So this is part of what I have to do. You've helped me a lot Herb and big thanks for you for it. Question, is there a reason why I've only seen two keel systems on metal boat's?

@@RiggingDoctor I've looked up vendee boats, it is indeed an interesting design however it won't help me in my design because those keels and dagger boards don't seem to be able to hold the weight of my boat. It's in the design because I feel I need the ballast. And just so you know I'm not going to build a sail boat. So something's I can get away with but not go to crazy. Truth be told I've come up with an electric system in which I could regen under way. Infact, it's the only way I can regen outside of solar. Having said this Herb, I need an efficient hull(sailboat). But not just a good hull it has to able to carry weight. It's a one of a kind so I must be able to carry parts tools etc. So I hope now you can see why I asked so many questions from you (your experience). I have only one shot at this so I have to design this thing right from the start. Thanks for your time Herb not many KZfaqrs will take the time you have to talk to followers. Your #1...

Yousif Jawher as in how tipsy the boat is in a marina or how much it heels while under sail? It’s about the same. You really wouldn’t know that a boat had bilge keels if the water was murky until the tide went out!

@@RiggingDoctor Yeah, exactly. As in how much the boat heels and if they have a disadvantage with higher waves in terms of safety.

Yousif Jawher they function the same as a fin keel would, meaning they point well but when you heave to, they slip laterally through the water since they don’t have the surface area of a long keel. As for sailing in heavy seas, they are very popular around England and that area is notorious for having terrible seas! That should speak to their sea worthiness :)

@@RiggingDoctor Thank you. I've only been sailing once, but recently I've been watching a lot of sailing videos (even though I live in a country with only 26KMs of coastline) and it's gotten me really interested. Any recommendations on where to start with learning about sailing? Do you think an "official course" or license are necessary?

Yousif Jawher if you’re country requires a license, the process of getting your license will teach you a lot, but not everything about sailing. Some countries licenses teach you the laws around boating but forget to teach the boating parts! My two suggestions for learning about sailing are: reading books and going sailing as much as you can with friends. For books: I highly recommend “The Self Sufficient Cruiser” and “Storm Tactics” by Lin & Larry Pardey. All of their books are packed with information but these two are important to start on. The first teaches a lot of sailing tricks while the other teaches you what to do when 💩happens. Knowing what to do in the worst of it means that you will never get caught without knowing how to handle the situation. Another source of information you could read is the blog: www.riggingdoctor.com/life-aboard/tag/Sail+Plans+and+Rigs It covers a wide range of topics and goes quite in depth.

There is another problem when a fin keeled yacht follows us into the shallows. Yes it happened. He floated off eventually.

Upwind performance is generally inferior with twin keels, which is a consequence of the added drag, but also could be a consequence of very bad flow around the windward keel. In my area.

From what I have read about them, you have double the drag of a fin keel, but still less drag than a full keel. Having been dried out by an outgoing tide and leaning all the way over for the next 12 hours, the thought of having little keel legs to keep me upright sounds like a huge plus! No, we don’t plan on being in those situations but if you were to find yourself there, why not make it more delightful?

@@RiggingDoctor here in Cornwall some people who can't afford a large bilgy buy a full keel and fit dry out legs . Under 30ft they are cheap but over 30 they get pricy. Cheapest bilge over 30 is a Westerly Berwick at about 15k . But we all want a moody they are 50k

These keeps are popular in areas with huge tidal ranges. We saw most of them in places where the tide was greater than 10 feet.

Yes, we just didn’t include them in the video because they have a lot of variables to them! I will see if I can find a boat with a swing keel and one with a canting keel in the boat yard near us to do a video on them.

@@RiggingDoctor I aperishiat it.and do you know about stabilize for stainless hull types in calm water to tell me about them?and if you tell me also about any shalow v hull design not the mod v like Jon boat.the deep v style but the hull v shape is mor mor open and the angle has big degree.thanks

Very good point about bilge keeps in non-tidal areas! Off the wind, the keel doesn’t need to produce lift since your direction does not require lift to go in that direction (lift pulls you upwind). In a downwind situation, you now have double the drag. I personally like my single full keel but I think these are really cool!

I was nearly 30 before I knew none tidal zones exsisted. See goes out see comes back watched it all my life never questioned it 😆

That tends to come more from the hull shape and displacement to length ratio than the number of keels. The big advantage they offer is the ability to stand upright when the tide goes out.

It’s simple sales tricks. They cost slightly more to make so Boat builders are discouraged. Since fewer are made, people think they are weird and therefore don’t want them. They are very popular in places with extreme tides because there the boats will frequently be left high and dry. Bulge keels makes that a no brainer! Everywhere else, they are the “odd boat”. I think they are very cool 😎

@@RiggingDoctor Do you know if they have any disadvantages or advantages of like a fin or long keel when it comes to bouncing and comfort? I would want to weigh that against the side to side safety. I have been looking at Sirius but also rustler, gozzard, and Island Packets. I would love a twin but keep loving the tracking and comfort of long keels stories, I have have not heard how twins do in the open sea.

@@mikefetterman6782 go look up Rodger Taylor in Ming Ming . Allot of the other jester challenge boats are bilges. It's a single handed Atlantic race . Ming Ming is a 24 it's been every where. In Britain it's the default.

and would a twin keel be better?

That depends where you are. Around here (tidal estuaries of SE Britain), they're everywhere. Probably the most common keel type.

I would look at a boat made with a steel hull, but I do not know of any off the top of my head.

Rigging Doctor Thanks. I Was definitely thinking steel. I was even thinking of making my own with a design to scrape away part of the rock every time I hit one.

Van da sradt 34 is a heavy steel bilge keel.

For years moody 35s , colvic countess and Westerly ocian quests were the largest. Then came the hunter legend 36 and now the sirias ds 40 is the largest. Bilge keels under 30 are common as muck . Over 30 they like hens teath. I know I'm looking for one a boat that can't stand up is useless to me mate . They are comparatively rare because mud docks are free. But if you can afford a brand new boat over 30 you can probably afford an expensive and rare deep water morning. So only those with big money but no deep water morning anywhere near at all tend to speck them. People like me who want to live in the estuary will pay premium for a bilge over 30 so they get pricey especially the fastesr ones . moody 35 was the dady they go for 50k . Now the dady is the sirias ds 40 . Absolute perfection . About 60% are bilge keels beautiful boat . £300k before you start adding extras 😬 Cheepest bilge over 30ft westerly Berwick . £15k good boat by all accounts it's cheap for no reason other than it's ugly.

I see you found the episode haha

I’ve never seen a boat with them in person to do a video on them.

@@RiggingDoctor I have one!

First I need to find someone with that setup who wants to do a demonstration.

Hello that is funny saludos

Thats funny!!!!

I like bilge keels and thats no lie...

@@Tzphardi to funny hahaha LMBO saludos

@@Tzphardi those other rudders can't deny

the weather helm is no different to a fin keel, and a hell of a lot less than a long keel. I've sailed all three, extensively without autupilots.

No, but lots of reading and many friends with them who have sailed both who have told us all about the pros and few cons of bilge keels.

@@RiggingDoctor we had Vivacity 20 as go in between boat for about 5 years when we sold our Colin Archer and were building our current boat. Inside it’s surprisingly spacious for 20ft boat sleeping 4 if you are good friends, having water head and gas stove. It’s seaworthy, sails quite well and can take beating. We sailed it mainly on Bothnian bay in Baltic sea where waves tend to be short and choppy. Not sure tho if it points as well to wind as some other same size racier boats with fin keel. Super fun to sail and obviously hauling in/out and storing is absolute breeze. Especially up north handy when season is so short. Ours was in excellent condition...wonder where it’s sailing now...

Not true. Modern bilge keels like mine a h356 can point upwards of 10 degrees higher and (as the video points out) counter the effects of a reach therefore run flatter and faster. Very similar to counter weight. Yes the old old bilge keels were slugs, but modern way out runs their counterparts. Ie a h356 fin keel has no chance (and I’ve tested it many times) against a h356 legend.

Some do . Something like a sadler 29 will spank a lesser fin of same size. A good bilgey will spank any long keel . There are some bilge keel twin rudder racers that can get up on the plane . All french . I wouldn't consider anything else. If boat falls over when tide goes out boat is useless regardless of any other pro 🤷

Technically but it won't help you buy one if you surch like that .

There are always pros and cons to every design

Right up until you have to tack then they are a pain in the butt. A trimaran is a different story.

Heeling is the act of leaning over due to the force of the wind on the sails. Listing is leaning over due to improper loading. Keeling Over is to turn over, upset, or capsize. These are just general English terms.

If you're interested in building a junk rig boat on a small budget, take a look at Jay Benford's Sailing Dories. Most of them have a junk rig option. www.benford.us/dories/ And if you want to see one being built, check out Tony Brown's channel " SV Tapatya" kzfaq.info/love/v3C8JO7vzfAZeF6ie5dfZA

They point very well, if you have good sails, keep the weight down and sail them upright just like a fin. Worn out sails and and leaning right over may look fast but you are actually going sideways. The biggest problem is folk don't realise when the sails are really shot, until they replace them.

A friend on Terceira has a 27 foot bilge keel junk rig that he sails all over the place with. He sailed it to the Azores from England and is now cruising through the different islands. He loves it!

Someone hasn't sailed a bilge keeled yacht have they?

pete9501 owned two of them sailed to Fiji from nz in one and had a nock down , and survived , but never again , fin keels now , thousands of miles logged many fowl weather crossings and nock Downs much safer boat

@@kz4506 You're havin' a laugh aren't you. Grab the top of the mast and tip the boat over you say? Well it doesn't lean much when I climb the mast and certainly ain't going to tip over pulling at it.

@@kz4506 Hello. Was it the old style Bilge Keel "Centre with two small keels" or the larger twin keels. Among others am looking at a Westerly Centaur, though might go for a more modern version of that type. Was the reaction to the knockdown ponderous, or did you feel unsafe?

@@williamgrant3999 get a Centaur you won't regret it. I learned on one when I was a kid. (I have a konsort now, the bigger sister). Centaurs are great, cheap to buy, cheap to maintain, simple and most importantly they sail much better than they look like they should.

That’s a sailboat! Pick one that has advantages you care about with disadvantages that don’t interest you.

Not if you are British it's the default.

@@avancalledrupert5130 was there a distinction to be made in your point? 😂

😊

…Two keels?

Sorry, I should clarify. I was not referring to angle of attack but angle of heel.