[Public-List] In Praise of Integral Keels

[Gordon Laco]

... and of course the designers name is ‘Garden’, not what I wrote 

G

Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 24, 2019, at 2:04 PM, Gordon Laco via Public-List <public-list at lists.alberg30.org> wrote:
> 
> Well most yachts since before WW1 have had bolt on keels… I think the issue is not so much bolt on keels, as what the keels are bolted to.  Once upon a time yachts were built with massive internal transverse structures called ‘floors’ which spread the load of bolted-on keels to a wide area of very strong hulls.  This was, and still is, a very sound way to build a yacht.   If one omits the floors, which there is great impetus to do in this era of cost fear, lightweight hulls and shallow bilges, trouble is almost inevitable.
> 
> So here I am in Vancouver connecting flights to LA for the Tall Ships America AGM after a week sailing in a friend’s Gardner designed 70’ schooner.   Conditions were unseasonably cold, so the pilot house, which I’d normally sneer at, was quite welcome.  Gardner’s boats can’t be called ’traditional’ but they certainly have the look of having been descended from traditional designs by means of extrapolation.   This schooner has the basic look of a Fredonia from the late 1800’s. but with everything turned up to 11. (Those who have seen ’Spinal Tap’ will know what I mean.)  Everywhere a traditional schooner would have a curve, this one has more curve… she has a clipper-like bow, but very much improved from a clipper bow.   Her spars are raked, and raked some more.   I’m not sure if she’s beautiful, but wow she is fast.    
> 
> Her ballast is all carried internally, amounting to about 33% of her total displacement, which is considerable. She has a long straight keel like something from the 1800’s… but she’s very fast and weatherly.   She has a stays’l rig, which means that there's only one string to pull when tacking, that of the outer jib’s sheets.  Everything else flops over on its own, self tacking.   The whole sail plan but for the main is on roller furlers like big genoas… and the main has a ball bearing car and track system which makes a winch required only for luff tension despite the very lofty rig and huge sail.  It goes up and down smooth as silk.    
> 
> Down below, I was shocked that although my wife and our host’s wife were already there, I couldn’t see them looking in the companionway at the cockpit.  They were WAY up forward in one of the staterooms, of which there is m