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Ahoy,

Ducksworks Magazine has just published an excellent article about Port Townsend and boats and visions of adventure.
A part of the article included some photos, one of which in particular caught my attention.

Look at the keel on this boat. It's a full length keel.
I can't tell you how many times people have asked about the keel on my own boat.



I rather like the look of this particular boat. I admire the full length keel, and apparently other people do as well.

The article included other photos as well. Indeed, here is one with a familiar face.
As many of you know, Barry Pyeatt lives in the immediate area.
Undoubtedly, you will recognize him even though he was traveling incognito.
When you're famous, people often harrass you for authorgraphs.



Honestly, though, the figurehead did make me think of Barry, but not exactly for the reasons I had said.
Barry plans to have a similar figurehead on his own boat. His boat will also sport a full length keel.

This an example of a way of thinking not used in modern yacht design much any more, though perfectly valid.

The keel looks shallow and it is, but the boat probably has 2' to 3' of actual draft. Notice the deadrise is quite steep and the forefoot well cut back. It's even possible she carries a centerboard, though it doesn't appear to. The steep deadrise offers considerable lateral area, so the keel proper doesn't have to be very big. The cut away forefoot permits her to turn through her bow wave with less resistance.

Advantages to underwater shapes like this are, you'll have lots more interior volume and can lower the soles to provide more headroom. The motion of the boat, particularly when it's rough going, is easy and gentle on the crew and gear. Of course with the relatively slack bilges (by modern standards) she'll roll more readily, preferring to heel over in gusts rather then stand up to them.

These shapes also have disadvantages, as all good things in yacht design have their counterpart to contend with. The additional interior volume, afforded by the deep bilges also means more displacement. You can directly account the costs of a build, by a boats displacement. Heavier construction will be necessary and she'll drag a healthy, leeward bow wave along for the ride, which slows things down. Without much aspect ratio on the keel she'll skid off to leeward a tad, but not as bad as you'd think.

Lapstrake hulls are the prettiest of all and they offer some performance gains too. The tiny bubbles that roll along the edges of each plank underway, act much like little ball bearings and the boat seems to glide effortlessly. Lapstrake construction isn't the easiest (one of the hardest in fact) to build, but it is the lightest of wooden construction, unless you get into composites. At night the bubbles can be a wonderful sight, looking like bits of metal flake trailing in the wake, lit by the moon light or better the phosphorus glow of some types of algae. The first time I saw this happen, I thought the boat was leaking something.

The raised deck is a nice feature, one I use in my designs. It's a much stronger configuration then a deck with a cabin sticking up through it. It also adds a lot of additional, useable cabin space, that would other wise be under the side decks.

Though this looks to be a traditional solid planking lapper, it could easily have plywood planking. It's amazing what you can shape plywood into.