Why not a full keel catboat?

[Ethan]

Continuing with my personal digression into everything catboat....

I've never even seen a picture of a full keeled cat. For all I know, there are no more around. What I do know however, is that some of the most respected names in catboat design have produced them. The Crosby's and Fenwick Williams come to mind right off hand.

I remember a post on a previous cat thread by a forumite who had nothing but contempt for the idea. I have no idea what his logic was due to his method of delivery. However, I would be grateful to hear what the cooler heads around here have to offer on the subject.

I think the main advantage is pretty obvious - you reclaim the cabin space normally taken up by the centerboard and centerboard case. One might even say that a second order benefit of the banished case is the eliminated leakage potential from the case's junction with the keelson/floors/keel.

For disadvantages, you lose the shoal draft and can't beach the boat. I would also think that, at least in a theoretical sense, you lower the top end speed due to the increased underwater flat plate area.

What else? Would the altered CG necessitate a re-balancing of the sail plan (only if it moved laterally or fore-and-aft, right?)?

I'd enjoy hearing your thoughts on this subject, folks.

Regards, Ethan

[donald branscom]

I am building a boat and doing away with the centerboard and putting on a fixed keel. Lets face it if the original board dropped down 24 inches and i put on a fixed keel 24 inches I don't think getting out of the boat in 2 feet of water is such a penalty. Clean interior -no leaks no worries.
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[Hesp]

"I've never even seen a picture of a full keeled cat."

Like this:

http://www.benford.us/pcty/20tug.html

[openboater]

Bolger 'Old Shoe', Micro and Long Micro would be considered keel'd catboats.

and if my memory is correct, Atkins designed a couple.

[rbgarr]

A full keel catboat comes pretty close to being a Friendship sloop, so it's not a controversial idea.

[Daniel Noyes]

Hi all, Ethan
We had a full keel cat in the Parker for one year, then it went over to the Merrimack, too much draft. Cats seem to like smoother water and that generally means sheltered ie. close to shore ie. shallow (at least in Massachusetts) also cats are generally light displacment, not very conducive to a keel, I have a dagger board in my cat skiff "Bagger" but she may be a little smaller than what you had in mind! :)

Dan http://dansdories.googlepages.com
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/208/491967609_0457bf1efd_m.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/dansdories/491967609/)http://farm1.static.flickr.com/230/491965685_eb163f82a8_m.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/dansdories/491965685/)http://farm1.static.flickr.com/222/491965317_0d8a14691d_m.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/dansdories/491965317/)http://farm1.static.flickr.com/212/491933650_baf9a00b23_m.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/dansdories/491933650/)http://farm1.static.flickr.com/220/491955377_a1ea22f5f5_m.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/dansdories/491955377/)

[paladin]

Full keel catboats have been around since time immemorial in one version or the other......I spent a bit of time with Charles Wittholz 20-25 years ago after I had drawn a couple of boats for his approval. I still have a lot of the notes.......not pushing what I drew....but Mr. Wittholz...
His 18'9" cat had a centerboard, draft up 2 ft....board down 4'4".....or a fixed keel of 3 feet.......
His 20 footer....board up 2'...board down 5'3"......fixed keel 3'
25 footer similar to 20 foot specs....
29 footer...board up 3'6"...board down7'.....keel.....would have to dig deeper but seem to remember 4 1/2 -5 '

as a sidenote....Longest of all known catboats was the "Nickerson", a 45 footer with a 15 1/2 foot beam built by Wilton Crosby in 1901.....

[Todd Bradshaw]

There are drawings and photos of several full keel versions shown in "The Catboat Book" (International Marine & The Catboat Association) even a couple from Herreshoff. Some look somewhat modified, but others have that very typical catboat profile once the keel is underwater.

[plyboat]

Here is an 18' cat with a fin keel
http://www.devlinboat.com/constructionwompuscat.htm

[Dave Davis]

Think a key disadvantage is the lack of ability to adjust the center of lateral resistance by raising and lowering the board. When our 19' cat is heavily reefed, the ce moves far enough forward to almost cause a lee helm. When running downwind, to ease the tendency to round up, the board's all the way up.

No flexibility with a fin or full keel.

[Lance F. Gunderson]

The great advantage of the catboat is it's shoal draft and outstanding downwind performance, both of which might be lost if a full keel is used. I think centerboards have been given a bad rap; for coastal cruising and gunkholing the centerboard boat has many advantages, including ease of beaching and grounding out at a reasonable angle of heal. The centerboard makes a convenient depth sounder too.

[Ethan]

So Chuck, out of curiosity, was Wittholz a fan of the full keel cat? Or, was it a particular request of a client?

like I said in my original post, some of the best names in catboats have addressed this issue.

Thanks to everyone who's replied - I appreciate the effort to share your thoughts!

[johnw]

The Lake Windemere catboats of the late 19th century were probably the most graceful of the keel cats. Check them out in Dixon Kemp's book, A Manual of Yacht and Boat Sailing. C.P. Kunhardt's "Small Yachts" has lines, sail plan and specs for an American keel cat.

I think the trouble with them was that if you got in irons, you couldn't pull up the centerboard. You had to wait to gather sternway, and if you didn't ease off the sheet enough, you could find yourself taking a knockdown.

[JimConlin]

WylieCat
http://www.wyliecat.com/images/Wyliecat30_line_drawing2.jpg

[Dave Davis]

Another advantage of a catboat is its ability to heave to easily (like alongside a pot or other fishing requirement) and get underway easily again. A sloop can do this by backing its jib, easing the main, and putting the tiller down to leeward. The cat does this by hauling up the board (moving CE forward of CLR), easing out the sail, and putting the tiller down. Without a movable CLR, tough to heave to with only one sail.

[paladin]

Mr. Wittholz (always Mr. Wittholz, never Charlie) was a very gracious gentleman. Always willing to sit and discuss any design. In this respect however, our conversations were short and far between. He was working at the time on some rough deadlines for the Cheoy Lee big cruisers, and unfortunately was relatively very ornery.....he had cancer and didn't want to see the doctors.......although he was polite and kind to me. He felt that a proper catboat was a centerboard boat, but, being in the business of drawing boats for customers, he drew what the wanted.....within reason. If he thought it would be a disaster he wouldn't draw it. He approved of the marconi rig, and gaff rig for his centerboard boats, but he felt that if you wanted a fixed keel, he could balance the boat with a cat rig, although he preferred the Noank Sloop setup. In those days I was, or had been heavily into multihulls. But he had just drawn the 3rd or 4th iteration of one of his boats and he was one to spend extreme amounts of time to get it right. I tood one of his old drawings with me, took his keel and reduced it about a foot for a stub keel, then drew in a centerboard of about 1/2 the size that the boat originally had, with the board pivot in the bilge and the galley table aft but not all the way, so that the center support of the galley table became the centerboard case. I gave him my rough drawing, he looked at it, then threw it on the table behind him......we had tea......and about 3 weeks later I came back, the paper had been flattened and smoothed out with several colored pencil marks on it....and he handed it back......he smiled.....barely....he rarely smiled when he was working.....and just said "keep at it and you'll learn well"...

[Boatmik]

I've never even seen a picture of a full keeled cat. For all I know, there are no more around.

--SNIP--

I'd enjoy hearing your thoughts on this subject, folks.

Regards, Ethan

Hi Ethan,

Sorry but I have been sorely tempted by the question

A full keel catboat .... why not?

I think there are many more questions in this vein ...

A Raised deck catboat .... why not?
A sloop rigged catboat .... why not?
A bulb keel catboat .... why not?

And of course - why not! The Cape Cod catboat has some great defects compared to other boats , but it is a truly great boat type.

You can have designed whatever you like but it won't be a Cape Cod Catboat.

A cape cod catboat has a big swinging centreboard that divides the cabin, it has a heavy mast placed well forward, it has mighty weather helm in a blow on a reach. It can scurry into a shallow harbour. It can be singlehanded with ease.

Those are a few of the things that make up a catboat - as opposed to something that "looks like a catboat".

And you are right - I am being mischievous!

MIK

[paladin]

build a 25 foot Wittholz catboat, ballasted keel rigged as a Noank Sloop..

[Ian McColgin]

I think MIK is being mischievous. "Catboat" referrs to a one mast-one sail rig. (Yes, some get bowsprits and a boom but those are not essential to the original boat.)

All well designed cats and quite a few not so well designed cats will heave-to just fine board up or down (as Marmalade does) or with a keel. They just like to heave-to on a nearly beam reach with the boom way out.

Back to the original point - like any boat, the good examples of different races of catboat each have their points. The Cape Cod cats tend to the 2:1 (LWL:B). We have a nice example of a keeled version working hard in Hyannis, the centenatian Eventide operated by Marcus Sherman as a headboat from the Ocean Street dock. But I personally think you get more from a centerboard version. Interestingly, in many winds she likes the boad up even to a tight reach as the boat herself creates some lift and you can live without the board's drag. Counterintuitivly, this is more likely in higher winds.

Extreme boats, like the Atlantic City cats are not for work or singlehanding or passengers. They are huge sail on a small platform and godtakethehindermost.

The Freedoms and Nonsuchs are welcome in the Catboat Association and they are certainly keel boats with more like 3:1 or 3-1/2:1 hulls.

Like a good society or a good ecosystem, it's diversity that makes for vigor and health.

[johnw]

Actually, many catboats were built with jibs. WP Stephens talked about it in 'Traditons and Memories of American Yachting." First they started racing them and adding sail, then the booms got too long for the rig to balance, then they added a self-tending jib on a bowsprit. The mast was still set right in the eyes of the vessel.

[silvergull]

And, I fondly remember "TABBY" from the Rudder magazine in about 1961. A keel cat 19'6" x 9'6" drawing about 3'6" designed by Walter J Skinner, I believe.

She was shown, in partial rebuild, at the first WoodenBoat Show in Newport RI in 1981 (?).

Cheers, Jim

[NealmCarter]

I have seen catboats with fixed keels and various rigs, including a topsl
I always judged catboats as having about 1/2 the beam of the LOD, and something with less beam was simply called a sloop.

[Benchdog]

I read this thread a few days ago and for some reason it stuck in my mind. I tended to agree with Boatmik. Anyway here is a link to a keeled catboat built buy the Crosbys. You can't get more "catboaty" than the Crosby's. That being said, I'll stick with my centerboard.

www.thelittleboatshop.com/restoration (http://www.thelittleboatshop/restoration.com)

[Benchdog]

that doesn't seem to work
try...

www.thelittleboatshop.com

.....then click on the restoration tab
I hope he sends some pictures in for the Catboat Association bulletin.

[PVanderwaart]

There have been an number of keel catboats among the production fiberglass versions. The Wittholz-designed 17' Cape Cod Cat from Cape Cod Shipbuilding was/is available in a centerboard-free version. The keel is only 3" deep.

The Wilkensen cat had a shoal keel, as well.

If you want to read about some adventures in a keel catboat, read "At Sea in the City" by William Kornblum.

[Tanbark Spanker]

Yes, some of the old full keeled working cats seemed a bit Friendship Sloopish. Friendship Sloopy? The little center board lobster boat sloops were pretty nice designs. Muscongus bay boats.

Cat boats rule!

[Peter Belenky]

Although there have been many keel catboats, some of the familiar Cape Cod hullform and some distinctive types such as the Newport RI point boat and the Eastport pinky in Maine, one of the reasons why centerboards were preferred was the difficulty of tacking a cat reliably. A shoal, beamy hull does not carry its way well, and a jibless gaff sail set on a large, unstayed mast tends to stall when pinched on the wind. Therefore, it is easy to get in irons when tacking, and the only way out is to back the sail and reverse the helm, fall off, going astern, and fill the sail on a reach. This procedure is awkward or dangerous, so there was a premium on a boat that could respond quickly to its helm, spinning about through the wind on a short centerboard.

[Tanbark Spanker]

http://www.by-the-sea.com/bakerboatworks/pdf/catboats.pdf some catboat plans, including plans for a full keel catboat.