# Winged Keels Pros & Cons



## TSOJOURNER (Dec 16, 1999)

*Winged Keels Pros & Cons*

More and more boats seem to be available with winged keels. From a cruising prospective, I would be interested in hearing the pros & cons of this design feature.


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## SailorMitch (Nov 18, 2005)

*Winged Keels Pros & Cons*

Here''s my experience based on 13 years of owning a Pearson 27 with a winged keel.

Advantage:
Shoal draft is hard to beat!

Disadvantages:
If you go aground, all that area of the wing will stick like glue to the bottom. You can''t heel the boat to reduce draft -- that makes it worse in fact. You have to keep the boat level to get it off. So be careful with depth!

You lose pointing ability with the design of most common cruising winged keels.

It''s a pain to paint under the wing, and to keep that surface fair.

I wrapped the anchor rode around the keel once, or actually the boat did it with a change in wind. I was able to straighten it out in good order, but you have more angles and appendages down there to snag stuff.

Have to take more care in blocking the boat on the hard to protect the wings.

By now you are probably wondering with all the negatives. What I should''ve said upfront is that the shoal draft is well worth all those disadvantages to me. But it''s your choice. Seems to me that more boats today are using bulbs to achieve the shoal draft to get around at least some of the negatives.

Mitch


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## Jeff_H (Feb 26, 2000)

*Winged Keels Pros & Cons*

(The ''War and Peace'' version)

I think that wing keels are generally being way over sold. At their most extreme, they offer a lot of promise in reducing draft while offering closer to fin keel performance. In theory wing keels can do three things to improve performance over an equal draft equal area keel; 1) Lower the vertical center of gravity, 2) reduce edge leakage and tip vortex, and 3) when heeled over, increase the foil (wing) area working against leeway. But that promise is rarely realized.

To explain:
1) Lower the vertical center of gravity.
First of all the wings, typically being made of lead and occurring right near the bottom of the keel, allows the wing keel to have a similar vertical center of gravity to a deeper fin.

2) Reduce edge leakage and tip vortex;
This second theoretical purpose for a wing keel is far more important than it might sound. If you had equal area rectangular shaped keels, one horizontal (low aspect ratio) and the other vertical (high aspect ratio, all other things being equal, the vertical one would slide sideward less (make less leeway) and have less drag. There are several reasons that high aspect ratio keels will make less leeway and have less drag. To understand this you need to look at the front, top and bottom of the keel. If we start at the top, the area adjacent to the hull is highly turbulent and so the portion of the keel that is near the hull generates less lift than the portion of the keel operating in non-turbulent water. The high aspect ratio keel has a greater portion of its area operating in non-turbulent water.

The leading edge of the keel is the primary source of lift (resistance to sideward motion). The higher aspect ratio keel has more leading edge and so simply has more lift in relationship to the drag created by its surface area.

But it''s the bottom of the keel that is the big frontier for wing keels. When a boat keels over and makes leeway, water from the high-pressure side of the keel slips under the keel into the low-pressure side of the keel. This slippage reduces the effectiveness of the bottom of the keel in creating lift. Beyond that this water than slips under the keel is highly turbulent and tumbles away from the boat creating a large vortex. There is a large amount of drag involved in towing this tumbling mass of water through the water. The longer the bottom of the keel in relationship to its height, the larger the area of the keel operating in reduced efficiency and the greater the tip vortex and consequently the greater the drag. To reduce this problem a simple plate can be added to the bottom of the keel that would stick out to either side and this plate would direct the water aft over the end of the keel and help to reduce the losses in efficiency of the keel tip. This is called an ''end plate effect''. The problem with a simple end plate is that they have their own tip vortex and that can increase drag. With carefully modeled wing shaped end plate, the tip vortex of both the low aspect ratio keel and the end plate can be greatly reduced to a level closer to a simple fin.

3) When heeled over, increase the foil (wing) area working against leeway. 
This theoretical advantage is easy to imagine but very hard to make work as promised. If you visualize a keel with two long wings protruding out either side and then you think of this boat as being heeled over, the lower wing will end up closer to vertical and if designed correctly can help generate lift that would resist leeway. In reality it takes pretty long wings to achieve any significant lift and they need to be configured so that they indeed develop lift in the right direction. Beyond that these long winds represent a lot of drag and so really need to be optimized to provide sufficient lift to overcome the losses of their drag. There''s the rub. Cruising boats go through so many changes in trim that it is really not possible to get that configuration right for all or even most situations.

As a result, most wing keels are little more than a specialized type of bulb keel. At best the average production wing keel concentrates weight lower in the keel, like a bulb and perhaps when properly designed they also are moderately efficient in reducing tip vortex.

Wing keels come with a price. No matter how carefully designed, a wing keel will have greater drag than a simple fin keel with equal lift. They are a little harder to design structurally and they have real problems in a grounding situation, where their greater surface area on their bottom makes them harder to free. In rare grounding situations, when heeled over, the lower tip can rally jamb into the bottom making getting free even harder. From talking to a lot of wing keel owners that just does not seem to happen that often.

So, in conclusion, wing keels offer an improved windward performance over a similar depth and aspect ratio keel. They will have greater drag than a deeper fin of equal lift and so will be slower on all points of sail. Not all wings are created equal. Some are wildly better than others. They potentially offer a lot of advantages, but they are heavily dependent on the quality of the design and I really think that many, if not most, wing designs are not really working to their potential nor offering anything like the promised performance. In testing tank studies of various keel types, carefully designed keel/centerboarders generally offered a greater potential for higher performance than your average wing but that comes at the price of more complexity and more moving parts to break. In yacht design, as in most things, there''s no such thing as a free lunch.

Respectfully
Jeff


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## manateee_gene (Dec 7, 2001)

*Winged Keels Pros & Cons*

My hat is off to you Jeff! you got 99% of it right on!!


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## Jeff_H (Feb 26, 2000)

*Winged Keels Pros & Cons*

That is extremely flattering coming from someone with your background.

Jeff


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## halyardz (Sep 2, 2000)

*Winged Keels Pros & Cons*

I agree with Jeff & Mitch. I had a wing my small Bene. But stuck her in the mud once. High tide and a tow out, swore I''d never have another wing....bulb maybe.


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## TSOJOURNER (Dec 16, 1999)

*Winged Keels Pros & Cons*

Please go to the " www.a1line.com ".You will find so many good opportunities for you.
Thanks.


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## Jeff_H (Feb 26, 2000)

*Winged Keels Pros & Cons*

Why would any one go to " www.a1line.com " when your obvious total lack of ethics as evidenced by spamming this forum and violating its rules against commercial posting shows that you are a totally untrustworthy person?


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## TSOJOURNER (Dec 16, 1999)

*Winged Keels Pros & Cons*

I have an S2 7.3 meter, shoal draft sailboat. I am contemplating attaching a "wing" plate to the aft bottom portion of the keel to increas upwind performance. 
I am thinking of glassing this wing onto the bottom. The getting stuck part of this I worry about some, but with a 24'' boat, 3'' draft, I''ll bet I can simply jump into the water and push her off in many situations.

Design factors I am wrestling with:
- chord length
- leading edge angle for shedding debris
- core material
- overall width
- structural design

-regards,


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## Jeff_H (Feb 26, 2000)

*Winged Keels Pros & Cons*

I really doubt that adding unballasted wings would be worth the effort. Wings are very tricky to design. If they are going to really work they will also add drag and if not really well optomized this drag will quickly offset any real advantage of adding the wings. The reason that wings have been popularized is that in the normal forms that we see in production boats they are really a very specialized form of a bulb keel and the combination of an end plate and added ballast somewhat offsets the loss of efficiency inherent in a shoal draft keel.

If I were to build a set of wings they would have a plan form similar to a British Spitfire but with truncated tips. I would build them out closed cell foam such as a polyisocyanurate foam or a closed cell PVC with an epoxy/glass skin. For attachement I would make up a stainless steel weldment out of a stainless steel tube with a nut welded to the inside end and SS plate fins that would stabilize the foam. I would then drill through the bottom of the keel and using epoxy, glue in a piece of SS ''all thread. I would then turn the wings onto the all-thread and use glass to keep it from rotating. A better more secure way attach the wing would be to have two parrellel tubes that would end at each wing tip and would allow through bolting of the wings. Once thru bolted end to end the pockets would be glassed closed.

All of that said, the first time you run aground you will more than likely damage the wings and have to rebuild. In other words, with all due respect, I think that this is probably a really bad idea.

Respectfully
Jeff


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## TSOJOURNER (Dec 16, 1999)

*Winged Keels Pros & Cons*

I found this page looking specifically for Spitfire shaped keels. I haven''t sailed for years but I do surf and enjoy experimental surf design. Back in the late 80''s surfer Cheyne Horan teamed up with Ben Lexan to design a surfing winged keel. It has Spitfire shaped wings. Check them out at: http://www.cheynehoran.com.au

This is not an endorsement or advertisement.
-Robert


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## TSOJOURNER (Dec 16, 1999)

*Winged Keels Pros & Cons*

Being a typical distracted sailor I wander into the occasional mud bank or sand bar, and have done so with both full keels and winged bulbs. Unlike Jeff I offer no professional experience, just these basic notes:

1) I''m happy with my shoal draft bulb keel, as I tend ground myself a lot less.

2) I''ve found when I do ground myself, I look at the compass first and make sure I don''t twist myself in. If the sails are up, this is easy to do. If I back off exactly opposite the direction I hit, I find getting off the bar/bank no problem. I''m beginning to think the shape of the bulb and wings keep me from going too far into the bank/bar and getting myself in too deep...ONLY if I act fast to get out.

3) I''ve experienced no loss of performance from the winged bulb. She points just fine.

Good luck, 
Don


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## TSOJOURNER (Dec 16, 1999)

*Winged Keels Pros & Cons*

Hi Old Glory...my first posting ever! r.e. Wing Keels..Currently have a CS-40 w/wing (5.6''draft). Have had her about 6-years and must confess that as I was buying it, the wing was an issue. Because of other factors (boat in great condition, fair price, shoal draft an advantage being on Ches bay, etc.), I went ahead and "did the deed". Basicly, we''ve been very happy..although please note the Chesapeake is mostly soft and/or mud. Positive points: 1) Shoal Draft (relatively), 2) When aground (I do tend to explore a bit), the engine (Volvo 43hp/turbo), either allows me either a) back-off or b) torque swings me around so I can power forward...so far ("knock wood"), I''ve always been able to get off and 3) reasonable performance (although the 6.7'' alternative would abviously point higher). Negative: 1) Tending (painting/fairing, etc.) the bottom of the wing...convincing the yard to leave ''ya overnight before launching helps and 2) THE BIGGEST FOR ME, the tendency for the anchor rode to get hooked on the wing! Please note, that in my prior life (with a C&C35), I was known as "scope boy". With the wing, it took me a couple "adventures" to realize that a "change of habits" was in order. Changes included a) Using 40'' of chain on a big CQR and b) using the "accepted" amount of scope (5-7:1 in benign conditions) intially and increasing as conditions warrant (e.g. sometimes staying up ''till the blow hits, etc.). Please note that I''m extremely conscious of the "anchoring aspect" as we frequently have a lot of "guests" rafting-up and we''re usually the first at anchor (ummm..quick boat or..?). Bottom line: if draft is an issue, the wing is a good alternative...when sailing, let ''er "breath" (e.g. don''t pinch) and enjoy. Cheers...Sketch


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## tsenator (Nov 6, 2000)

*Winged Keels Pros & Cons*

Sketch,

You said " THE BIGGEST FOR ME, the tendency for the anchor rode to get hooked on the wing!"

One of the greatest devices for alleviating this is the use of a Sentinel Or Kellet. Not only does this keep the rode from potentially wrapping around the keel. But it also allows you to reduce scope somewhat.

Here is more detail http://www.johnsboatstuff.com/Articles/anchor.htm

Do a search on the Sailnet site for "sentinel" and it find a few more articles for you


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