by John C. Harris on Sun Jul 12, 2009 4:19 pm
>>>>>>How about lengthening the keel enough to place all of the ballast in the keel? With all of the ballast down low, perhaps slightly less lead could be used. Also, would the addition of a battery forward of bulkhead 2 as you have done reduce the need for additional ballast/>>>>>>>>>>>
You'd have to make the keel chord fatter, which would make the boat slower. So that's definitely out. Making the keel deeper would make trailering unfun. You can't put more lead aft of where it's already placed, or the boat will squat with the crew in the cockpit.
Inside ballast has a long history and that's the way to go. The only other option would be to make the centerboard out of solid steel, something I contemplated seriously at the design stage. That looks great on paper, but it's hard to build unless you happen to own an acetylene torch. Then there's the problem of raising and lowering a 150-pound board. The engineering is nontrivial and I spent much of a summer working as a rigger crawling in bilges replacing broken pendants on boats with heavy centerboards.
The battery helps, no doubt. I noticed that the boat's very slight stern-down trim (about 1/2") was corrected with the battery in place.
