Tossing around some ideas last night I came up with an idea, which I’m sure I am not the first one to do, but wanted some opinions. What if you had a boat where the keel was on a canting mechanism in the bootm of the hull and the mast was on a canting mechanism on the deck and they were mechanically linked so if the mast canted toward starboard, the keel would cant the opposite way. My thought was that the pressure of the wind on the sails is balanced by the ballast which is being canted to the side due to the wind force. Theoretically the hull would stay relatively flat allowing you to fine tune a planing hull design. I relaize there would need to be some dampening in the mast keel system producing some sort of feedback control but it seemed like an interesting idea to me.
Just up for opinions, I don’t plan on undertaking this idea in the near future.
My thought process was that you want to keep the force relatively constant while allowing the hull to stay relatively flat. If both canted in the same direction it would add more righting moment while also adding more force that is acting against the righting moment or vice versa. But in that scenario if you are sailing along and a gust hits, the sail is going to be kept at a constant angle to the wind (with repsect to vertical) powering the boat up and most likely over powering the canting keel also, possibly capsizing the boat. My idea was to allow the boat to depower, with the canting keel hopefully keeping the boat right side up.
hmmm, maybe you guys are right. I was just thinking that the power of the wind would allow each to cant, rather than anything else, allowing for a “mechanically” simple boat with decent possible performance gains. Having both keel and mast cant in the same direction to me seems like a call for disaster as far as broaching b/c the more everything is canted, the more the boat is being powered up and it seems to me that eventually something will give, whether it be a part or stability or something ofthat nature. Also if they both cant the same direction the boat won’t nec. be flat. My idea was allowing an avenue to chase the “planing” sailboat hull. I do understand what you all are saying and it seems like a good idea if you just want to go faster, but I don’t see it offering less heel and therefore planing possibilities.
You are right in that something will give. So assume you built one that did what ec12nz and myself described, with both features canting to the same side. When you get a puff, just ease the sheets and let the boat stay flat and the rig vertical and you will stay powered up and moving fast.
OR- leave the rig conventional and get a bigger keel bulb.
i like the idea of a canting keel but saying that i think there is only one international class in wich you could use a canting keel and that being 10R from what i can remeber there are rule in all the other 3 classes wich stop you using onefor racing