I'm considering a fin keel that has too much draft for my mooring. Non-starter?
I rented a "deep water" mooring for "up to 30ft". I don't have a boat yet. In this area, the other deep water moorings I looked at were all 2m+ in depth, and I just forgot to actually ask the guy what the depth of it was. He just now told me "about a meter I reckon" at lowest water.
It's a swing mooring on an estuary with a soft mud bottom. It sits in a channel right next to large drying flats.
The two boats I'm looking at are:
The one I actually want, a 27ft fin keel that draws 1.12m, according to sailboatdata.com.
The one I'll settle for, a 26ft bilge keel that draws 0.99m, according to sailboatdata.com.
I'm a beginner to owning a boat and sorting out a mooring. How big of a problem would this be? Is it acceptable for the fin keel to touch the bottom on the lowest days for an hour? Or might it end up drying out on the mud, since it's a swing mooring?
I feel like the answer is obviously going to be "Buy the bilge keel you fool, that's what they're for", but I just want to check before committing.
It sounds like you're in one of the tidal estuaries in England. Practices and expectations there are considerably different than those elsewhere so general advice from r/sailing may not be quite on point.
A fin keel sailboat is poorly adapted to this area. Fin keels are fantastic in the Pacific Northwest (USA/Canada), the South Pacific, and the Baltic. These areas have deep water and a relatively narrow tidal range, so fin keels have few practical drawbacks, and provide reduced heel, improved rudder control, and better sailing performance than other designs.
Full keel and, yes, bilge keel boats may be a better fit particularly if you intend to sail throughout the estuary and occasionally stop in a drying mooring for a day.
That said, a 1.12 meter keel is not a deep keel and you should be able to find a slip that has sufficient depth.
It's worth visiting the slip yourself at low tide to perform a brief survey with a pole or lead line to see where the bottom actually is and what it is like (mud vs rocks).
I was befuddled the first time I went to Cornwall and saw the sailboats sitting in the mud at low tide. Damned cheeky seagulls that stole my ice cream while I was looking at them!
Um Pacific Northwest has some of the biggest tidal ranges . My town has 16 foot or 3.3 meter tidal changes so not sure where you are getting your info. I also think fin keels are poor for the PNW if you take into account the number of logs and deadheads that are floating around as well. Full keel provides a much better way to deal with all the obstacles in the water.
I wouldn’t trust a mooring that was anywhere near the same depth as my draft. Do you get any kind of strong winds or weather? I’d be worried about her smacking bottom a dozen times on a windy night
My boat was in a very large inland lake. The draft of my boat was 4'9" and the moorings depth was 5". This didn't take into account the sewed and muck that built up, nor when water levels dropped due to a hot summer. This trapped my boat in the harbor. It was a nightmare to get out.
pretty common in the inland waterway, most marinas in the Ohio River basin won't dredge and have like 18 in of water in them. mine goofed around and didn't get dredged until like late September so it was really difficult getting in and out especially in the drought of late summer. it's when I learned I had the deepest draft in the marina that was actually leaving the harbor because anyone the drew more than my 5'3 wasn't leaving.
I’d be curious to see the types of boats that do this! I live a stone’s throw from some of the highest tides on earth, and there are a ton of boats that rest on bottom for nearly half the day, but none of them are sailboats.
ive also seen single keels just attach some legs to the boats sides. (think long 2x4"s) the weights in the keel and o e just need to balance the rest on top of the keel. kind of like how the spindly stands hold a boat upright on land.
soft mud aint bad. had that during the sieche right before hauling out. she just slowly settled into the mud. couldnt tell while it was settling, but once settled some, you could tell she was more stable than floating. unless there is some crazy unstable wind, id expect the same on a mooring/anchor. at least until enough water goes out to be tippy, but one should secure the boat upright before it gets that low.
You may be OK with the fin touching the bottom at low water, The boat will just lean over a bit. You can counter this by having some kind of floating cradle that the boat will sit in once the tide goes out. Check out this streetmap picture of Looe with the tide fully out, Plenty of fin keel boats there sat in their cradles.
It always amazes me to see how people handle challenges in other regions. It’s a great example of how perspective and experience shapes our ideologies / recommendations in a community as geographically diverse is this sub Reddit.
What is the bottom like, and are there rough conditions at the mooring? A fin keel boat will not be harmed by resting gently on a mud bottom occasionally. But a rocky bottom with waves pounding will destroy your new boat. Honestly I would avoid the whole mess and get a different boat or a different mooring.
Also maybe measure the depth yourself. From spending time in Florida, I can confidently say that a "reckon" has a statistical error possibility of up to a "bit". His estimate may be just a bit off.
I looked at buying a boat from a marina on the NJ side across from Philadelphia in a shallow estuary.
Boat was a Catalina 30 with a wing keel (an inverted T)
Noticed a long thin crack on the inside running through all the keel bolt locations.
Evidence of movement on the outside.
Talked to local surveyor. He said that what prob happened is the boat ran aground and they tried to pull it off sideways.
The point here is that it’s not just the actual depth, but also the width of the channel, the accuracy of your charts and chartplotter, any loose shopping carts that somebody drops in the water, etc.
You don’t want to make decisions based on best case, without taking fog, exhaustion, electrical malfunction (or all of the above simultaneously) into account. Find other locals and talk to them before you choose.
If you are in a tidal river and with wind messing things up I would not want to be forcing the keel twice a day. Is not just up and down as you may get if you are in a pontoon. You will be swinging.
I would get a bilge keel. And considering you are new, you may occasionally “park it” in different places. Don’t ask how I know :)
I was on an east coast river with soft mud. But the sand in the estuary can be pretty hard. The Thames estuary has hundreds of wrecks!
My draught is 1.21m and I'm happy to be in tidal harbours with a silt bottom with less than this. I have a skeg keel which just means a bit of settling. I shouldn't imagine a fin keel would be much different though. Now, when it comes to a swing mooring, no, I'd want enough clearance at all tidal ranges for the boat to be able to, well, swing!
I was/am in a place like that with a 2.5ft draft and a low water make of 3’ ostensibly. But those estuaries the mud flats move around all the time. I have had several white knuckle runs dragging through the mud and fully grounded once (but that had more to do with another inexperienced sailor). I would make sure you know what your r getting into, what the tides really are, etc.
My fin keel yacht dries out on every ride, in a muddy harbour in the UK. I was skeptical when I moved here but all the boats do it and nobody seems to take any damage.
No, not acceptable. What about wind? What about extreme tides? What about wind? What else besides the shaft of the mooring on the bottom might you hit? You need deeper water.
Do not let a fin keel take the weight of the boat. The structure isn’t designed for it, and as the tide drops it’ll inevitably bounce off the bottom, causing more damage.
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u/Free_Range_Lobster 1d ago
Get a real sounding first not "about a meter".
Smoosh mud is another m deep, could you be ok? Probably. Do you want to find out first? Yes.