Questions on Keels?

Discussion in 'Age of Sail' started by Ironbeard, Apr 14, 2016.

  1. Ironbeard

    Ironbeard Active Member

    Joined:
    Jul 19, 2012
    Posts:
    153
    Location:
    SoCal up in the San Bernardino mountains
    I've been doing my research on R/C "Age of Sail" type model building forums across the net and looking at how they are building/attaching extended keels on their models. I was wondering what and how builders here have resolved this structural issue to get a realistic performance in their models?

    Rather than attaching an extended keel to the bottom of the boat. Has anyone just extended the actual central keel frame down to incorporate the extended keel as part of the overall structure of the ship? I was thinking about extending it up about an inch or so and then epoxy resin the bottom to achieve a flat inside mounting and water channel area, and then extend down the keel into a fin like projection that I can bolt weights onto in order to achieve the properly attitude of the ship under sail. Thoughts on this idea?

    How much weight are you folks finding that you need to keep the ship sailing properly with full sails being run? How much heeling is considered acceptable in our scale ships? How much did the originals warships heel? My concern is being able to keep the guns properly levelled in a heeling ship. I've seen where one person came up with a pendulum type gun deck, which I thought was brilliant, but has that worked?

    Also I have not noticed in the building threads here any means to furl/take in the sails in order to properly sail in higher winds. If we can only run with full sail set I would think that would be rather limiting on winds that we can run in. Thoughts and experiences in this area?

    I apologize for all these questions but since this is a new area of exploration and building (which is really the fun part for me) I want to avoid reinventing the wheel and get on the water as soon as possible once I start building.

    THANKS!!
     
    Last edited: Apr 14, 2016
  2. mike5334

    mike5334 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 21, 2007
    Posts:
    1,877
    Location:
    Mississippi
    Most if not nearly all Age of Sail models out there use some sort of keel and heavy weight on the bottom end. R/C Groups has a few builds where the builder intended to ballast like the full size ships but found out that there wasn't enough volume for the weight they needed. Fixes usually entailed adding a short keel with attached ballast on the bottom.

    I did the same with my Requin build. The Requin needed a long deep keel to place the limited ballast far under the hull. Ballast was limited on that ship due to its relatively light displacement as a model.

    Although true realism is nice, scaling down places limits on what is possible. Generally, most modelers are content with realism above the waterline and are willing to modify the bottom of the ship to make it sail.
     
  3. captainponderous

    captainponderous New Member

    Joined:
    Dec 22, 2015
    Posts:
    9
    Location:
    Manitoba, Canada
    Agreed. My ships are not to scale. But I'm not battling anybody up here in central Canada. I weighted them according to the waterline. All in my frigate needs 40 lbs of ballast! Two pvc tubes filled with lead screwed to the keel fin keeps her stiff in the wind. I decide the sail plan at waterside with the wind in my face- all sails can be doused fairly quickly with necklace clasps. My keel is detachable. I screwed an electrical-wire channel that allows me to slide the keel extension on and off. The bigger the slab of wood in the water, the less crabbing you'll get as you beat to windward (which is the majority of your pond sailing time). Keep asking and we'll keep talking.