Wow, the gain in speed is interesting! Sounds, though, that the original
keel shape had some problems. C-27s are nice boats, but the production
tolerances are rather sloppy, resulting in a lot of inconsistency in
performance between boats. I take it the "red boat" did not have a faired
keel.
My expectation of keel fairing would be increased pointing ability. Was this
helped with the boat with the faired keel?
Art Herrick
#5468
Sea Change
----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, March 16, 2008 4:57 PM
Subject: Re: catalina27-talk: Keel Fairing
not me, but some guys we used to race against when I owned the red boat.
We
were an O/B dinette interior and they were (are still, actually) an I/B
standard interior.
Before they did the compu-keel job, we were a bit faster...after they did
the job
(minus +/- 200 pounds lead) we were dead even. We used to tune up with
these guys and both boats were so evenly matched, after the keel-job,
it was astounding...I mean 10 minutes on the same board with no
discernable
increase or decrease over one another. Pretty much the same in terms of
the conditions of our sails...ours might have been a little newer and I
had
a mylar genoa, they had only white sails, fairly new, but no where near
brand new.
So, did it help their boat? Hugely. They did a terrific job fairing it
out...these
were not pros, but very able DIY'ers. I was a hard job...I think they used
a 4.5 inch grinder and like a 32 pad....they'd grind a little, fit the
template,
grind some more, template, etc...they had to fill-in some fairly large
areas, too.
But it was definitely worth it. ChrisD might want to chime in on what the
keel-job would do as far as affecting the boat for OD racing....
I would DEFINITELY do it if I had a C27, unless it would ruin any OD
chances (which is a consideration on the Chesapeake, perhaps less so
elsewhere).
happy grinding! --tf
Hi, All,
I have an '84 C-27 that I race under PHRF. I recently purchased a
template
layout from Computer Keels Company which included two possible keel
shapes, one being the Catalina standard pattern, and the other being this
company's improved pattern. I have made up a template for the improved
pattern, but I thought I'd ask if anyone had any experience with patterns
from this company.
Regards,
Art Herrick
#5468
Sea Change
