Carver Owners Forum

hardchines wrote:Qr Bbpost want to design long chine keels for better tracking, will post when I figure it out

Sounds interesting, What advantage are you thinking from that design over lets say a standard centreline keel ?.....

Hey Bud, well the center keel adds depth, so shallow water becomes more of a issue, but not terrible! putting the yacht on the trailer is a bigger issue as I use a 64 roller trailer and center keel to trailer frame clearance is minimum! glassing in a center keel is a big job, must be strong and all glassed in place, long chine keels that bolt to side of boat at chines and are lets say 6-8 feet long add 6 inches lower the chine add no total draft to boat and do not interfere with trailer rollers, and can be removed if they do not eliminate bow wonder! my initial thought is 1/4 x 12" by 6-8foot length, through bolted on outside of chines starting at transom going forward and tapering to 45 angle. Your opinion is welcome, please!!

hardchines wrote:Qr Bbpost Your opinion is welcome, please!!

Personally this is something I believe you should run by a marine hull designer........something hanging down like that at the length you say could quite possibly incur some damaging loads and hinder steering......note what happens to trim tabs when backing down hard in any sort of sea state.

Any planing boat I have had that had a keel was just fine, I actually recently asked a very good boat guy about adding a keel to my current boat as it is very tender when at slow speed in gusty winds......so I will be interested to see how you do with this going forward..

Well Bud I don't know any marine hull designers and I also assume a hull designer designed my hull! Many many V hull boats in the 25 foot range suffer from what is called "bow wonder" I agree a nice keel works wonders for making a boat track straight! I am not at all concerned with loads introduced to the hull from installing chine keels
, some rare boats do have chine keels and I have a cruise speed of just 6 MPH and a top speed of 8 MPH too slow to worry about structural loads from a straight edge cutting through the water now weather it works to fix the bow wonder is another thing!

I am also going to try to figure out why on auto pilot the boat tracks perfectly and does not seem to be working that hard to do it the whole bow wonder thing is rather perplexing to me I just don't get it have read many opinions on why it happens but no conscious of opinions that I see! have piloted deep V boats that track perfect at a idle and other similar boats that are damn near impossible to keep from hitting docked boats on a canal because they were all over the place !!

Something to ponda when I put my trim tabs down all the way the bow Wonder is reduced allot, my speed is also reduced but not dramatically so one would think the tabs are dragging through the water sorta like deploying small sea anchors from each corner of the transom! My tabs are very large for the boat size, 12x24"! I have considered installing a vertical fin to the outside edge of each tab extending down 10 inches and back about 18 inches, sorta a fixed set of straight rudders, who knows if it would help!!
,PS the tabs have no noticeable trim angle change to the boat, very slow boat, I am sure it changes angle but not much!

thought I would post some updates to this rambaling thread, just finished my third 1000 mile trip lasted 3 weeks, three days , salt water ocean and bay cruising all went well. My mpg is 9.5 to 10 mpg, I have fixed my bow wander, lots of figuring and some dumb luck, but boat now tracks perfect and auto pilot tracks with very little corrections, great! I trim the outdrive full down, then I trim the port side trim tab down about three inches, I then trim the starboard trim tab down a little less then 2 inches, this causes a unequal drag on the transom of the boat, I loose No speed and tracks perfect, its like a new boat.

Her stability in the ocean surprised me to no end, initial stability is very high. ultimate stability is also great, well tested in NY Harbor and the ocean south of Long Island.
With all I have done to this little boat I still came home with a 38 line to do list!! ICW next year, I hope!

Thanks for posting the update!! I'm going to have to go back to the beginning and re-read all you did to this boat. Very cool that you got another 1000 mi trip in and also got ~10MPG!!

If it got ~10MPG I think I could make it to the ocean without stopping for gas!

Thx Admiral! plan to post some pics of boat on my latest trip and a unbelievable catch I made on the trip!

trip pics for 2018

Aft deck at anchor