Jeff Morris wrote:
You've raised an interesting question he Is it proper to call the
old windjammers "crab crushers,"

I wouldn't think so. I don't think of Maxprop's boat as a crab crusher
either, well maybe an honorary one, or a distant in-law.

... or more specifically, do they have a
full length keel?

Yes, definitely.

... Since they didn't carry any significant external
ballast, and the keels don't' provide much lateral resistance, they
aren't really a related design.


I'd tend to agree, somewhat. The evolution of clipper hulls & then
windjammers tended toward making effective use of keel flat & garboards
as lateral plane. But then, because of their size & speed, the lateral
plane could be much smaller in proportion to the rig & the rest of the hull.

By contrast, smaller boats need a larger lateral plane and gain more
benefit from dropping the ballast lower. You see this in workboat types
as they developed into more specialized & capable vessels... in all
types that had to do any significant windward sailing, the lateral plane
got bigger & better defined... Friendship sloops are a good exmple of a
later type, or the catboats with huge centerboards.

So: a crab-crusher is really just a fin keeler that evolution has left
behind!

As for numbers, there were thousands of roundings over the centuries.

Sure. But then, how many fin keelers have rounded the Horn in the last
50 year? I'd think it would easily be in the thousands.

Going on several maritime history articles, AFAIK the average number of
commercial sailing vessel roundings peaked at about 200 per year in the
mid 1800s, and would have been less than 100 per year prior to 1820.

Hey Bart here's a points question for you... what was the first U.S.
Navy vessel to sail around Cape Horn?

Fresh Breezes- Doug King