katysails wrote:
Ya know, comparing fin keel boats to crab crushers is really just an
exercise in futility...they are made for different kinds of sailing under
different conditions

But they most often have to sail the same waters & the same
conditions... hard as as it is for the Crab Crusher Mafia to swallow,
fin keel boats have sailed round Cape Horn... in fact I bet by now that
more fin keelers have...

... and for different temperaments...

Yes indeed, there's the real point.


It's sort of like Joe's specious arguments about steel boats. Not everyone
who sails wants to be tied to invest in Brillo for the rest of their
lives...so why can't we all just be glad for the boats we have and agree
that the only boats not worth having are Mac 26X's and M's and Coronado
27's?


Even the Mac26X and the Coronado 27 have some redeeming features. The
Mac26X is the best floatable camping trailer ever built; the Coronado 27
is cheap & roomy and serves as a reminder of the cultural emptiness of
it's era. Every time I see one, I think of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In....

DSK

"DSK" wrote in message

But they most often have to sail the same waters & the same conditions...
hard as as it is for the Crab Crusher Mafia to swallow, fin keel boats
have sailed round Cape Horn... in fact I bet by now that more fin keelers
have...

Doubtful, unless you're discounting the centuries when multi-masted cargo
ships rounded the Horn in lieu of the Panama Canal, which was not yet
constructed.

Even the Mac26X and the Coronado 27 have some redeeming features. The
Mac26X is the best floatable camping trailer ever built; the Coronado 27
is cheap & roomy and serves as a reminder of the cultural emptiness of
it's era. Every time I see one, I think of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In....

Sock it to me.

Max

hard as as it is for the Crab Crusher Mafia to swallow, fin keel boats
have sailed round Cape Horn... in fact I bet by now that more fin keelers
have...


Maxprop wrote:
Doubtful, unless you're discounting the centuries when multi-masted cargo
ships rounded the Horn in lieu of the Panama Canal, which was not yet
constructed.


Discounting them, there's no doubt at all that fin keelers would be in
the majority. Including the old commercial sailing vessels, it might be
a closer call than you think... how many rounded the Horn in a given
year on average? Anyway, it's for sure that no more are going to, so
it's only a matter of time.

DSK

DSK wrote:
hard as as it is for the Crab Crusher Mafia to swallow, fin keel
boats have sailed round Cape Horn... in fact I bet by now that more
fin keelers have...



Maxprop wrote:

Doubtful, unless you're discounting the centuries when multi-masted
cargo ships rounded the Horn in lieu of the Panama Canal, which was
not yet constructed.


Discounting them, there's no doubt at all that fin keelers would be in
the majority. Including the old commercial sailing vessels, it might be
a closer call than you think... how many rounded the Horn in a given
year on average? Anyway, it's for sure that no more are going to, so
it's only a matter of time.

You've raised an interesting question he Is it proper to call the
old windjammers "crab crushers," or more specifically, do they have a
full length keel? 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.

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

Jeff Morris wrote:

DSK wrote:

hard as as it is for the Crab Crusher Mafia to swallow, fin keel
boats have sailed round Cape Horn... in fact I bet by now that more
fin keelers have...




Maxprop wrote:

Doubtful, unless you're discounting the centuries when multi-masted
cargo ships rounded the Horn in lieu of the Panama Canal, which was
not yet constructed.


Discounting them, there's no doubt at all that fin keelers would be in
the majority. Including the old commercial sailing vessels, it might
be a closer call than you think... how many rounded the Horn in a
given year on average? Anyway, it's for sure that no more are going
to, so it's only a matter of time.


You've raised an interesting question he Is it proper to call the
old windjammers "crab crushers," or more specifically, do they have a
full length keel? 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.

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

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

"DSK" wrote in message

hard as as it is for the Crab Crusher Mafia to swallow, fin keel boats
have sailed round Cape Horn... in fact I bet by now that more fin keelers
have...


Maxprop wrote:
Doubtful, unless you're discounting the centuries when multi-masted cargo
ships rounded the Horn in lieu of the Panama Canal, which was not yet
constructed.


Discounting them, there's no doubt at all that fin keelers would be in the
majority. Including the old commercial sailing vessels, it might be a
closer call than you think... how many rounded the Horn in a given year on
average?

I really don't have that info, but based on the quantity of East-West trade
during the 1800s and the early 1900s, I'd suspect it was in the hundreds, if
not thousands.

Anyway, it's for sure that no more are going to,

Beyond an occasional "vintage" vessel celebration, this is true.

so it's only a matter of time.

Yes. The fin keel has replaced the full keel in terms of sheer numbers, and
certainly where racing vessels, which comprise a large number of
Horn-rounders, are concerned.

Max

Max