Jere Lull wrote:

On 2007-04-17 20:43:11 -0400, Gordon said:

Same boat, shoal draft vs regular keel

What would be the differences in pointing, reaching and running?
Any differences in rollover factor?
Differences in sea keeping abilities?

Depends on the particular boat, of course, but the primary difference
is usually poorer pointing ability. slight improvement in reaching and
running, slightly more tender, usually about the same righting ability.

Our boats were designed to be either shoal (4'11") or deep draft
(6'6"). The deep draft boats had the bottom 18" of the keel made of
concrete. The discussion among owners is about whether the extra
weight of 18" of concrete makes a difference in the amount of weight
in the keel. Some people contend that the mfg'er added some lead to
the boats which came from the factory as shoal draft.

One way to reduce the amount of tenderness of a shoal draft boat is to
reduce the sail area. For some reason, when they made the walkthrough
models of our boat, they made them all shoal draft with the taller
mast, and they are very tender. We had a lady on board who owned a
walkthrough model of our boat. We have the shoal draft and a shorter
mast (8 feet more or less shorter - her boat had a 65 foot mast and
ours is less than 58 feet). She commented about how much less of a
problem our boat was to steer.