Keel (boat)

“ Provide the forward end of keel with a square strap and run side stays to forward sides or runner plank, to prevent keel from bending.
When boring holes through the runners see that they clear the runner plank about 3-4 of an inch, and so that they swing freely. Where rudder post passes through keel have an iron plate put on top of keel, also under body of boat for post to pass through. ”

“ Our keel-boat took the lead. These boats are guided by oars, seldom used, except the steering oar, or when passing islands, as the current goes about six or seven miles an hour. As the waters were now high, the current was perhaps eight or nine miles an hour. Before day-break next morning we made a narrow escape from destruction, from our ignorance of river navigation. We had an anchor and cable attached to our keel-boat. The cable was made fast to small posts over the forecastle, where were fenders all around the little deck. ”

“ But, reader, follow their movements, and judge for yourself of the fatigues, troubles and risks of the men employed in that navigation. A keel-boat was generally manned by ten hands, principally Canadian French, and a patroon or master. These boats seldom carried more than from twenty to thirty tons. The barges frequently had forty or fifty men, with a patroon, and carried fifty or sixty tons. Both these kinds of vessels were provided with a mast, a square-sail, and coils of cordage, known by the name of cordelles. Each boat or barge carried its own provisions. ”

“ It is the beam which runs along the bottom of a boat or ship from one end to the other. In large ships the keel consists of several pieces joined together. Its uses are, to cause the ship to preserve a direct course in its passage through the water; to check the leeway which every vessel has a tendency to make; and to moderate the rolling motion. The keel is also the ground-work, or foundation, on which the whole superstructure is reared, and is, therefore, immensely strong and solid. The best wood for keels is teak, as it is not liable to split. ”

“ The means of understanding which is meant will be given you as you proceed with the work. The keel is the backbone of the vessel, and the strength of the hull depends largely upon it.
"The keel corresponds with the backbone of your bodies. At the forward end of it is the stem, shaped as you see in the sheer plan. At the after end is the stern-post; and these three parts form the profile of the vessel. Between them are the timbers, or ribs, curved as required by the shape of the hull. To the timbers, the stem and stern-post, the planking, or outer skin of the ship, is fastened. ”

“ On trial, it was found that the little craft was too quick on her helm—a quality which, however useful in racing vessels, is undesirable in a single-handed boat, where the operation of getting aft the sheets when going about naturally requires somewhat more time than it does when the crew is composed of more than one hand. In order to remedy this defect a deep oak keel has been fixed outside the lead keel, and has to a considerable extent answered its purpose. It has also added immensely to the boat's stiffness; and it is blowing very hard indeed when a reef requires to be taken down. ”

“ Quick turning has always been a necessity with the yachts of the Broads, and this has been attained by the help of three peculiarities—a keel short for the length of the boat, a rudder so large as to be in reality a movable keel or leeboard, and an enormous jib, which is the only head-sail. ”

“ And keep them all on the side they're on; only as soon as she drops back on an even keel, they must get over, so she won't swing to starboard too much. All ready, now?"
"Yes, the rope's tied fast to the cleat, and unless you yank that out by the roots, the boat's just got to move! ”

“ She has no centreboard, but a 9-in. wooden false keel, deepest in the middle, and tapering to nothing at the ends, is screwed on to her keel. She carries a standing lug mainsail, and a foresail. The peak of her lugsail is cut very high, and her mast, yard, and boom are very light and workmanlike. Her side and ends are less high out of the water, (p. 208) and she is in every way a smaller boat than the 'Black Pearl's' cutter, and probably less of a boat in a sea-way: but she can sail round the latter in a light wind, and in a strong one is very nearly as fast, and stands up like a stake. ”

“ When the helm is let go, the little vessel shoots so quickly into the wind that she might be put about on the other tack by backing the jib, without further touch of the tiller. In fact, so powerful is the great overhang of mainsail and jib in controlling the balance pivoted on the short keel that I have many times tacked a 4-ton boat up a narrow reach without touching the tiller at all, simply by manipulating the sheets, and this, too, while sailing single-handed. ”

“ Thus, they are equipped with wheels, or buffers, on which they can roll along the bottom of the ocean or bay. In the bow is an air-tight compartment with an opening in the bottom through which a diver can emerge and work on wreckage, or laying and disconnecting mines. These boats have also a safety device in the form of a detachable keel weighing several tons. In case of accident, when it might otherwise be impossible to rise to the surface, this keel can be detached simply by pulling a lever, thus giving the boat sufficient buoyancy to rise to the surface. ”

“ You must first get a piece of wood for the keel. These canoes are always built without any exterior keel, and are therefore easily turned and managed; at the same time they are as easily turned by the wind, if there should be any, and for rough water I should prefer giving a small exterior keel screwed on to the keel on which you build the canoe, and which forms part of the body of the boat itself ”

“ The sails of a boat should be so balanced that she has a [17] slight tendency to run up into the wind; and to counteract this weather helm, as it is called, the steersman will have to keep the rudder slightly to leeward of the line of the keel.
If a boat carrying weather helm be left to her own devices in a squall she will at once do the right thing, luff up into the wind and be in safety; whereas a boat with too much head-canvas and carrying lee-helm will run off her course and put herself in a dangerous position. ”

“ If a boat has a deep keel, her lateral resistance to the water will cause the leeway to be insignificant. If the boat is of very shallow draught and so offers little lateral resistance to the water, she will not go ahead at all, and the entire force of the wind will be expended in driving her bodily to leeward. Lee-boards and centre-boards are fitted to shallow boats in order to obviate this. ”

“ The excellence of the completed boat depended upon the firmness with which these long, radiating roots were bound to the keel.
The long ends of two of the roots projecting from the keel were brought together about two feet above the blocks, and there securely fastened. They were then gently bent at right angles and extended in a curved line from stem to stern, and vice versa. This formed the gunwales of the boat. The other withes were then turned backward, and attached at regular intervals to the gunwale line. ”

“ This must be accurately done or you will make a boat which will have an uncomfortable tendency to move in circles. After toe-nailing the skeg to the bottom, nail the two cleats, one on each side of the skeg, and let them fit as closely as may be to the keel. Now saw off the stern-ends of the cleats and lay a rule along the stern, as the stick is placed in Fig. 198, where the boy has his finger; rule a pencil line across the protruding end of the keel and saw off the end along the diagonal [150] line, so that the stern-cleat z (Fig. 198) may be nailed in place to finish the work. ”

“ Keel boats are roomier than those with centerboards for there is no space occupied by the centerboard and its case; they are less liable to capsize, and if made with the same proportions as centerboard boats they are as dry, seaworthy and handy. As a rule, however, the keel craft are much narrower and deeper than those equipped with centerboards and many of them are almost like a plank set on edge. ”

“ It is but lightly fastened, for it is intended to come off, if the vessel strikes a shoal, and thus allow the true keel to slide off. We shall not need this addition, unless we require it to increase the depth of the keel. In that case, it would be better to have the part corresponding to the false keel made of lead or iron, and then it will serve as so much ballast.
"On the table you see a wooden model of the boat we are to build. Its form and size are [Pg 116] exactly indicated by the three plans I have explained. We are not ship-builders, only amateurs ”

“ In the interest of lightness there is no ’tween-deck planking, no interior fittings; and the spars and rigging are made as light as possible.
The keel, false keel and keelsons are of oak, and form a rigid backbone to the ship six feet in height. The stem and rudder and propeller posts also are of massive oak timbers, the former having a depth on the ship’s axis of seven to ten feet, to take the blows when ramming ice. ”

“ The keel of a ship has been likened to the backbone of a man, running, as it does, from stem to rudder. It consists of several timbers scarfed or pieced together, and under it is the shoe, a kind of second keel, but differing from the keel proper in that it is only loosely joined to it, whereas the keel is bolted to the ship's bottom through and through. The reason for this is that in case of grazing a rock a vessel having a shoe will, in most cases, part with the shoe, thus saving the keel, and escaping without serious injury. ”

“ Everything in naval architecture springs from and is related to the keel. 'Laying the keel' means beginning the ship in the only possible way, and 'two keels to one' is an expression which every one understands as meaning a naval preponderance in that proportion. The keel is to the ribs of a ship exactly what the backbone is to the ribs of a man, and any craft built up from a keel, no matter how small and simple it may be, belongs to the third and apparently final type of craft, which is as far ahead of the canoe type as that is ahead of the dug-out, raft, and log. ”

“ I prefer to be original, but at the same time in the interests of my crew I do not hesitate to adopt well-established devices. To each of the three sections of this vessel is fixed a detachable iron keel. The bolts are secured on the keelson by a single yet effective looking device. One thrust of a lever and a section of this keel is dropped. Should a compartment be half full of water there is sufficient buoyancy gained by the release of this dead-weight to lift the vessel to the surface. ”

“ She is sharp at both ends with high stem and stern posts; 77 feet long, as much as 10 feet 10 inches across her midships, she was clinker-built of eleven oak planks. The keel is an inch deep and eight inches thick, being broad at the middle but diminishing gradually toward the sternpost. The planks were fastened with large iron nails and caulked, as was the custom, with some woollen stuff and pitch. She had twenty-eight oars, was flat-bottomed, and her date has been estimated as about the middle of the third century of our era. ”

“ The first piece of timber laid upon the blocks is generally the keel; I say generally, because, of late, a different method has been adopted in some of the royal dock-yards, by beginning with the floor-timbers; the artists having found that the keel is often apt to rot during the long period of building a large ship of war. The pieces of the keel, as exhibited in plate I. are scarfed together, and bolted, forming one entire piece, A A. which constitutes the length of the vessel below. At one extremity of the keel is erected the stem. ”

“ Sliding keels must weaken a vessel in the most essential part – her keel; for it may be called the back-bone of a vessel; and unless animals had two instead of one, it is most likely that one keel is more compact, and stronger than two. Sliding keels take up part of the stowage of a ship or vessel ”

“ It comes—and fair at last, and, rushing forward with augmenting speed, the gallant vessel disparts the sparkling waters, and the keel cleaves the wave that keel never cleft before; and objects fade, and objects rise, while, "like a thing of life," the good ship hurries on. ”

“ Anchors cost money, and a bend that will not come adrift is quite simple to make.
Cast the tyers off the mainsail and hoist it, pulling up best on the throat halyards and then "swigging" on the peak till the after-leech is taut and the sail begins to wrinkle slightly at the throat. While you are setting the sail, let the sheet fly. Next coil down the throat and peak halyards clear for running, and see that the mainsheet is free from kinks and coiled so that it can be eased off at a moment's notice without any danger of jamming in the block. A kink in the mainsheet has capsized many a cat-boat. ”

“ If you are a novice, and the water is neither too rough nor too deep and the breeze seems likely to last, and you think your craft is not up to carrying a whole mainsail, there is no reason why you should not drop anchor and reef your sail in leisurely and comfortable fashion. If you feel at all nervous take in a couple of reefs.
After sail has been shortened set the mainsail, hoist up the anchor again and thresh her at it. You will observe that she inclines less to the puffs under the pressure of the reduced sail, and that the lee gunwale is always well clear of the water. Watch the boat well ”