Talk:Centreboard

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 6 January 2020 and 22 April 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Noah Sanders.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 17:06, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Spelling
Call me Americentric, but the thing on my sailboat is called a "Centerboard."


 * Yes, however the article was created using the British spelling, and I think the SOP is to use the spelling that's already there, unless there's a compelling reason to pick one over the other (such as, for example, an article about a place in America or the UK, which would use the "native" spelling). Certainly there should be a redirect from "centerboard" to this article, if there isn't already.  scot 19:45, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Traditional vs Modern Terminology
The article presents terminology as used on modern sailboat designs and implies it is universally applicable. Traditional large American sailing vessels (coastal schooners and sharpies) that employed centerboards, called them centerboards, not swing keels or lifting keels. "American Sailing Coasters of the North Atlantic" by Paul C Morris (ISBN 0-517-26190-1) on page 20 cites the centerboard schooner Oliver Ames of 435 tons built in 1866 in Massachusetts. It also states that "At the time of its greatest development, the two masted schooner really fell into two categories. One was a shallow model, often fitted with a centerboard..." A modern example of a traditional large American centerboard vessel is the 110-ft schooner Mary Day currently operating as a tourist cruise vessel on the coast of the US State of Maine. (An online image search of the web using '"Mary Day" Centerboard' produces a nice photo of a large centerboard on a crane). A lifting keel appears to be a relatively new term and on casual search I have not found it applied to any boat designs developed before 1970. It does not appear universally synonymous with the term centerboard and probably warrants it's own page. A swing keel is typically external to the hull. XRicketson (talk) 02:05, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Diagram request
reqdiagram
 * ✅ pfctdayelise (talk) 18:19, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Keel or foil?
In modern yachting terminology, "keels" are heavy or ballasted "foils" which provide both stability and lateral resistance, whereas "centreboards" are foils which provide only lateral resistance, usually being "lighter than water".

This is consistent with keel. "Keels are different from centerboards and other types of foils in that keels are made of heavy materials to provide ballast to stabilize the boat." i.e. centreboards are not keels, but both are foils.

See also: BLACKLISTED LINK DELETED. This tells us that: " "Foil" is the common term that applies to wings, rudders, keels and centerboards. To the aerodynamicist and hydrodynamicist they are all the same. "

Usage of foil in this context is presumably unfamiliar to the lay reader, and perhaps we could mention that "keel" is a commonly used but technically incorrect term. GilesW 07:04, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Keel is, and always has been, a word having covering both structure and hydrodymics. It is a keel whether weighted or buoyant, fixed or moveable . The term is as familiar to all sailors now as it was in past centuries. "Foil" can be found in some articles restricted to the topic of certain small boat parts. Extended to other areas it is a neologism. To the aerodymicist, as it is to the lay public, it is used to wrap food for cooking. Meggar 23:41, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I have consulted yacht & dinghy racing colleagues at my yacht club about this and they disagree with the usage you claim, which was described as "landlubber" terminology. The term "foil" is a neologism. "Foils" is now the widely used collective term for a centreboard or daggerboard and rudder blade. In a victorian era sailing book, keel is clearly differentiated from centre-board (usually hyphenated). Googling for "keel strip" gives examples of the application of the term "keel" to canoes and dinghies even though they may be GRP mouldings no longer having the longitudinal structural keel that earlier wooden boats had. GilesW 21:41, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Centreplate
"Centreboards are often ballasted". Does this refer to the flat heavy metal "centreplates" (UK term) used in some old UK classes like the Finn (dinghy), Firefly (dinghy), Bosun (dinghy), Drascombe, Wanderer (sailing dinghy) etc? May I suggest a paragraph for "Centreplate" in this article, and redirection to the Centreboard article from Centreplate (and the US equivalent)? GilesW 07:43, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Suggested addition:

Centreboards are usually buoyant. They were typically made of plywood or laminated wooden strips to reduce the risk of warping or splitting. Foil bending and twist are generally considered undesirable, so that modern foils often use a wood or foam plastic core sheethed in glass fibre. The fastest dinghies and skiffs may use carbon fibre sheathed foam foils for stiffness and lightness.

Centreplates are heavy metal plates typically made from galvanised steel sheet, having a flat plate section often with shaped leading and trailing edges. These presumably originated long before the (buoyant) centreboard.

Or something like that. GilesW 09:04, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

In a Victorian era sailing book I find that what we now call centreplates were referred to both as centre-boards and centreboards. Thus centreplate is presumably a retronym for the metal centreboard. GilesW 17:20, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Force of the sail...
In the section "Function" it sais: "the force of the sail is never closer than 45 degrees to the apparent wind." Maybe I misunderstand this but the way I do understand it, I don't think it is true. I would argue that the force of the sail in fact is never closer than 90 degrees to the apparent wind, whichwould be the case when the chord line of the sail is pointing right into the apparent wind. Due to the airfoil shape of the sail it will cause lift generating a force at a right angle to the chord line of the sail, which would then be at a right angle to the apparent wind. In fact if the force of the sail could be at a 45 degree angle to the apparent wind, that would mean one could sail straight into the apparent wind since there would be a component of the force in this direction... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.186.132.41 (talk) 03:29, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Center(re)board Metaphor
We cannot direct the wind... But we can adjust the sails. Anonymous —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.192.218.235 (talk) 03:42, 14 March 2011 (UTC)