Swing keel calamity
Practical Boat Owner|February 2021
Terry Abel repairs his Pandora 700 after a sobering shakedown sail
Terry Abel
Swing keel calamity

Sailing is full of compromises and boats with swing keels are one of them. They will never be as fast or agile as their fin-keeled cousins, but how gratifying it is when you are running out of water to have the ability to reduce your draught by a couple of feet! Here, on the Essex coast, amid the Thames estuary sandbanks, it feels less of a compromise and more of a godsend.

However, I have learned – after an alarming experience where the keel fell off – that there are a couple of things I need to keep an eye on.

If you have bought or owned a sailing boat of a ‘certain vintage’ in the last 20 years, you will almost certainly have spent hours scouring the internet for articles about your latest craft. This is what I did in 2016 when I bought my swing-keel Pandora 700. She was built around 1980 by Rydgeway Marine and had a somewhat chequered history.

Keen to find out as much as I could about the class, history, performance and construction, I went online searching for Pandora. I found a few for yachts for sale and lots of jewellery adverts, but little else until I came across pandorasailing.com, a brilliant site run by the South Caernarvonshire Yacht Club in Abersoch, North Wales. They race a good fleet of Pandoras (fin keelers) and there isn’t much they don’t know about sailing, rigging and fixing them.

Double take

Esta historia es de la edición February 2021 de Practical Boat Owner.

Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.

Esta historia es de la edición February 2021 de Practical Boat Owner.

Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.

MÁS HISTORIAS DE PRACTICAL BOAT OWNERVer todo
Orca sink yacht in Strait of Gibraltar
Practical Boat Owner

Orca sink yacht in Strait of Gibraltar

Spain's maritime rescue service, Salvamento Maritimo, has reported that a 15m (49ft) yacht sank in Moroccan waters in the Strait of Gibraltar following interaction with a pod of orca.

time-read
1 min  |
Summer 2024
No kill cord or lifejackets were worn during fatal powerboat crash
Practical Boat Owner

No kill cord or lifejackets were worn during fatal powerboat crash

A kill cord and lifejacket are useless unless worn-that's the warning from the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB), following its investigation into a powerboat crash that killed a 32-year-old woman and five-year-old girl on 2 October 2022.

time-read
2 minutos  |
Summer 2024
Multihull sail work
Practical Boat Owner

Multihull sail work

Brush up on multihull sailing skills before heading off on charter with Gavin Le Sueur's guide to spinnaker handling, tacking and gybing

time-read
4 minutos  |
Summer 2024
Five top causes of engine failure and how to prevent them
Practical Boat Owner

Five top causes of engine failure and how to prevent them

Jake Kavanagh talks to Sea Start marine engineer Nick Eales about how to avoid the five major causes of an engine breakdown at sea

time-read
10+ minutos  |
Summer 2024
Sail the Atlantic with strangers
Practical Boat Owner

Sail the Atlantic with strangers

Would you sail across the Atlantic with someone you've just met? Ali Wood meets the cruising crews who've done just that

time-read
10 minutos  |
Summer 2024
IZIBoat: simple sailing
Practical Boat Owner

IZIBoat: simple sailing

Rupert Holmes sails an innovative catamaran design intended to widen participation in sailing among those with little time to get on the water in more conventional craft

time-read
7 minutos  |
Summer 2024
30 WAYS TO GET AFLOAT
Practical Boat Owner

30 WAYS TO GET AFLOAT

From tall ships to small dinghies, you needn't own a boat to sail. Ali Wood looks at the options, and how skippers can also find crew

time-read
10+ minutos  |
Summer 2024
Boats for restoring under £20,000
Practical Boat Owner

Boats for restoring under £20,000

Duncan Kent picks the best sub-35ft sail and power boats to look for when aiming to undertake a restoration on a budget

time-read
10+ minutos  |
Summer 2024
Seaworthy dinghies for less than £500
Practical Boat Owner

Seaworthy dinghies for less than £500

For low cost traditionally-styled GRP trailer-sailers, consider the Foreland and the Otter available at bargain basement prices

time-read
5 minutos  |
Summer 2024
Playing with coloured sails
Practical Boat Owner

Playing with coloured sails

Maintaining an hourglass-shaped balloon and ratcheting up the log numbers

time-read
3 minutos  |
Summer 2024