Shoal draft or regular

[markh77]

I am looking to buy a Freedom 30. I have found a couple for sale. One is a shoal draft and the other the full. What are the performance differences? I will mostly be sailing on San Francisco bay, but some offshore. I wil be doing some singlehanded racing. The local phrf has a 5 second difference between the two. Any thoughts?

Thank you, Mark

[gamayun]

Welcome to FreedomYachts, Mark, and I hope you find your boat soon!! You and Mike Cunningham (who's on this forum) should also talk. He's in the Bay area and has an F30. I hope you have already been to some of our Singlehanded Sailing Society (SSS) meetings/events or at least know about the group. Between Mike's F30, my F-38, and soon yours, we'd almost have our own fleet of singlehanded Freedoms!

As to your question about keel, with our big wind (usually) on the bay and offshore, you'll want to have the deeper draft boat to help balance the pressure on the sails. If you think you might immediately buy the boat and head off for the Caribbean, however; then I'd suggest the shoal draft.

Take care,

Carliane
s/v Kynntana

[gulfcoastsailor]

Without question, given your sailing area plus the racing component, you want the deeper stick.

[markh77]

Thank you both for your replies. This is pretty much I thought. About the only time the shoal draft would be nice is in San Pablo bay trying to get out of the current.

[mike cunningham]

Or the delta trying to avoid the mud....or not.

I have become an expert at grounding and extracting myself from mud. There, I admitted it.

Problem is my depth sounder reports to only one decimal place.

I have a shoal keel and agree with the standard keel would be best for the bay and our normal sailing venues.