Hi John, is the reason for adding ballast only so that the boat will sail more upright? I have come to realise that taking weight off helps the W32 to sail faster and be more responsive.

edward john pound wrote:

I have replaced the original two water tanks with one 270 litre keel tank 1.6 metres long leaving space for ballast under the cabin floor adjacent the fridge below the fixed cabin floor. Sailing with the original full water tanks and 200kg of pea shingle she was stiff and sails more upright. With the new tank I reckon on about 250kg of ballast behind the new tank. Can anyone advise the best way to ballast my boat down and will the hull be strong enough to take 250kg concentrated between just forward the bilge sump and the aft edge of my new tank? Should I use cast iron,lead, I can source granite sets, or stick with bags of pea shingle. Particularly I seek advice from anyone who has shored ballast in place and the best way to ensure ballast does not move or indeed grind the hull. My boat seems to be one with all lead shot ballast encapsulated and I do not have fore and aft trim problems. Regards John Pound

Hi John.

I gutted and removed the old tanks.  Then rebuilt and added new tanks.  In that process I used lighter modern components to reinforce the hull structure.  I used the weight I saved by using coosa composite and other lighter weight materials to stiffen the boat.  It sails much better know.  I know this doesn't address the ballasting issue you describe but what I would propose is to use the "weight" you want to add to the boat to "stiffen" the boat.

I think you'll like it better than just adding dead weight.

Safe?  I think the Westsails are as a group some of the safest available.

I'm not saying don't tweak.  I'm saying why not tweak down low by adding structural weight instead of dead weight?  The hull shape and ballast of the boat makes it a like a cork.  A knockdown will easily right itself.  As long as you don't start adding weight aloft  or put too much heavy stuff up on deck you'll be OK.

But having said that if you do decide to add more ballast wouldn't you want to add lead plugs glassed in as low as possible.  If you were really concerned I suppose you could build a keel shoe that bolts or is glassed on which would increase draft but all the weight would be as low as possible. 

The beauty of these boats are they have a shallow draft but are still safe and sail well.

I have a tall rig which has plenty of power.  I just reef early to keep from healing too much.  More of a comfort and efficiency thing than a safety thing.  The boat can easily take the stress but the sailors on board not so much.  I've stood on the rail while we're sailing along when a friend headed up when they should have fallen off.  Luckily for them they were tll blond and skinny which forgives many transgressions. I literally walked on the caprail at a horizontal to the cockpit as I was amidships to take over the helm.  We were sailing along quite nicely for quite a ways like that.