This recreational lake — Is there a suitable sailboat?

Buckeye Lake has an average depth of about 6 feet with a maximum depth of about 14 feet. It has a relatively flat bottom without much underwater woody cover. It is a recreational lake of 2,847 acres located in a state park with many 4, 6 and 8 foot depths.

I’ve been sailing a 17-foot keel boat on a local lake with similar characteristic and under similar circumstances for the past 12 years or so. As with you, the majority of boaters are not sailboats, but pontoon boats or small fishing skiffs. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a sailboat. Certainly there are some coves, I’m not going to venture into as far as a pontoon boat will, but most of the lake is still open to me. It doesn’t matter if there is 1 foot under your keel, or 100, to enjoy the lake as long as your boat floats. Towards the end of the summer, there is usually less than 6 inches of water under the boat when I pull into the dock, and in some really low years, the keel has even plowed through a bit of silt to get back in. So what?

One of the things that helps me sail with confidence is that it is a swing keel boat. so I know that if I get stuck or the water goes down, all i need to do is crank up the keel and and I have an extra 2 feet to work with.

This boat is defiantly the best value I’ve ever had. I bought it used with a trailer for 2.5K over a decade ago, and have probably put less than $500 into it since then. However, it’s still light enough to be towed with a mid size car and since it’s a keel boat I can enjoy it when the water is too cold to even consider a dinghy. Unlike a dingy, it will sail 4 comfortable and on a few occasions I’ve had 6 on board, yet its as easy as a dingy to sail on my own. I store if for the winter and take it out and launch it in the spring with no thought in between. It’s only about 20 minutes to rig, launch and be off sailing. I also feel confident to go out on calm days knowing I can just enjoy being on the water.

I think so many sailors miss so much because they get so paranoid about depth. From what you’ve said the bottom is unlikely to hurt most boats if you should run aground and with a swing keel or centerboard, its so easy to deal with that if you do. Even when I’m sailing in the Bahamas on a 33-foot boat, I’ll often sail all day and rarely have water over 14-feet and find some beautiful shallow anchorages with nobody around. Sure there may only be 1.5 feet under the keel at low tide but as I said earlier, as long as the boat is floating, who cares how much depth is under it.

From what you’ve said a boat similar in size 17-19 feet might make sense for you, but you need to look more at what you’d like to do. If you will not have a slip, you need something easy transport rig and launch. Do you want to sleep out at night from time to time? – then you might want to go with something a little bigger. What’s the towing capacity of your vehicle? Do you want to take other people out? These are all things to consider.

I had one year, that I tried a lake about an hour away, but I found the small lake similar to yours so convenient at only 20 minutes, that I used it so much more and have kept the boat there ever since.

There are a lot of used, small keelboats with trailers that are very affordible to purchase and will likely require little upkeep. I teach a sailing class that uses the above mentioned keelboat and several small lazer-sized dinghies. I’m thinking of getting rid of all the dinghies in part because they are less adaptable, more expensive in the long run, are not as appropriate in many weather conditions.

There are many boats to choose from including: West Wight Potter, Catalina, Vagabond, O-day, Precision and Hunter

Buying a used keelboat is much like buying a used home. Don’t get caught up in curb appeal. Don’t get too worked up about the condition of the sails, paint jobs, old tires, or trailer lights not working. These are easy, cheap fixes. Structural damage to the boat, an engine that needs replacing or major trailer work however, can end up costing quite a bit.

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