Different Ballast Configurations for a 78' Racer Cruiser Sailing Yacht: a Case Study With Particular Attention To The Stability Performance

In the field of sailing yacht design, there is a growing interest and application towards solutions for righting moment enhancement, to be exploited when a superior capacity to counter-balance wind effect is required. The typical solution adopted to provide such increase in performance is the use of ballast systems, mainly represented by the water ballast tanks or the canting keel. In the first case the effect is obtained by transversal shift of ballast water, loaded/unloaded on board on purpose. In the latter, the keel is able to cant for a definite angle range in order to transfer a significant weight far from the symmetry plan. During the design process both systems need to be attentively examined with the aim to find the best solution in terms of interference with the yacht arrangement. In the paper, an application study will be presented for a 78' Racer-Cruiser sailing yacht and different design solutions will be compared. A particular attention will be paid to the stability performance. Furthermore, for sake of completeness, a lifting keel configuration will also be considered and commented in terms of stability.