Thoughts on keels...
Posted by: Al_A
on Oct-25-12 10:28 PM (EST)
The T keel on my old 15 ft. aluminum Grumman never did much to keep the boat tracking straight, nor did it inhibit turning all that much. I found the 15 footer with T keel a little more responsive to turning strokes than a 17 footer with the shoe keel that a buddy had. Of course, the T keel meant that the boat drafted about an inch more water (or, on Ozark streams) scraped bottom in an inch more water) than did the shoe keel. But that wasn't necessarily a really bad thing because that aluminum fin protected a lot of the bottom of the boat from wear due to all that scraping and dragging in shallow Ozark stream riffles.