He was rounding the breakwater in Dana Point on his First and glanced off an underwater rock with the tip of his keel. His boat was out of commission for 4 months as they had to completely remove and reinstall the keel. We hit the bottom many times on our Gulfstar, a few times with pretty drastic results to the coral (sorry) and no damage at all to the boat.

We hit a 3' diameter 30' long tree 20 miles off shore as we were heading West to Roatan. We were sailing at 6 knots at 10:00 at night with no moon,,,, CRASH! Never saw it. When we hit, the bow of the boat rose till it hit the leading edge of the keel and then the boat slowly started rotating. I loosened all the sheets and with nothing I could do just waited for the boat to continue rotating hopefully freeing itself, all the while hoping I wouldn't get a branch locked between the Maxprop and the skeg hung rudder. Fortunately after a minute or two we rotated around leaving the tree behind us. All that remained were some small branches and leaves on deck. I was afraid to start the engine for fear it did damage to the prop. Fortunately no problem at all and we just continued on our way. A very unnerving experience and one that really happens quite a bit at the start of the rainy season in the tropics.

This kind of thing happens all the time when cruising. You can't get around it. One other time I grazed,,, no,,, crashed into a coral head causing all 45,000 pounds of boat to shutter before continuing on her way. No problems (again, sorry coral). I checked out the leading edge of the keel and there was only a large scratch. We've sat on the bottom a number of times listing to one side while swells slowly rocked the boat till high tide came back.

I never really gave the keel attachment much thought when looking for a cruising boat but now that I know what can happen out there I'd suggest that anyone looking to purchase a cruising boat give serious thought to what I didn't. Encapsulated lead and skeg hung rudder would be my first choice.