I don't have pictures but I have the same block with lifting rings in my Commander. I've noted as have some of the local Ariel owners that my boat seems to sail stiffer in a breeze. I may pay a price in light winds but get it back when its blowing. I also put the outboard down in the cabin for racing and have moved the battery to dead center under the bridge deck.
So I must be hullcentric!?! Somehow I missed that fact that there seems to be two different types of pigs in the bilge. The fact that Commanders appear to have the single big pig versus the more common two pigged Ariel find leads me to believe that I have been reading with prejudice
Public humiliation...
The difference comes from the fact that the compensation ballast in the Commander is making up for the lack of an inboard motor and the weight of the extended cabin of the Ariel. Most PHRF systems give a different rating to each boat indicating that their weight (when sailed with the designed weight installed) isn't quite the same even with the installed lead. The somewhat old information in the chart on the Pearson Information page notes this:
http://www.pearsoninfo.net/info/phrf.htm
The Ariel scores an average PHRF of 255.5 and the Commander 250.5. I know that current numbers used by local sailing clubs on the Chesapeake are 252 for the Commander and 257 for the Ariel.
Sadly, nobody registered an Ariel or a Commander in the Chesapeake Bay Yacht Racing Association in 2008 (CBYRA runs the major races on the bay). A number of them ran in Wednesday night local races in smaller clubs. I intend to put my Commander out there in 09 in the non-spinnaker class. I don't expect to win but I'm looking forward to a number of good days on the water with some friends.
For the record,
A-338 came with a form-fitted 120# pig with an iron ring in it exactly like the rings I cutoff that were sticking out of the 'encapsulated' ballast. It is shaped like Mike's (post 37) to fit right behind the end of the glassed-in ballast in the bilge.
Somebody must have really hated this little piggy because there are a bunch of hammer marks embedded in the S.O.B. top!
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ ___________
The pig is 9" long - 7" tall - and 6" wide at the wide end.
Bathroom scale weight - 120#
A cubic foot of lead comes in at 708#
A cubic inch at .40969# at room temp.
Getting an estimate of the weight of the added pigs doesn't help with the curve of the bilge, does it? But maybe you could ballpark a guesstimate by averaging the angle at 45 degrees.....?
Last edited by ebb; 11-25-2008 at 05:26 PM.
Wonder what I have under there.
Its all glassed over and looks like a shallower bilge than 227
This picture was taken from underneath the stern-most floorboard looking forward
http://pearsonariel.org/discussion/a...1&d=1142982282
that's curious.. A-231's bilge looks equally shallow, but my lift rings are on the centerline. it would be interesting to get some measurements from the bilge to the floorboards on a couple boats to see how similar/different they are in profile.
it might take an xray or a thermal imager to know what is really down there without breaking out a saw.
Those rings are likely attached to the main external ballast located in the keel.Originally Posted by bill@ariel231
sure looks like what I have in Commander 270. Mine has an extra layer of glass laid over it and is nicely painted by previous owner.
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