MAYAN - What She's Like Under The Water

Amongst cruising boats there is a common desire to sail into the shallows where there is often the most sheltered water and proximity to shore. This, of course, conflicts directly with the desire to have a boat sail well upwind, which most often requires a deep keel. In an attempt to satisfy both needs, many designers have built hulls with centerboards that can be pulled up when a boat is near shoals. MAYAN is one of these designs.

A "centerboard trunk" runs through the center of the cabin aboard MAYAN, between the owner's cabin and the forward double guest cabin to starboard and the galley and head to port. While inconvenient to the designer, having a trunk running down the center of the cabin, MAYAN is long enough and beamy enough that John Alden could fit a proper interior around the trunk which runs from just ahead of the mainmast step to just after of the foremast step. When the board is raised, MAYAN only draws a little under five feet, and when lowered MAYAN draws a bit over ten feet. This allows her to sail upwind without making excessive leeway and yet pick up speed by lifting the centerboard and reducing her drag substantially when sailing off the wind.

In the drawing above one can see how shallow and broad MAYAN's hull is. Shallow to allow access to thin water ports and broad to provide stability for sailing despite the necessary shallow position of her ballast keel. It's easy to see that MAYAN has very little keel with her centerboard pulled up.  In the picture below can see the centerboard extended. Unlike some centerboard designs, MAYAN does not have ballast in her centerboard. Rather, the board is made of Iroko, a type of iron-wood, that is heavy enough to sink in water and strong enough to take the tremendous lateral loads when sailing.

MAYAN, centerboard partially extended

One challenge remains for the yacht designer of a centerboard boat. The rudder can't be deeper than the keel when the board is pulled up. As a result, it becomes difficult to design a rudder that will provide good control while having a shallow draft. MAYAN's rudder is much longer fore-n-aft than a traditional rudder, to give it adequate area to turn the boat. But by making what is basically a "square" rudder, the loads a substantially higher. In the fourth picture one can see the heavy wood and large bronze straps that Alden designed to deal with the larger stresses. Thankfully, a schooner rig is extremely easy to balance on and off the wind. As a result, the shallow rudder hasn't presented a problem.

MAYAN's rudder and prop aperture

Our early sails aboard MAYAN have proven this configuration to work wonderfully well. With the centerboard up, she powers along like a trawler with economical fuel consumption below that of a full keel schooner due to her substantially lower wetted surface. With the centerboard down she sails well.  With the centerboard up, MAYAN does roll a bit in a seaway - just like a trawler. Thankfully, we've only to lower the board or set a staysail to get MAYAN to power along in a much more stable fashion.