OWNERS' UPGRADE

‘I HAD MY OLD SWING KEEL FULLY REFURBISHED ...'

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Most yachtsmen cheerfully adjust their sails and tune their rigs without giving much thought to the vital counterbalance attached to the bottom of their hull. The keel not only usefully maintains yachts the right way up but also minimises leeway and gives lift to windward. Most commonly made of iron or lead, they are cleverly designed and securely attached to our hulls. So, spare a thought for the specialist foundry craftsmen who create these unseen works of art and thank your lucky stars that their work is not as haphazard as that of the gold smugglers in Desmond Bagley’s book The Golden Keel, whose ill-cast golden fabrication broke away and was lost on the seabed.

Irons Brothers, one of Europe’s largest keel foundries, is to be found incongruously tucked away down a tortuous single-track lane near Padstow in Cornwall. I first learnt of them as the suppliers of the swing keel and grounding plate for Southerly yachts and was fascinated to meet them when my own Southerly 105 was in need of keel refurbishment. Having wound my way through the narrow countryside lanes I wasn't sure what to expect when I parked amongst the trees opposite their gates near Wadebridge - certainly not a 24-tonne articulated lorry loaded with a massive brand new 18-tonne keel bound for Sweden!

The foundry occupies a long, narrow five-and-a-half acre site surrounded by trees at the bottom of a valley outside Wadebridge in North Cornwall. A stream runs down behind the buildings where the foundations of an old waterwheel that powered one of the early enterprises is buried in the undergrowth.