The Swing’s the Thing

If we have but one regret from our weeks of testing yachts for 2021, it has to be with the Southerly 480, built to exceedingly high standards by the craftsmen at Discovery Yachts in Southampton, England. Simply put, we didn’t get to sail this immaculate, clever yacht in the staunch conditions it was intended for. Even so, it was an impressive machine.

Murphy described its signature feature: “With any sailboat, there are some classic design challenges, or tensions, that every single vessel has to solve in one way or the other. One of them is having enough lateral resistance and ballast under the waterline to sail well in the ocean, but not be so deep-drafted that you can’t get into places. This Southerly solves that problem with its variable-swing keel; it’s not a centerboard, it’s a keel—the difference being that it’s a true foil section. So, when the keel is down, you’ve got the hydrodynamic advantages of a foil.

“The whole keel structure is a single unit called either a grounding plate or an armor breastplate,” he continued. “And you can totally dial in the precise amount of draft that you want, depending on whether you’re sailing or trying to enter a shallow harbor. It’s very well-executed, and very effective, in whichever mode you’re in. You can go from a draft of 3 feet, 3 inches with the keel up, to 10 feet, 3 inches when it’s down and out in the ocean. Which means you can go to many, many places in Florida, the Chesapeake and the Bahamas.”

Twin rudders, twin spinnaker poles for setting or poling out one or two jibs, a raised saloon, a very interesting main layout down below on multiple levels for the galley, the nav station, the cabin— we found much to like on the Southerly 480. But it all comes back to that handy, adaptable swing keel, which we unanimously agreed is the real deal.