Rob Mazza

Rob Mazza is a Good Old Boat contributing editor. He set out on his career as a naval architect in the late 1960s when he began working for Cuthbertson & Cassian. He's been familiar with good old boats from the time they were new and had a hand in designing a good many of them.

By 1896, keels were becoming clearly distinct from hulls, as on the Fife-designed Canada, top of page The slight bulb form of the ballast was also quite common. G.L. Watson is believed to have pioneered the use of integrated external ballast. In his early cutter Verve I, above, seen at Port Dalhousie on Lake Ontario in 1877, the outline of her lead ballast, which was integrated into her keel timbers, is clearly visible. The recast ballast from Verve I, along with a lot of her hardware, was used in the building of the Fife-designed Seawanhaka-Rule cutter Zelma in Toronto in 1892.

Keel evolution

The long road to separation of keel from hull Issue 102 : May/Jun 2015 In a previous article (“How Sailboat Rudders Evolved,” January 2015), we looked at the evolution of the rudder on sailing yachts ...

Rob Mazza
May 5, 2026
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The 1939 John Alden-designed CCA racer, White Wings, top of page, shows the “classic” lines dating from Britannia of the 1890s. The pronounced “drag” to the keel on the 6-Metre Merenneito, seen here hauled at City Island, New York, in 1928, above left, is a result of the use of girth measurements in the International Rule.

Keel evolution, part 2

Separation achieved Issue 103 : Jul/Aug 2015 In part 1 of this series about the evolution of keels (May 2015), we looked at the early use of external ballast let into the keel timbers of early British...

Rob Mazza
May 1, 2026
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The moderately swept second generation of the C&C fin keel can be seen here on the C&C 61, Grampus, at her launching in Bronte, Ontario, in the mid-1970s, at top. Her builder, Erich Bruckmann, wearing a white windbreaker, is standing by the crane. C&C Yachts featured the distinctive hull profile with its highly swept keel in its sales literature, at left, which made it a little awkward to easily abandon this approach to keel design even after more effective shapes were developed.

Keel evolution, part 3

Bites, sweep, fins, bulbs, wings, and winglets Issue 104 : Sept/Oct 2015 In Part 1 (May 2015) and Part 2 (July 2015) of this narrative, we explored the evolution of the keel from a longitudinal struct...

Rob Mazza
April 30, 2026
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