Sailing yacht with a fin keel

In boats and ships, keel can refer to either of two parts: a structural element, or a hydrodynamic element. These parts overlap. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in construction of a ship, in British and American shipbuilding traditions the construction is dated from this event. Only the ship's launching is considered more significant in its creation.

The word can also be used to refer to a complete boat, as in keelboat or Humber keel.

Structural keels[link]

Keel laid for the USS United States in drydock

A structural keel is a large beam around which the hull of a ship is built. The keel runs in the middle of the ship, from the bow to the stern, and serves as the foundation or spine of the structure, providing the major source of structural strength of the hull. The keel is generally the first part of a ship's hull to be constructed, and laying the keel, or placing the keel in the cradle in which the ship will be built, is often a momentous event in a ship's construction — so much so that the event is often marked with a ceremony, and the term lay the keel has entered the language as a phrase meaning the beginning of any significant undertaking. Modern ships are now largely built in a series of pre-fabricated, complete hull sections rather than being built around a single keel, so the start of the shipbuilding process is now considered to be when the first sheet of steel is cut.

The keel converts sideways force into a forward force.

The keel contributes substantially to the longitudinal strength and effectively local loading caused when docking the ship. The most common type of keel is the "flat plate keel", and this is fitted in the majority of ocean-going ships and other vessels. A form of keel found on smaller vessels is the "bar keel", which may be fitted in trawlers, tugs, and smaller ferries. Where grounding is possible, this type of keel is suitable with its massive scantlings, but there is always a problem of the increased draft with no additional cargo capacity. If a double bottom is fitted, the keel is almost inevitably of the flat plate type, bar keels often being associated with open floors, where the plate keel may also be fitted.

Duct keels are provided in the bottom of some vessels. These run from the forward engine room bulkhead to the collision bulkhead and are utilized to carry the double bottom piping. The piping is then accessible when cargo is loaded.

If a ship suffers severe structural stress — classically during a shipwreck when running aground in a heavy sea — it is possible for the keel to break or be strained to the extent that it loses structural integrity. In this case the ship is commonly said to have "broken its back". Such a failure means that the entire structure of the ship and its machinery has been compromised and repairing such damage would require virtually re-building the ship from the ground up. A ship that has broken its back is almost certainly unsalvagable and subsequently written off by its insurers.

Hydrodynamic keels[link]

Keels provide extra stability by providing a weight low enough to significantly lower the centre of gravity.

Non-sailing keels[link]

The keel surface on the bottom of the hull gives the ship greater directional control and stability. In non-sailing hulls, the keel helps the hull to move forward, rather than slipping to the side. In traditional boat building, this is provided by the structural keel, which projects from the bottom of the hull along most or all of its length. In modern construction the bar keel or flat-plate keel performs the same function. There are many types of fixed keels, including full keels, long keels, fin keels, winged keels, bulb keels, and bilge keels among other designs. Deep draft ships will typically have a flat bottom and employ only bilge keels, both to aid directional control and to damp rolling motions

Sailboat keels[link]

In sailboats, keels use the forward motion of the boat to generate lift to counteract the leeward force of the wind. The rudimentary purpose of the keel is to convert the sideways motion of the wind when it is abeam into forward motion. A secondary purpose of the keel is to provide ballast.

Capsizing effect of a sailing keel

Keels are different from centreboards and other types of foils in that keels are made of heavy materials to provide ballast to stabilize the boat. Keels may be fixed, or non-movable, or they may retract to allow sailing in shallower waters. Retracting keels may pivot (a swing keel) or slide upwards to retract, and are usually retracted with a winch due to the weight of the ballast. Since the keel provides far more stability when lowered than when retracted (due to the greater moment arm involved), the amount of sail carried is generally reduced when sailing with the keel retracted.

Types of non-fixed keels include swing keels and canting keels. Canting keels can be found on racing yachts, such as those competing in the Volvo Ocean Race. They provide considerably more righting moment as the keel moves out to the windward-side of the boat while using less weight. The horizontal distance from the weight to the pivot is increased, which generates a larger righting moment.

Etymology[link]

The word "keel" comes from Old English cēol, Old Norse kjóll, = "ship" or "keel". It has the distinction of being regarded by some scholars as the very first word in the English language recorded in writing, having been recorded by Gildas in his 6th century Latin work De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, under the spelling cyulae (he was referring to the three ships that the Saxons first arrived in).^[1][2]

Carina is the Latin word for "keel" and is the origin of the term careen (to clean a keel and the hull in general, often by rolling the ship on its side). An example of this use is Careening Cove, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, where careening was carried out in early colonial days.

See also[link]

• Leeboard
• Bilgeboard
• Daggerboard
• Bruce foil
• Kelson
• False keel
• Keelhauling — a type of sailor's punishment
• Bulbous bow — the bulb that protrudes under the water line in large modern ships

Notes[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Keels

Bibliography[link]

• Rousmaniere, John, The Annapolis Book of Seamanship, Simon & Shuster, 1999
• Chapman Book of Piloting (various contributors), Hearst Corporation, 1999
• Herreshoff, Halsey (consulting editor), The Sailor’s Handbook, Little Brown and Company
• Seidman, David, The Complete Sailor, International Marine, 1995
• Jobson, Gary, Sailing Fundamentals, Simon & Shuster, 1987

John Alva Keel, born Alva John Kiehle (March 25, 1930 – July 3, 2009) was an American journalist and influential UFOlogist best known as author of The Mothman Prophecies.

Biography[link]

Keel was born in Hornell, New York, and had his first story published in a magicians' magazine at age 12. He later worked as a freelance contributor to newspapers, scriptwriter for local radio and television outlets, and author of pulp articles such as "Are You A Repressed Sex Fiend?". He served in the US Army during the Korean War on the staff of the American Forces Network at Frankfurt, Germany. After leaving the military he worked as a foreign radio correspondent in Paris, Berlin, Rome and Egypt. In 1957, he published Jadoo, a book describing his time in Egypt and India investigating the Indian rope trick and the legendary yeti. In 1966 he produced the "spy and superhero" spoof novel The Fickle Finger of Fate. Influenced by writers such as Charles Fort, he began contributing articles to Flying Saucer Review and took up investigating UFOs and assorted Forteana as a full time pursuit. Keel analyzed what he called "windows" and "waves" of reported UFO events, concluding that a disproportionate number occurred on Wednesdays.^[1] A member of the Screenwriters Guild, Keel reportedly wrote scripts for Get Smart, The Monkees, and Lost In Space.^[2]

In 1967, Keel coined the term "Men In Black" in an article for the men's adventure magazine Saga, entitled "UFO Agents of Terror". According to Keel, he initially sought to explain UFOs as extraterrestrial visitations, but later abandoned this hypothesis. His third book, UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse published in 1970, linked UFOs to supernatural concepts such as monsters, ghosts and demons. In Our Haunted Planet published in 1971, Keel coined the term "ultraterrestrials" to describe UFO occupants he believed to be shape-changing, non-human entities.

His 1975 book, The Mothman Prophecies was Keel's account of his investigation into alleged sightings in West Virginia of a huge, winged creature called the "Mothman." The book combines Keel's account of receiving strange phone calls with reports of mutilated pets and culminates with the December 15, 1967, collapse of the Silver Bridge across the Ohio River. The book was widely popularized as the basis of a 2002 film of the same name starring Richard Gere.^[1]

Prolific and imaginative, Keel was considered a significant influence within the UFO and Fortean genre.

He died on July 3, 2009 in New York City, at the age of 79.^[1]

Bibliography[link]

• Jadoo (1957)
• The Fickle Finger of Fate (Fawcett, 1966)
• UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse (1970)
• Strange Creatures From Time and Space (1970)
• Our Haunted Planet (1971)
• The Flying Saucer Subculture (1973)
• The Mothman Prophecies (1975)
• The Eighth Tower (1975)
• The Cosmic Question (1978)
• Disneyland of the Gods (1988)
• The Complete Guide to Mysterious Beings (1994) (revised version of Strange Creatures from Time and Space)
• The Best of John Keel (Paperback 2006) (Collection of Keel's Fate Magazine articles)

References[link]

External links[link]

• John Keel - Daily Telegraph obituary
• Fortean Times interview http://www.forteantimes.com/features/interviews/2053/john_keel_rip.html
• John Keel magazine articles http://www.philsp.com/homeville/FMI/s1171.htm#A43298
• Mothman Central
• SciFi Online Interview with Keel
• The Great UFO Wave of '73: Interview with John A. Keel
• FortFest tapes
• Ultraterrestrials: Do they walk among us?, article by Ken Korczak at Unexplained Mysteries, 26 March 2006
• John Keel website with bibliography and biographical details

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Howard Keel
from the trailer for Annie Get Your Gun (1950)
Born	Harold Clifford Keel (1919-04-13)April 13, 1919 Gillespie, Illinois, U.S.
Died	November 7, 2004(2004-11-07) (aged 85) Palm Desert, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor/Singer
Years active	1948–2002
Spouse	Rosemary Cooper (1943-48) (divorced) Helen Anderson (1949-70) (divorced) Judy Keel (1970-2004) (his death)

Harold Clifford Keel (April 13, 1919 – November 7, 2004), known professionally as Howard Keel, was an American actor and singer. He starred in many film musicals of the 1950s. He is best known to modern audiences for his starring role in the CBS television series Dallas (1981-1991)as Clayton Farlow, opposite Barbara Bel Geddes's character, but to an earlier generation, he was known as the star of some of the most famous MGM film musicals ever made, with a rich baritone singing voice.

Early years[link]

Keel was born Harold Clifford Keel in Gillespie, Illinois, to Navyman-turned-coalminer Homer Keel and his wife, Grace Osterkamp Keel. (It is often erroneously stated—by the MGM publicity department of the 1950s—that Keel's birth name was Harold Leek).

Young Harold spent his childhood in poverty. One of his teachers, Miss Rosa Burke, noticed one day that he was not eating his lunch. From that day forward, Miss Burke would pack two lunches - one for herself and one for Harold. When he became famous and would perform near Gillespie, Burke always received tickets to attend his performances.

After his father's death in 1930, Keel and his mother moved to California, where he graduated from Fallbrook High School at the age of 17. He worked various odd jobs until finally settling at Douglas Aircraft Company as a traveling representative.

Career and personal life[link]

At the age of 20, Keel was overheard singing by his landlady, Mom Rider, and was encouraged to take vocal lessons. One of Keel's musical heroes was the great baritone Lawrence Tibbett. Howard would later remark that learning that his own voice was a basso cantante was one of the greatest disappointments of his life. Nevertheless, his first public performance occurred in the summer of 1941, when he played the role of Samuel the Prophet in Handel's oratorio Saul (singing a duet with bass-baritone George London).

In 1943, Keel met and married his first wife, actress Rosemary Cooper. In 1945, Keel briefly understudied for John Raitt in the Broadway hit Carousel before being assigned to Oklahoma!, written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. When performing this play during this period, Keel accomplished a feat that has never been duplicated; he performed the leads in both shows on the same day.

In 1947, Oklahoma! became the first American postwar musical to travel to London, England, and Harold joined the production. On the opening night, April 30, at the Drury Lane Theatre, the capacity audience (which included the future Queen Elizabeth II) demanded fourteen encores. Keel was hailed as the next great star, becoming the toast of London's West End.

During the London run, his marriage to Rosemary ended in divorce and Keel fell in love with a young member of the show's chorus, dancer Helen Anderson. They married in January 1949 and, a year later, Harold - now called Howard - celebrated the birth of his daughter, Kaija.

While living in London, Keel made his film debut as Howard Keel at the British Lion studio in Elstree, in The Small Voice (1948), released in the US as Hideout. In the film he played an escaped convict holding a playwright and his wife hostage in their English country cottage.

Additional Broadway credits include Saratoga, No Strings, and Ambassador. He appeared at The Muny in St. Louis, MO as General Waverly in White Christmas (2000), Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady (1996); Emile de Becque in South Pacific (1992), and Adam in Seven Brides For Seven Brothers (1954).

Keel was a devout Methodist.^[1]

MGM years[link]

From London's West End, Howard ended up at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer making his film musical debut as Frank Butler in the movie version of Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun (1950).

Howard's MGM career was to become a frustrating business. MGM never seemed to know quite how to use him and, besides his plum film roles in Show Boat (1951), Kiss Me Kate (1953), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), and Kismet (1955), he was forced into a series of unremarkable musicals and B-films. On loan at Warner Brothers, Keel played Wild Bill Hickok in Calamity Jane (1953), a highly popular Oscar-winning musical starring Doris Day in one of her most famous screen roles. The film was Warner Brothers' answer to Annie Get Your Gun, and included the smash hit song "Secret Love".

There were two more children born to Howard and Helen, daughter Kirstine in 1952, and son Gunnar in 1955. Soon after, Howard was released from his contract and returned to his first love; the stage.

1960s–1980s[link]

As America's taste in entertainment evolved, finding jobs became more difficult for Keel. The 1960s held limited prospects for career advancement, and consisted primarily of nightclub work, B-Westerns and summer stock. Due to his declining career, Keel began to drink heavily and his marriage to Helen crumbled. They divorced in 1970.

1970 turned out to be more fortunate for Howard. He went on a blind date with airline stewardess Judy Magamoll, who was 25 years his junior and who knew nothing about his stardom. Years later, Howard would call the relationship love at first sight, but the age difference bothered him tremendously. For Judy, however, it was not a problem and with the aid of Robert Frost's poem "What Fifty Said," she convinced him to proceed with their relationship. They were married in December 1970, and his drinking problem soon ceased thereafter. He resumed his routine of nightclub, cabaret and summer stock jobs with his new wife at his side. In 1971-72, Howard appeared briefly in the West End and Broadway productions of the musical, Ambassador, which flopped. In 1974, Howard became a father for the fourth time with the birth of his daughter, Leslie Grace. In January 1986, Keel underwent double heart bypass surgery.

[edit] The Love Boat, Dallas, and revived career

Keel continued to tour, with his wife and daughter in tow, but by 1980 had decided to make a career/life change. Howard moved his family to Oklahoma with the intention of joining an oil company. The family had barely settled down when Howard was called back to California to appear with Jane Powell on an episode of The Love Boat. While there, he was told that the producers of the television series Dallas wanted to speak with him. After several cameo appearances, Keel joined the show permanently as the dignified and hot-tempered oil baron, Clayton Farlow. His acting career became highly successful once again.

Recording career[link]

With renewed fame, Keel commenced his first solo recording career, at age 64, as well as a successful concert career in the UK. He released an album, in 1984, With Love, which sold poorly. However, his album, And I Love You So reached #6 in the UK Albums Chart in 1984.^[2] The follow up album, Reminiscing - The Howard Keel Collection peaked at #20 in the UK chart, spending twelve weeks in that listing in 1985 and 1986.^[2]

In 1988 the album, Just for You reached #51 in the UK Albums Chart.^[2] In 1994, he and Judy moved to Palm Desert, California. The Keels were active in community charity events, and attended the annual Howard Keel Golf Classic at Mere Golf Club in Cheshire, England, which raised money for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). Howard attended the event for many years up until the year of his death.

Death[link]

Keel died at his Palm Desert home on November 7, 2004, six weeks after being diagnosed with colon cancer. He is survived by Judy, his wife of thirty-four years, his four children, ten grandchildren and a great-granddaughter. He was cremated and his ashes splitted in Mere Golf Club, Liverpool John Lennon Airport, and Tuscany, Italy.

Family[link]

Keel had four children, three with second wife Helen Anderson – two daughters, Katija Liane (born January 14, 1950) and Kirstine Elizabeth (born June 21, 1952), and a son, Gunnar Louis (born June 3, 1955) – and one with his third wife Judy – a daughter, Leslie Grace (born September 1, 1974).

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Howard Keel

• Howard Keel at the Internet Movie Database
• Howard Keel at the Internet Broadway Database
• Howard Keel at AllRovi
• Photographs and literature on Howard Keel

Kare Kauks (Kare Orav by marriage; born 2 June 1961 in Kehra^[1]) is an Estonian singer and music teacher.

Career[link]

Kare Kauks has been vocal-coached by Heidy Tamme at the pop department of Tallinn Music School. As a promising jazz vocalist, she participated in several jazz festivals in early 1980s, including the one in Tbilisi.

In 1986, Kare Kauks became the soloist of the extremely popular Estonian rock band Mahavok. In spring 1987, Mahavok won the grand prix both on Tartu Pop Music Festival, and on Jūrmala festival in Latvia with the song "Mägede hääl" ("Voice of the Mountains") which brought the group attention throughout the Soviet Union. The record company Melodia released an album by Mahavok, which sold well across the USSR.

During the 1990s, Kare Kauks was rarely seen on stage for devoting herself to family instead. In 2001, however, she played the role of Fantine in the Estonian production of the musical Les Misérables in Tallinn.

In 2002, Mahavok released a double compilation album of greatest hits for the band's twentieth anniversary and performed some concerts. They reunited again a few years later, when the founder and leader of the group, Heini Vaikmaa, celebrated his 50th birthday, and Mahavok has continued performing since then.

Personal[link]

Kare Kauks is married to the diplomat and lawyer Indrek Orav; they have two daughters and live in Tallinn.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Kare Kauks at the Tartu Music Festival 2009
• Kare Kauks on Les Miserables (Estonian)
• Kare Kauks on YouTube
• Kare Kauks at the Internet Movie Database