A schooner stirs the sailor’s heart with a huge sail area spread the length of a vessel’s deck. It is a sail plan that urges a yacht to make leeway. But when keel and rudder are engineered to compensate, a schooner has unbeatable power off wind. Balancing these forces into fabulous yachts is what Hoek Design and Holland Jachtbouw have done for 15 years, yet Skylge breaks ground as the first schooner with a lifting keel. A totally new design developed with Frans Brandies Engineering literally locks Hoek’s dart-shaped, 35-ton keel into the hull in the down position to complete a structural "circuit," obliterating forces that would turn a lifting keel into a wedge, driving apart the hull plate. A brilliantly simple plan utilizing large pegs on the rubber-flanged keel stock fitting matching holes in the hull frame creates a rattle-free connection. The system has worked flawlessly since Day One, and the helm is so well balanced—courtesy time well spent in the Wolfson Unit wind tunnel—that 140-ton Skylge actually steers herself for long periods upwind.