The Official "What Did You Do To Your Mac Today" Thread!

[danphilgreen]

This may be of curious interest to you guys: My purchase of a 26S is kind of a "life coming full circle" thing for me. When I was a freshman in high school, my father and I went to the local boat dealer in Downers Grove, Illinois intending to purchase a Sunfish. We had enjoyed playing with one a year or two before and my dad had come into a bit of money he wanted to use for such a toy. Upon entering the showroom, we couldn't help but be rather overwhelmed by the catamaran sailboat that was on display, on it's side against a wall with the mast and main sail sticking out sideways, filling much of the airspace in the large room. It happened to be a Venture Cat, the first version with the white curved hulls and light blue decks. The price was just $100 more than the Sunfish. My dad looked at me and I at him. We said, why don't we get THAT?!!! And we did. So I learned to sail on a Macgregor vessel and here we go again! I'll post some pix if I can ever unearth them.

 

[Chris & Lenore]

I guess I should post that we recently did something to our Mac - we sold her!
After almost ten years of sailing Lake Erie, North Channel, Lake Champlain etc we found that having two boats a job and a business was just too much. So until we manage to retire, we will be sailing our Aloha 32 around Lake Ontario and getting her ready for an eventual trip south.
We did slip in a trip to Pensacola in June for the BEER cruise. Convoyed down with two other trailer sailors (one was a Mac X). I'll share some pics once I find some spare time. B.E.E.R. was a great event and definitely worth the trip.
Here is a link to the sale ad for Teliki. http://www.holderness.info/2015-06-25-00-00-16.html She was heavily modified to a point where we could cruise comfortable for a week or two at a time. Some of the mods might be of interest.
Hopefully Teliki's new owners will join this forum. They currently are sailing her on the Ottawa River but have plans to trailer her as extensively as we did.

Chris & Lenore

 

[StinkBug]

Been a long time since I've had my boat in the water sadly. I got kinda wrapped up in playing with aiplanes for the last year. I'm hoping to put her back in tomorrow though and in preparation I finally got around to tackling a project that has been on the back burner for a couple years, cockpit storage.

Since I bought the boat my fenders and fuel tank have resided in a big grey plastic tub that fit quite nicely at the back of the cockpit. As well as it worked it was a bit of an eyesore, and the sun killed it over time requiring a couple replacements. Also you couldn't stand on it and it would slide around when trailering. About 2 years ago I designed some panels that would section off the back part of the cockpit and one of my friends had them cut from stainless on the laser cutter at his work. Unfortunately the material he used was too thick for any of my tools to bend properly, so they sat, waiting for something to happen.

When I pulled the boat out a couple days ago and started cleaning it up I found that the sun had destroyed yet another plastic tub, and decided to finally do something about it. Since I still didn't have a way to bend the pieces my friend cut I decided to just re-cut the pieces from some thinner metal. A couple hours later I had the storage I've been dreaming of. It's quite a bit roomier than the plastic tub, but takes up the same amount of cockpit space. The front wall is about an inch above the floor so water can still run to the drain, and the hinge support is a couple inches forward of the transom so I can still slide the cabin door in there for storage. I can't wait to try it out this weekend!

 

[walt]

Updated my avatar

had them cut from stainless on the laser cutter

Nice option to have, looks like a nice mod.

Easy for the avatar update.. http://forums.sailboatowners.com/index.php?threads/add-an-avatar-to-your-profile.175267/

 

[BudGates]

Looks nice StinkBug. I built a cockpit storage for my V-222. I can only hope the new owner appreciates it.

 

[walt]

The winter sailing season is about to start this afternoon in Lake Havasu. I just finished a bunch of maintenance and changes to the boat.

First, I changed the impeller on the outboard for the first time in five years (not terribly good about doing this often enough) but the old one that was replaced was in good shape. The boat has sat through some really hot summers and I was happy to see that the impeller was still in good shape as I was slightly worried about some heat rot. Outboard also got all fluids changed.

When I got to the boat about a week ago, the batteries were dead as I had left a fan on when I left the boat last June. This is the third time Ive had the two six volt batteries completely drained and this time.. they were gone - but I got six years out of them. Boat now has two new golf cart batteries. The batteries are kept charged by a 10 watt solar panel which "in theory" should have been able to keep things charged even with the fan running all the time.. but odd things happen in that heat (one of the hottest places on the planet in the summer - but its Nov 1 today and Im in shorts, T shirt and sandals).

The boat will now be marina sailed so i also changed to a butane stove - just put one of the inexpensive ones in that I already had. I had an alcohol stove in the boat which works nice on a trip but for how I will use the boat for this winter, I would just get too much alcohol evaporation.

The old 26S goes in a slip this afternoon.. also with a new Schaefer roller furler and Hyde 110 jib.

 

[walt]

These pictures were al taken today Lake Havasu. I like how nice it is to post pictures here, thanks!

 

[justsomeguy]

Nice lookin' Snap Furl.

Your anchor retention system, is it only used to keep the anchor in place, or is it a part of your actual tackle?

 

[walt]

In that picture, there is no chain or rope on the anchor.. Someone on this forum had posted a picture of a bungee cord holding up an anchor and I just modified that a little and have a loop hanging off the bow pulpit with a quick connect that I do plan to use to hold the anchor in place just before I drop it and also first thing to secure it when I bring it up. I havent tried any of this yet.

 

[walt]

The arrow in this picture shows my "chart plotter". What.. you cant see the screen at all - either can I. With the tiller boat where you can be sitting on either side sailing and sitting way in the back for motoring that spot in the companionway is about the best overall to accommodate all viewing angles but in a lot (most) of sunlight conditions you just cant see the detail in the display. This is one of the newer "bright color" displays. You could double the size of the display to 8 inches and I think you still couldn't see detail.For the tiller boat, If I have to navigate, I still use a handheld GPS holding it right under my nose.

That instrument is a Lowrance Elite 4 (or something like that) and it almost does what I want . You can select different screens like map or fish finder but I would like one additional screen that did nothing but best show displayed numbers. I mainly use that instrument to tell GPS speed and water depth, maybe add in a GPS derived compass heading, trip odometer and accurate max speed.

 

[Freedom77]

Nothing more beautiful than sunrise or sunset at sea. Hey Sumner, If ya get to Las Vegas let me know. Would like to meet you.

 

[walt]

I just went through my releasable rudder hold down and here is what it looks like now. There is a releasable jam cleat that lots of people have and it works well but I like the rudder to be always snug down (jam cleats must slip a little bit to engage) so I have a somewhat unique setup. The way it works is the rudder down haul is kept tight by the bungee (black in the picture) and the line loops back to the jam cleat. If the rudder grounds, it will pull the hook on the bungee backwards and it "climbs" out of the jam cleat and releases. It works well and keeps the rudder very snug in the down position even if you raise the tiller.

The picture below shows how I lock the tiller in place for single handing or heave to. Just pop the ball end into the socket and twist the tube to lock the length.

 

[walt]

out yesterday tweaking the new 110 jib lead placement. Not a bad thing at all to be doing on a Monday

.

 

[justsomeguy]

Yesterday, while motoring solo out from my slip in Puerto Penasco, I mis-handled my forward dock line and allowed it to fall into the water. Looking at the line, I judged it to be just long enough to get wrapped in my propeller, so I shut down the motor.
I scurried forward to retrieve the line, and fend off my impending brush with the shrimping boat Progressista.

The impact was negligible, but my forestay was now slightly entangled with my victim's anchor. Big, huge gracias's to the crew on board the shrimper for disentangling my forestay, and putting me to rights. I have a bit of blue paint on my pulpit to scrape off.

How embarrassing. I may have to trim that dockline down.

 

[BudGates]

Yesterday, while motoring solo out from my slip in Puerto Penasco, I mis-handled my forward dock line and allowed it to fall into the water. Looking at the line, I judged it to be just long enough to get wrapped in my propeller, so I shut down the motor.
I scurried forward to retrieve the line, and fend off my impending brush with the shrimping boat Progressista.

The impact was negligible, but my forestay was now slightly entangled with my victim's anchor. Big, huge gracias's to the crew on board the shrimper for disentangling my forestay, and putting me to rights. I have a bit of blue paint on my pulpit to scrape off.

How embarrassing. I may have to trim that dockline down.

I appreciate the story. Glad there wasn't any real damage. Good consideration to make sure your bow lines don't reach the prop. I'll be sure to check that the next time I take the boat out.

 

[justsomeguy]

I appreciate the story. Glad there wasn't any real damage. Good consideration to make sure your bow lines don't reach the prop. I'll be sure to check that the next time I take the boat out.

Thanks. There was a fair breeze over the port side which wasn't helping things.
It was either turn to port and let the prop eat the line, turn to starboard and get into reverse (in hindsight, this might have been my best option), go immediately into reverse and try to get back in the slip (fight that breeze), or what I ended up doing.

Think I'll buy the crew a beer or two.

 

[walt]

Today in the Black Canyon on the Colorado river.

 

[Sumner]

I'm in the process of sewing a cover...

... for the mast...

... it will cover the running rigging and the Genoa so that I don't have to remove them to prevent sun damage when the boat is on the trailer. It will also give them some protection on the highway also and make the boat quicker to setup and take down since I won't have to tie all of that stuff down.

...I started on the back (2nd picture) but now moved to the front and will work back on the mast to the cover I'd started back there,

Sumner

============================

1300 miles to The Bahamas and Back in the Mac

Endeavour 37 Mods...

MacGregor 26-S Mods...

Mac Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida, Bahamas

 

[walt]

Sumner, that is looking good, Im wondering what material did you pick for the mast cover? I have the same plan although I havent done anything at all yet. When I leave the boat for the summer, Im thinking about leaving the furler/ rolled up sail tied to the mast. The sail has a UV strip sewn in but the extra cover will also protect all the halyards, etc from the sun.

I copied an idea from Azarac who posts here sometimes for an extension to hold the end of the furler that extends past the mast when trailering. This was some PVC pipe cut lenghtwise and I added some aluminum angle riveted to the PVC plastic for a little extra strength (plus it gets really hot where the boat will be). I haven't really put any of this together yet.. just planning at the moment.

 

[Sumner]

Sumner, that is looking good, Im wondering what material did you pick for the mast cover?... The sail has a UV strip sewn in but the extra cover will also protect all the halyards, etc from the sun....

Yep I have the UV protection on the Genoa but don't want to degrade it when the boat is out of the water and save it for when the boat is on the water and the mast is up and also want to prevent sun damage to the running rigging as you mentioned.

I'm using Sunbrella Ocean Blue ...

http://www.sailrite.com/Sunbrella-6079-0000-Ocean-Blue-60

... It is a little darker than the Sunbrella Pacific Blue you see on a lot of boats...

http://www.sailrite.com/Sunbrella-6...MT3qxaJXV7Uhp8FTsMTftRkgNpi0dVMJfzRoCX7Hw_wcB

We used the Ocean Blue on the other projects for both boats.....

http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner/macgregor-canvas/canvas-index.html

I used their Top Gun ....

http://www.sailrite.com/Top-Gun-Caribbean-Blue-62

...on the inside in any areas I thought there could be chaffing and also where the Common Sense fasteners are located. The Common Sense fasteners....

http://www.sailrite.com/easearch#!&ea_q=common sense fasteners

.... make it easy to install and remove the cover quickly,

Sumner

===================================
1300 miles to The Bahamas and Back in the Mac

Endeavour 37 Mods...

MacGregor 26-S Mods...

Mac Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida, Bahamas