Back on the water again, finally.......off to the Bahamas
I finally got in the water again with the Mac. I've been living on the Endeavour for 2 months in Florida and finishing up work on the Mac that I did last fall and early winter.
I started posting on one of the Mac boards but thought I'd copy and paste those posts here also if that is ok with the admin. So here are the last couple days.
========= Post One Sunday 03-08-15 =============
I finally finished all of the work on the Mac and have her loaded with about 2 months of food and gas and water and the yard here where I have the Endeavour is going to lift the boat off the trailer and in the water tomorrow if things go the way they are suppose to.
I'll spend a couple days around Charlotte Harbor (west coast of Florida) and then if everything seems good I'll head south and over to the Keys and up to lower Biscayne Bay fairly quickly and then try and get my nerve up to cross over to Bimini and then try and go further east with hopefully the Exumas as a destination trying to follow some of Mike and Sandy's (Chinook's) route. Don't have to be back until the first of June so it will just be a day by day deal with no 'for sure' plans.
I'll try to post here when I can,
Sumner
====== Post 2 Monday 03-09-15 to Wed 03-11-15 =========
I got in the water Monday morning and left the yard about 1 and went about 3 miles to the small lake on the canal system on the way out to the bay and anchored for the night. The night before I woke up at 2:30 with a really bad sore throat and by morning is was a full blown cold, I think the first in about 6 years. I felt terrible but decide to let them put me in and the reason for not going far. Still suffering from it but it hasn't gotten worst. Yesterday I put in about 35 miles down to Placida which is only about 7 miles from the yard by land. A friend from the yard, Scott and his dog, came down today and we went out.
No wind at first but then it went up to 12-15 and we sailed a total of about 25 miles on long tacks on Charlotte Harbor and almost all the way back to Placida. The best sail I ever had with the boat running a little over 6 mph for a lot of that and that is towing the dinghy and the boat is loaded very heavy sitting about 2-3 inches deeper in the water than stock. I learned some things from Scott so that was good.
Scott left his phone on the boat so in the morning I'll run the boat over to the shore so he can get it and then head about 10 miles south to Pelican Bay and maybe stay there a day or two until hopefully I feel better and have more energy. Then I'll start south.
The added solar has worked great and I ran the trolling motor on the small lake the first night but only for a few minutes as I felt so bad. In that short test it looked like the 360 watts of panels could keep up with the motor running about 2 mph but the sun conditions and such were not constant and I didn't run long enough to come to any conclusions. 2 mph was about 25% throttle if I remember right, but hope to get more data over the next month or so. The trolling motor had no problem pushing the Mac faster than 2 mph but I didn't test for top speed yet.
The added 360 watts of solar though with 120 watts of it...
http://1fatgmc.com/boat/mac-1/mac-outside/Trolling-Motor/page-1.html
.... switchable between the house bank and the trolling motor bank has been added insurance that I shouldn't have to run the 12 volt gen-set although I did start it about a week ago just to make sure it still ran ok. I can also switch the trolling motor bank to the house loads if needed with two switches that then divides the 24 volt bank into 2 additional 12 volt batteries but haven't needed that as the house bank is keeping up fine with the fridge, computer and CPAP machine and tops off each day so far and hasn't gone below 65% or so.
So if I can just kick the worst part of this cold life will be good but I kind of forgot how much work went into doing this on a day to day schedule,
Sumner
=========== Post 3 Thursday 03-12-15 ============
Had a great day today, feeling much better the cold medicine is sure helping. Scott forgot his phone in the boat so first thing I had to take the Mac back into the restaurant dock at 9:30 and give it to him. I didn't look forward to that as I almost had an incident there the day before dropping him and his dog off. Went in for a port tie so flipped the outboard solar panel on that side over onto the center panels. That worked fine but getting off the dock wasn't so good. Backed out a ways and then went forward and almost caught the starboard side panel on a piling like I did at Marco Island some years ago. So when I went in this morning I flipped them both over as it takes less than a minute to do it and then didn't have any problems at all. I'll still play it safe in the future. I mounted all the panels now so they are inboard of the rub-rail except for the two outer ones that I can drop down or flip over.
I know there was some concern about the panels putting more weight up high. The new 360 watts of panels and framework is about 150 lbs. and the old 200 watts is probably 100. I can tell no difference and yesterday sailing we had the boat heeled better than 20 degrees and it was rock solid sailed like that with a full main and the 135 genoa all the way out. Scott also agreed that the panels were not hurting a thing, especially for a cruiser which is all I'm interested in. He has had a number of boats and has a 37 footer in the yard and was impressed with the Mac.
I've really enjoyed the shade the panels are giving and so far see no negative with the mod. My batteries are much happier and aren't going under 60-65% charge. I am running two Trojan 6 volt batteries in series for the house band and have the trolling motor bank of two 12 volt batteries also that can be tied to the house bank but haven't needed to do that.
After dropping Scott's phone off I was going to go to Pelican Bay (about 10 miles) to rest up. I was able to motor sail almost all the way there with the outboard just off idle and only the Genoa out. I didn't want to try and run the main as I was doing this in the ICW channel with some traffic. About Pelican Bay the wind had shifted more to the south and the sailing was done but I felt so much better that I just kept going and going. Ran down the ICW at about 5 mph and went out into the Gulf under the Sanibel Bridge. I was going to try anchoring not too far from it but the wind still had waves running in from the Gulf so dropped that Idea and went a little further going in at Ft. Myers Beach and I'm just inside the inlet where Ruth and I anchored on our trip here.
So since Monday, also counting the day of sailing, I have 105 miles under the keel at this point, with today's run being almost 45 miles. I plan on getting up early and getting out into the Gulf and head 35-40 miles on down to Marco Island off-shore. Winds are suppose to be 10-12 out of the east and then switching to south with 2 foot seas. If that holds I should be able to sail until they swing around to the south.
If all of that happens I'll try and post there. On a side note I'm posting this tonight using the long distance WiFi on board....
http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner/macgregor-navigation/Compter-Nav-index.html
...and have a great connection and using the computer I built some years back. Last night lots of connections but none open so used the trackphone hotspot I bought,
Sumner
=========================================
That brings things up to date and I'll post more as more happens,
Sumner
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]============================
Our Endeavour 37
Our MacGregor 26-S Pages
Our Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida
Mac-Venture Links[/FONT]
I finally got in the water again with the Mac. I've been living on the Endeavour for 2 months in Florida and finishing up work on the Mac that I did last fall and early winter.
I started posting on one of the Mac boards but thought I'd copy and paste those posts here also if that is ok with the admin. So here are the last couple days.
========= Post One Sunday 03-08-15 =============
I finally finished all of the work on the Mac and have her loaded with about 2 months of food and gas and water and the yard here where I have the Endeavour is going to lift the boat off the trailer and in the water tomorrow if things go the way they are suppose to.
I'll spend a couple days around Charlotte Harbor (west coast of Florida) and then if everything seems good I'll head south and over to the Keys and up to lower Biscayne Bay fairly quickly and then try and get my nerve up to cross over to Bimini and then try and go further east with hopefully the Exumas as a destination trying to follow some of Mike and Sandy's (Chinook's) route. Don't have to be back until the first of June so it will just be a day by day deal with no 'for sure' plans.
I'll try to post here when I can,
Sumner
====== Post 2 Monday 03-09-15 to Wed 03-11-15 =========
I got in the water Monday morning and left the yard about 1 and went about 3 miles to the small lake on the canal system on the way out to the bay and anchored for the night. The night before I woke up at 2:30 with a really bad sore throat and by morning is was a full blown cold, I think the first in about 6 years. I felt terrible but decide to let them put me in and the reason for not going far. Still suffering from it but it hasn't gotten worst. Yesterday I put in about 35 miles down to Placida which is only about 7 miles from the yard by land. A friend from the yard, Scott and his dog, came down today and we went out.
No wind at first but then it went up to 12-15 and we sailed a total of about 25 miles on long tacks on Charlotte Harbor and almost all the way back to Placida. The best sail I ever had with the boat running a little over 6 mph for a lot of that and that is towing the dinghy and the boat is loaded very heavy sitting about 2-3 inches deeper in the water than stock. I learned some things from Scott so that was good.
Scott left his phone on the boat so in the morning I'll run the boat over to the shore so he can get it and then head about 10 miles south to Pelican Bay and maybe stay there a day or two until hopefully I feel better and have more energy. Then I'll start south.
The added solar has worked great and I ran the trolling motor on the small lake the first night but only for a few minutes as I felt so bad. In that short test it looked like the 360 watts of panels could keep up with the motor running about 2 mph but the sun conditions and such were not constant and I didn't run long enough to come to any conclusions. 2 mph was about 25% throttle if I remember right, but hope to get more data over the next month or so. The trolling motor had no problem pushing the Mac faster than 2 mph but I didn't test for top speed yet.
The added 360 watts of solar though with 120 watts of it...
http://1fatgmc.com/boat/mac-1/mac-outside/Trolling-Motor/page-1.html
.... switchable between the house bank and the trolling motor bank has been added insurance that I shouldn't have to run the 12 volt gen-set although I did start it about a week ago just to make sure it still ran ok. I can also switch the trolling motor bank to the house loads if needed with two switches that then divides the 24 volt bank into 2 additional 12 volt batteries but haven't needed that as the house bank is keeping up fine with the fridge, computer and CPAP machine and tops off each day so far and hasn't gone below 65% or so.
So if I can just kick the worst part of this cold life will be good but I kind of forgot how much work went into doing this on a day to day schedule,
Sumner
=========== Post 3 Thursday 03-12-15 ============
Had a great day today, feeling much better the cold medicine is sure helping. Scott forgot his phone in the boat so first thing I had to take the Mac back into the restaurant dock at 9:30 and give it to him. I didn't look forward to that as I almost had an incident there the day before dropping him and his dog off. Went in for a port tie so flipped the outboard solar panel on that side over onto the center panels. That worked fine but getting off the dock wasn't so good. Backed out a ways and then went forward and almost caught the starboard side panel on a piling like I did at Marco Island some years ago. So when I went in this morning I flipped them both over as it takes less than a minute to do it and then didn't have any problems at all. I'll still play it safe in the future. I mounted all the panels now so they are inboard of the rub-rail except for the two outer ones that I can drop down or flip over.
I know there was some concern about the panels putting more weight up high. The new 360 watts of panels and framework is about 150 lbs. and the old 200 watts is probably 100. I can tell no difference and yesterday sailing we had the boat heeled better than 20 degrees and it was rock solid sailed like that with a full main and the 135 genoa all the way out. Scott also agreed that the panels were not hurting a thing, especially for a cruiser which is all I'm interested in. He has had a number of boats and has a 37 footer in the yard and was impressed with the Mac.
I've really enjoyed the shade the panels are giving and so far see no negative with the mod. My batteries are much happier and aren't going under 60-65% charge. I am running two Trojan 6 volt batteries in series for the house band and have the trolling motor bank of two 12 volt batteries also that can be tied to the house bank but haven't needed to do that.
After dropping Scott's phone off I was going to go to Pelican Bay (about 10 miles) to rest up. I was able to motor sail almost all the way there with the outboard just off idle and only the Genoa out. I didn't want to try and run the main as I was doing this in the ICW channel with some traffic. About Pelican Bay the wind had shifted more to the south and the sailing was done but I felt so much better that I just kept going and going. Ran down the ICW at about 5 mph and went out into the Gulf under the Sanibel Bridge. I was going to try anchoring not too far from it but the wind still had waves running in from the Gulf so dropped that Idea and went a little further going in at Ft. Myers Beach and I'm just inside the inlet where Ruth and I anchored on our trip here.
So since Monday, also counting the day of sailing, I have 105 miles under the keel at this point, with today's run being almost 45 miles. I plan on getting up early and getting out into the Gulf and head 35-40 miles on down to Marco Island off-shore. Winds are suppose to be 10-12 out of the east and then switching to south with 2 foot seas. If that holds I should be able to sail until they swing around to the south.
If all of that happens I'll try and post there. On a side note I'm posting this tonight using the long distance WiFi on board....
http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner/macgregor-navigation/Compter-Nav-index.html
...and have a great connection and using the computer I built some years back. Last night lots of connections but none open so used the trackphone hotspot I bought,
Sumner
=========================================
That brings things up to date and I'll post more as more happens,
Sumner
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]============================
Our Endeavour 37
Our MacGregor 26-S Pages
Our Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida
Mac-Venture Links[/FONT]
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