I am looking at a Macgregor Venture 22 (my first sail boat). This boat has a water ballest...Can anyone tell me what that means, how it works or how well it works? If not can you tell me where to go and get info on Water Ballest? Thank you, Jeff
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Curtiss Grant
Water Ballast
Water ballast is a niffy idea that MacGregor started in about 1988 or so. The idea is to add weight to the boat for sailing and stability but to be able to eliminate the weight for trailering. It works well and seems to be trouble free. There are a great number of MacGregors (literary 1,000s) out there with a water ballast and now other manufactures are beginning to have water ballast. Some criticism is that the weight sits at the bottom of the boat rather than being distributed down the keel and using the leverage of being down in the water 3 to 4 feet. I think there is some merit to that premise but the advantages of the water ballast fall out weigh (pun intended actually) a lead swing keel. Also, the water ballast adds far more weight to the boat than one could get with a lead SWING keel. You can get more weight and stability in a shoal draft fixed keel but you lose the ability to swing it up for shadow water and trailering. The keel on a MAC is usually fiberglass and weights 30 pounds at most. On the MacGregor 26 footers, the ballast will hold about 600 gallons thus adding about 1200 pounds in weight. Operationally, when putting the boat in the water, you open a valve and let water in. It usually takes about 10 minutes and you can actually be moving while the water is filling - of course you have to monitor it so not to over fill. When full, you close the valve, and you own the world. To release the water, you load the boat on the trailer, pull it out of the water and open the valve to release the water on the ground. Some people really look at you thinking you have a major leak in the boat - it is kind of weird. The newer MAC 26's are designed to actually release the water if you are traveling more than 9 or 10 miles per hour as in motoring. That is a good advantage. If the wind is light, I actually sail with out water in the ballast but one must be carefull and the boat definitely is not as stable when walking around on it. MacGregor does not recommend sailing without water (in the ballast of course) because of safety reasons. There is a manufacture now building a 32 footer with a water ballast and a swing keel but I do not know the name of it. Go for it - own the world!! Good Luck!
Water ballast is a niffy idea that MacGregor started in about 1988 or so. The idea is to add weight to the boat for sailing and stability but to be able to eliminate the weight for trailering. It works well and seems to be trouble free. There are a great number of MacGregors (literary 1,000s) out there with a water ballast and now other manufactures are beginning to have water ballast. Some criticism is that the weight sits at the bottom of the boat rather than being distributed down the keel and using the leverage of being down in the water 3 to 4 feet. I think there is some merit to that premise but the advantages of the water ballast fall out weigh (pun intended actually) a lead swing keel. Also, the water ballast adds far more weight to the boat than one could get with a lead SWING keel. You can get more weight and stability in a shoal draft fixed keel but you lose the ability to swing it up for shadow water and trailering. The keel on a MAC is usually fiberglass and weights 30 pounds at most. On the MacGregor 26 footers, the ballast will hold about 600 gallons thus adding about 1200 pounds in weight. Operationally, when putting the boat in the water, you open a valve and let water in. It usually takes about 10 minutes and you can actually be moving while the water is filling - of course you have to monitor it so not to over fill. When full, you close the valve, and you own the world. To release the water, you load the boat on the trailer, pull it out of the water and open the valve to release the water on the ground. Some people really look at you thinking you have a major leak in the boat - it is kind of weird. The newer MAC 26's are designed to actually release the water if you are traveling more than 9 or 10 miles per hour as in motoring. That is a good advantage. If the wind is light, I actually sail with out water in the ballast but one must be carefull and the boat definitely is not as stable when walking around on it. MacGregor does not recommend sailing without water (in the ballast of course) because of safety reasons. There is a manufacture now building a 32 footer with a water ballast and a swing keel but I do not know the name of it. Go for it - own the world!! Good Luck!
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Doug Rodrigues
No water in the Venture 222.
Jeff, I own two boats: A Mac Venture 222 and a Mac 25. The Venture 222 was my first boat ever. It has a 500 lb. swing keel, but no water. I believe that the water ballast didn't appear until after 1985 or so, and only with the Mac 26 models? Also, I believe that using the name "Venture" makes it a pre-1980's MacGregor?....something like that.
Jeff, I own two boats: A Mac Venture 222 and a Mac 25. The Venture 222 was my first boat ever. It has a 500 lb. swing keel, but no water. I believe that the water ballast didn't appear until after 1985 or so, and only with the Mac 26 models? Also, I believe that using the name "Venture" makes it a pre-1980's MacGregor?....something like that.
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NEWGATE13
WATER BALLAST
Water ballast is a removable replacement for keel ballast and is taken internally into a tank in the bilge of the boat. The MAC26X takes in about 1,400 pounds of water internally when you want to sail. This is done by opening an air release valve in the cabin under the cabin step and then opening a valve adjacent to the air valve in the tank bottom from inside the cabin. This admits the water into the molded in tank in the bilge. When the tank is full the boat is a displacement hull and ready to make sail. Without the internal water the boat is a planing hull and with the proper engine (50 HP) it can go about 24 MPH!
Water ballast is a removable replacement for keel ballast and is taken internally into a tank in the bilge of the boat. The MAC26X takes in about 1,400 pounds of water internally when you want to sail. This is done by opening an air release valve in the cabin under the cabin step and then opening a valve adjacent to the air valve in the tank bottom from inside the cabin. This admits the water into the molded in tank in the bilge. When the tank is full the boat is a displacement hull and ready to make sail. Without the internal water the boat is a planing hull and with the proper engine (50 HP) it can go about 24 MPH!
The REAL reason for water ballast!
BTW- Doug is right; the 'Venture' boats did not have water ballast. In fact they had no ballast at all except the keel, and this is why Macgregor thought to include foam flotation. Some people could correct me but it's probably as easy to tip over a 22-ft Venture than it is any other dinghy. The REAL reason for the recent push for water ballast by Hunter and Macgregor and a few others has very little to do with efficiency at all, but if you believe it does then it proves the marketing people's point and you might as well go buy one. Some race boats started using water ballast about 15 years ago, not for the reasons it's on trailerable boats but because it allowed them to MOVE ballast from the low side to the high side. Sailboats are fastest and safest when they are sailed closest to FLAT (and try moving several 80-lb lead pigs to the high side inside a racing sailboat whilst under way sometime). The deciding factor in racing was that any water ballast INSIDE the hull was weight unnecessarily high which should be added to the keel, by increasing depth (which does not matter in an ocean racer) or adding a bulb on the bottom or something. I don't know how popular water ballast is with high-perf ocean racers now. I wouldn't want it. Some guys started going to spent uranium (I kid you not) because it is heavier per cubic foot than lead and so takes up less space for the same weight in the very skinny bottom end of a knifeblade keel. And therein is the REAL reason. The last time I bought lead at Cherubini Boat it was 31 cents per lb at 60,000 lbs per order. Lead is the boatbuilder's gold standard. Now imagine if you didn't have to spend that at all-- just build a boat, tell the buyer to flood it with (FREE) seawater, and think of what you would save. And then charge him EXTRA because it's like an added special feature you're giving him, right? And yes, you guessed it-- since this is a cost-cutting strategy above all, it is a performance, safety, and quality COMPROMISE. And you thought they did it to do you a favour! JC 2 Cherubini Art
BTW- Doug is right; the 'Venture' boats did not have water ballast. In fact they had no ballast at all except the keel, and this is why Macgregor thought to include foam flotation. Some people could correct me but it's probably as easy to tip over a 22-ft Venture than it is any other dinghy. The REAL reason for the recent push for water ballast by Hunter and Macgregor and a few others has very little to do with efficiency at all, but if you believe it does then it proves the marketing people's point and you might as well go buy one. Some race boats started using water ballast about 15 years ago, not for the reasons it's on trailerable boats but because it allowed them to MOVE ballast from the low side to the high side. Sailboats are fastest and safest when they are sailed closest to FLAT (and try moving several 80-lb lead pigs to the high side inside a racing sailboat whilst under way sometime). The deciding factor in racing was that any water ballast INSIDE the hull was weight unnecessarily high which should be added to the keel, by increasing depth (which does not matter in an ocean racer) or adding a bulb on the bottom or something. I don't know how popular water ballast is with high-perf ocean racers now. I wouldn't want it. Some guys started going to spent uranium (I kid you not) because it is heavier per cubic foot than lead and so takes up less space for the same weight in the very skinny bottom end of a knifeblade keel. And therein is the REAL reason. The last time I bought lead at Cherubini Boat it was 31 cents per lb at 60,000 lbs per order. Lead is the boatbuilder's gold standard. Now imagine if you didn't have to spend that at all-- just build a boat, tell the buyer to flood it with (FREE) seawater, and think of what you would save. And then charge him EXTRA because it's like an added special feature you're giving him, right? And yes, you guessed it-- since this is a cost-cutting strategy above all, it is a performance, safety, and quality COMPROMISE. And you thought they did it to do you a favour! JC 2 Cherubini Art
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