Just a pic of my S...and an update...

[vizwhiz]

Hadn't posted a pic of the boat yet, so here she is...put the mast up and boom on while working on her this weekend...tightened up the rigging...ordered a quick-release shroud adjuster to put on the backstay so I can get the forestay attached reasonably easily...that will go on soon.
Furler is disassembled at this time, awaiting the new rigid luff extrusion.
Took most of the main electrical wiring out, removed the old tape deck, and the spaghetti over the galley. Next step will be re-wiring all of that in order to clean it up and to mount the two house batteries below the galley (or thereabouts).
Tiller is being re-finished - took the belt sander to it a couple weekends ago and have put stain/sealant on it, plus a number of coats of polyurethane. It's looking much better already.
Got new running rigging including main sheet and jib sheet, main and jib halyard, outhaul and furler lines. Purty stuff... Put all of that on (less the furler line) and it looks better (and feels better too).
Admiral has busted her tiny you-know-what cleaning out the interior and it looks much nicer now...and she's been polishing the outside of late. Lots more to go, but it's underway.
Flew the main again this weekend and had a little breeze from behind the boat that allowed me to try out a preventer set-up I'd been thinking about. I didn't have the deck hardware mounted for it, but proved out whether it would work or not...it seems to...just have to mount the deck hardware for it.
Getting ready to put the motor on Craigslist...
Things are coming together!


PS. The clouds look ominous in this picture, but they weren't...it was a nice day, no rain, and it cleared up to totally blue skies later in the day...

[dlandersson]

Beautiful

[Québec 1]

Lovely, looks fast. It's nice to see cleean looking boats like yours!
Q1

[Sumner]

The boat looks great. We should be cleaning ours .

I'd get some other opinions on using the backstay to tension the forestay, but I wouldn't. The backstay doesn't do much on the S or D. It can be tensioned to bend the top of the mast under certain conditions and if I understand correctly helps to support the mast when sailing downwind. We haven't used ours to induce bend. Ours is tight, but no where near as tight as the forestay.

The way I see it is if you tighten the backstay enough to properly tension the forestay then it will be too tight and you will have induced a bend in the top of the mast that might be good or bad depending the conditions you are sailing under. I believe that when you tension the rig you do it only with the forestay and the shrouds. That is what I did. Then I tensioned the backstay so that it was just tight to help sailing downwind. If I put an adjuster on it then I could tighten it more and induce mast bend, but don't have one.

Is there a reason you don't want to use the lever on the forestay?

We got to Gainesville, talk to you in the morning,

Sum

Our Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida

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[vizwhiz]

Is there a reason you don't want to use the lever on the forestay?

Um...ignorance? Space?

Truthfully, I would prefer to put it there, but right now, the CDI furler goes all the way down to the deck in the standard fashion, and I don't have the furler finished (awaiting the replacement luff). I didn't want to make too many modifications to the way the boat was set up (e.g. raising the attachment point of the forestay on the mast to accommodate the extra length of the adjuster), but if it turns out to be the best way to do it, I'll gladly change my mind...

I need to buy a Loos gauge too...been looking at them...missed a great opp'y to buy one on eBay for about 1/2 the regular price.

[vizwhiz]

Got the replacement furler luff yesterday...it should be ready to re-assemble and install this weeked.

Should be a fun weekend...furler luff...re-wiring...figure out where to put the shroud adjuster...polishing and such...maybe even mounting the preventer hardware...yup...nice long list!

Had a neat (but short) visit with Sumner and Ruth down in Port Charlotte yesterday!! Was neat to get to meet them in person! We talked about the furler attachment and the use of the quick-release shroud adjuster on the forestay instead of the backstay... I'll have to play with it this weekend when I have it in my hand and can take measurements and such.

[vizwhiz]

Well, hadn't touched the boat for about a month from being sick, busy with work stuff, and then a trip to see my son graduate.

So in the last couple days I got the rudder post and support "wings" pounded back out to wide enough to hold the rudder properly and to be parallel (looked like they had been banged around a bit, and were pinched and bent/twisted slightly). Then re-mounted the tiller hardware to the re-finished tiller, and mounted all of it back on the transom. Looks "right" with a tiller on it!

Moved the depth-finder transducer from the transom to inside the boat. At this point, I have it mounted up in the bow just at the point where the two sides of the hull and the front of the water ballast tank all come together. It may turn out to be too far forward, where it will come out of the water when going over waves and such...and if so, plan to move it to just behind the water ballast tank under the foreward edge of the rear berth. Not too worried about it at the moment, just getting it off the transom and inside was the big idea.

Sold the 9.8 Nissan short-shaft, so will be hunting a long-shaft sailboat motor soon.

About to start installing the replacement wiring...excited about that.

[vizwhiz]

Another update - got the two distribution panels wired, and installed the new radio/CD player. Wired up the 1-2-B switch and temporarily hooked up the battery to see how everything worked...it worked! So that's a nice piece of progress and leaves me with more superficial things to accomplish - have to finish mounting the busses and jumpers and such in the space above the galley as a more permanent arrangement, have a couple lights that aren't working, and have to finish re-connecting the VHF antennae wire to the thru-deck connector. There are a few more things to do, but they're dropping off the list like moths off the bug-zapper! I can see the end coming...no wait...make that the water...I can see the water coming!!

[vizwhiz]

Things are rolling along...but it's amazing how fast time flies!!

Fixed wiring to both running lights (bow and stern)...and actually had to disassemble two bow light bases to make one working base (had a spare)...but got it all back together and the bow and stern both work when I flip the switch!

Cleaned up the hole I made in the very bow-end of the V-berth liner to get at the bottom of the bow light and re-route the wire to it...and put back all 100-zillion little pieces of styrofoam that the factory put up there. Going to make a little wood cover plate to go over the hole...and that gives the admiral somewhere to mount a "decoration" (like a brass anchor or ship's wheel or something)! Saw that Sumner had done that before too...can't imagine that they didn't just put an access panel in there to begin with! That part of the day was tough...but a nice feeling when ALL of the styro fit back in! I was sure there would be a couple pieces left over...

Finished wiring the instruments and re-mounted the VHF radio...all working when I flip the switches...just have to finish the thru-deck for the VHF antennae. Speaking of that, has anyone swapped the thru-deck fitting for their antennae, and what did you use? I don't like the one that was in there - having trouble connecting it to the new antennae cable.

[madguy]

I always have a soft spot for the 26S, great boat, and that is a nice clean one, you will have fun in her..

Madguy

[Doug91mac26s]

Vizwhiz, why don't you just slap an access plate in the forepeak?

[vizwhiz]

OH MY GOODNESS!!! Where did you get such a big drill bit????
I couldn't find a drill bit that size

And if I had, my wife wouldn't have let me near the boat with it!!! She get's nervous any time I take the drill out!!



Okay....actually, the hole I cut is...um...more square than that...

[Sumner]

I like what Doug did....



.... Very clean and nice looking.

Like you I cut a square hole and covered it....



...with a piece of plywood that was stained to match the rest of the wood in the boat and then clear coated it with an Int./Ext. Polyurethane. I made the hole pretty large and still had problems getting my arms in far enough to mount the...



...bow rollers and the backing plates for them. Not too many people are going to see that area in the V-berth. Since we made our V-berth longer we store bedding up ahead of the berth where the hole is and don't see it ourselves.

Good luck and hope you get out soon,

Sum

Our Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida

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[vizwhiz]

Yeah Sumner, I like it too...I'll have a little wooden cover just like yours when I'm done...but I've commissioned the Admiral to put a brass decoration on it just for kicks. I only stuck my arm up there to put wiring in the hole for the running light - which was kinda "straight in", so I didn't have too much trouble. It was hot and uncomfortable, but not very difficult.

I did something similar to the electrical room above the galley...not as extensive as yours, but a simple wooden cover on which I mounted the two electrical panels, with a cut-out for the stereo. I also mounted a small wooden panel over the end of the space where the original electrical panel was (next to the head), after making the hole bigger, and my wiring terminal strips and ground bus bars will be mounted to that small wooden panel once I make them permanent.

I'm thinking of making the door on the galley out of wood also, just so it all matches. The plastic is nice, and I'm sure it's more practical for cleaning and moisture resistance, but the little touches of wood have made the inside look nicer - the Admiral likes them so far!

So are you off the water now? Have you posted updates and pictures about your trip?

[Sumner]

....So are you off the water now? Have you posted updates and pictures about your trip?

We've been home close to 2 weeks now. No updates and not sure when I will do that or if I will at this time.

We spent a couple weeks on the new boat. One on the water in the slip at Ft Myers Beach moving things from the Mac aboard. Then a little less than a week moving her the 70 miles up to Charlotte Harbor Boat Storage right next to where we had the Mac and then about a week on her up on stands before heading home. We have quite a bit of work to do, but we think we are going to be real happy once it is done. Hope to return late Sept, early Oct. Hope to see you then, hopefully on the water,

Sum

Our Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida

Our MacGregor S Pages

Mac-Venture Links