Well, that escalated really rapidly...

[mastreb]

The stock mainsail I do not believe is battened at all, though there is a company that makes a full roach vertically battened mainsail specifically for these furlers.

I wasn't too enthusiastic about the in-mast furler because it reduces sail aloft by 20%. They also have to be brought to the wind to be furled (as to most furlers frankly) and they jam readily if you don't provide proper back tension.

This particular furler has "outhaul" and "reef" sheets that furl it in or out. The mast extrusion is a C channel, and you can see what amounts to a vertical roller furler basically just like a jib furler inside the mast. The boom is also a C channel extrusion, and it's got a car inside it connected to the clew and the outhaul sheet which is returned inside to boom to the mast step.

When you haul on the outhaul, it pulls the car out along boom and thus pulls out the loose-footed main. When you haul on the reef line, it spools up the main just like our roller furlers furl up the jibsheet.

Pretty simple system, but you have to keep back-tension on the opposing line whenever you haul, because if the sheets ever foul up inside the mast or boom extrusions, you're done for the day.

On a full keelboat like this they're fine as there's very little extra weight up hight--the furling mechanism is all below the gooseneck and the weight of the sail is carried aloft when unfurled anyway.

On our boats, you'd be carrying the entire sail weight aloft at all times--even while powering at speed, which would make the boat even more pendulous and tender and would possibly be unsafe when powering.

[seahouse]

I have 8 (or is it 9) season's experience of sailing two different Beneteaus 34's, both with in-mast furling, almost every weekend of the season, and have not seen (or heard of) the mast furler jam up once. The friction provided as the lazy lines passing though the clutch lead-in hole as they uncoil when it's released has been enough to prevent jam up of the lines inside the mast.

Have you had a jam up Matt, maybe something not aligned, lines twisted under tension? Maybe the 38 furler is made differently for a larger sail. As I recall, the inhaul and outhaul lines are different in thickness, (with the mainsheet being thicker again).

-B.

[mastreb]

I've not seen the problem, but I've read about two different instances in print and its something the dealer warned about a few times.

I too figure just enough tension to keep the sheets from flogging should do the job.

[seahouse]

Interesting.

[BOAT]

I have seen a similar thing but the sail rolled up into the boom instead of the mast. Either way it sounds pretty cool.

As for the Cabo thing not wanting MACs?

Cabo is all messed up anyways. It's like walking around in Orange County CA now. Shopping malls and outlets and the whole deal.

And on the beach it's SENIOR FROGS and these huge signs and it's just ridiculous. I'll never go back. It will never be like it was when I was a kid.

Key West is WAY WAY WAY better than Cabo will ever be. Cabo is just a joke now. If you really want to see a nice Mexican town on the sea I recommend La Paz. La paz is perfect. If your into the big resort thing then Puerto Vallarta is THE place because it still has it's Mexican charm even with all the millionaires there. If you want to me remote there is an island town that's nice.

Cabo is a joke full of drunk Americans and developers from Los Angeles. It does not even look like Mexico anymore. I could not tell the difference between Cabo and Corona Del Mar.

[dlandersson]

Is the mexican charm with or without the drug-related shootings and kidnappings?

[BOAT]

That would be Mazatlan and Chicago and Atlanta and Baltimore and TJ mostly. Lot's of other places too where they get over ten murders per weekend, but La Paz is not like that at all.
Puerto Vallarta is not bad either for a city that is so big, but it does have it's bad sections.

[mastreb]

I agree with your opinion of Cabo--while I wouldn't say it looks quite like Corona Del Mar its definitely not the sleepy fishing village of our youths. I'll be doing the Haha specifically for the offshore sailing experience around other boaters, not for winding up in Cabo.

Honestly, the violence has mostly simmered down. I went back to TJ for the first time in a decade this april to do some food tourism, and the place was way different: No tourism at all. Revolucion is all boarded up, everyone was SUPER HAPPY to see tourists, and the only place you can find vendors hawking fake purses and belts is in the line to return to the U.S.

There are some great places in Mexico, but you are correct: They're the places most Americans have never heard of, like Manzanillo, Barra de Navidad, Ensenada, and La Paz.

[mastreb]

So I took possession of the new boat yesterday, and so I took it in and out of the Marina and sailed it myself for the first time.

Like the MacGregor it has a fin keel and dual rudders well aft, and I was surprised to find that its handling was more similar to the MacGregor than it was to a full keel/spade rudder sailboat. The helm wasn't as nervous as a Mac, but it was more nervous than I've experienced on a boat of this size. Fortunately I'm well used to that, and she comes with an autopilot.

The winds were outstanding: 15 knots, and they curved around the bay such that I never had to tack doing a complete U-turn around Coronado Island.

She points amazingly well. By the wind instrument, she was doing hull speed at 40 degrees to true and still making good way at 30 degrees. I was easily able to moderate the speed and heel by going inside 40 degrees rather than reefing, because she doesn't suddenly lose all forward motion as she goes into irons. I've never before used irons to moderate speed on any boat, because it had always been an "all/nothing" proposition before.

She's really fast. Once she gets up on that chine she accelerates suddenly and goes right to 8 knots. Five or six times I had to fall off behind someone as we overtook them so as not to go to windward, and we moved right past them in their lee anyway. It was a blast.

Despite all that good, Christy and I are both really sad about giving up the Mac. So much so that we're strongly considering keeping it if we can find an inexpensive way to keep her on the East Coast, either in the Chesapeake or Florida.

So if any of you guys know a way...

[BOAT]

You could just park the MAC in the side yard for little lake trips or fishing jaunts or for those times you want to take the guys out and get drunk.

Your a big boat captain now - that means spending a lot of time pouring over charts, securing provisions, and planning your passages to far off places. The idea of a trans-pac like the bennie is to travel across the ocean. You should have no problem doing that and every time you go to Hawaii or Cabo or other places you get to deduct the price of a cruise ship ticket from every passenger on board against the cost you spent on the bennie.

After not too many trans-pac crossings you will have paid back that boat in spades.

Get out there.

[Russ]

You could just park the MAC in the side yard for little lake trips or fishing jaunts or for those times you want to take the guys out and get drunk.

He's right. Keep the Mac for quick fun trips. Hey, let's go to Lake Tahoe and bring a boat.

--Russ

[mastreb]

Alas, the Mac is the same size as my side yard, and the mast would likely overhang my neighbor's fence. The problem with keeping her in San Diego is that there's simply no way for me to avoid monthly fees.

Here in San Diego its simpler to take the slipped boat out for quick trips. It's the skinny waters of the Chesapeake, Florida, and the Bahamas where the Mac would really shine.

I've decided I'm in no hurry to put the Mac up for sale. It's not losing any value right now because of the Tattoo backlog and she's all paid off, so there's no real hurry other than the moderate dry slip fee.

An ideal situation for me would be to find a trusted buddy on the east coast who would keep her, put her under his insurance, and maintain her, and make her available to us whenever we were out there, in exchange for free unlimited use. It's an unusual arrangement I know, but something like that would suit us pretty well. But it would have to be someone willing to put her in the water for us with a week's notice, take her out when we're done, and they'd have to be very nearby good sailing grounds and a marina with guest slips available. And of course we'd want to show up at all the most inopportune times.

Perhaps it would be a current owner of another model of Mac.

Then of course I'd have to go nose-to-nose with RobertB regarding who gets to be Luna Sea (East)

So if anybody knows anyone like that...

[mastreb]

You could just park the MAC in the side yard for little lake trips or fishing jaunts or for those times you want to take the guys out and get drunk.

He's right. Keep the Mac for quick fun trips. Hey, let's go to Lake Tahoe and bring a boat.

--Russ

Hey if you're willing to make the trip, I'm willing to make the trip. I do want to do Tahoe before I give up the trailering life.

Matt

[RobertB]

Then of course I'd have to go nose-to-nose with RobertB regarding who gets to be Luna Sea (East)

Sorry, I win - we have the cool logo.

[BOAT]

The MAC is designed to be used and abused. It's an all purpose platform for getting on the water in any place at any time. It's made to be bounced down a highway and slamming waves at 18 miles per hour and to do it for 20 years without complaining and to do it all for pennies. The MAC has no status value at all and can not cross oceans. The MAC for my wife and I is a platform for us to do what we like to do, namely get in the water in less than an hour, sail around in the ocean and then park in the tiniest of harbors docks along the coast and the islands of Southern California and pull in for a restaurant meal and a drink. It's as nimble as a paddleboard and as cheap as a yugo so we can slam it, bam it, and ram it into just about any beach or dock on the coast with nary a concern for our wallets.

The MAC is a completely different animal for a completely different purpose than a pac-cruiser. All the things I described above can not be done with a cruiser. It's a completely different life all together.

Once you have invested in the pac-cruiser style you pretty much need to live that style to get your value out of the investment. The value of a cruiser is to get you to far away places for free with all the amenities of a hotel room at every port you visit. Cruising is a sport for people who have the freedom to do so and if you have that freedom you really should do it and do it now.