V2-24 and it was F R E E

[Freedom77]

Original V-24 didn't come with POP TOP. Pop top v-224 introduced I think 1974-75. Forum correct me if I'm wrong. Pop Top V-222 came out in 1972. We had V-222 #441.

[Freedom77]

If I understand correctly, you're looking for the tube that drains the cockpit through the cable hole. A piece of plastic tubing and a couple of stainless hose clamps should solve the problem.

[Freedom77]

I bought Freedom from the factory masthead rigged. As far as I know it was the only one. Heavier mast to accommodate 525 sq. ft radial spinnaker. Bought it with no deck hardware and installed where I thought appropriate. Put aluminum backup plates behind all deck hardware and pulpits and stachcions. 1/4" stainless plate under mast. OVERKILL. But have never had any failure. Just Sayin'

[JohnnyP]

Thanks, Freedom! I'll gladly pick your brain on the topic! Very interesting to hear yours is masthead rigged from the factory - I've noted that several owners made the change later on, though I would imagine that would also require a beefier back stay to handle the additional pressure.

That's an excellent suggestion to move that traveler midship. The two most unfortunate downsides of the pop top are 1) I cannot mount the traveler atop the cabin and 2) I will have a hull of a time attaching jammer cleats to the cabin (virtually all running rigging will be run to the cockpit). Outside of that, I love the extra "space" that it allows when open. Question: with the traveler so far forward, do you believe a kicker/vang to be redundant or still helpful overall? Considering the size of the main, it would seem to me that the traveler itself would provide enough downward force to properly affect sail shape but, then again, I also am a proponent of system redundancies (and therefore may have already answered my own question!) An added bonus to this configuration is that I intend on installing an adjustable back stay system which would likely interfere with - or worse: be confused for - the operation of the main sheet.

Good note on the compression post. I noted, during my tear down, that the post has an uncomfortable amount of lateral play so I'll have to consider glassing it in place once I start tackling the interior. I was surprised to find that only the bulkhead served to keep the post in place but it really wasn't properly fixed anywhere else on the hull and that bulkhead will not be making an encore once I piece the interior back together. Presently, the post appears to simply sit on top of the deck below the vee-berth and I have a suspicion that it does not continue down to the hull thus making an imminent weight dispersion issue in the event the floor were to rot. Did I mention the vee-berth floor is rotted...?

Also, I wanted to see if the 224 came with a boom furler from the factory, as an option, or if that was a later add-on by a PO? I'm on the fence with the idea of replacing mine with a true gooseneck or leaving it as is as my current main only has one reefing clew. I don't see a way of securing the furling crank and it is also interfering with mast stepping (though I could easily remedy that with a telescoping mast cradle.)

[topcat0399]

Traveler on the bridge - be careful with this, easy to bend boom going up hard in stiff breezes. These booms are very light.
My old mast will eventually be my new boom (much stronger). I accidentally dropped the original noodle Mac mast and could only find a battleship mast locally that I could make work. I really Miss the noodle though.



Raising mast on water. Very stable even in good sized chop.
View of cam cleats on left and right house sides for lines from mast.
Works - still tweaking it. Poor angles can cause issues.



Blisters on left and right house for turning blocks from mast. I plan to enlarge these.

The space where the compression post sits is a platform originally for mounting the factory porta potty.
I have broken the decking on this box at least twice - mainly because I did half axed fixes (get sailing!!!!!)

I am re-woking this entire area (I have it all torn out at the moment - got caught for many hours tied right up to a lee shore at o-dark thirty in big waves with a motor that refused to start. dasbOOt took a bit of a pounding and things broke. A bad day.)

I am extending the keel trunk, the compression post will sit directly on it.
On my V224 the compression post is bolted to the overhead with a thru bolt and L bracket.
I don't see a need to fix the bottom or glass the post in. When its all in tension it isn't going anywhere but downward.

Sorry about the sorry state of paint - dasbOOt is perpetual construction zone until I retire and take off...
I have or/am changing almost everything about this boat - it is truly mine.


Welcome to the old wreck club.

[topcat0399]

Original cockpit floor with top layers cut out and rotten plywood cut out.
Note the 2 bolt that go through the floor, thru the rubber, and directly into the aft end of the keel trunk.
On my boat, the cockpit sank down around the keel trunk and the bolts caused cracks allowing water to travel up the entire floor and rot it out. I had previously installed a new 1 inch balsa floor but the crappy fit on the keel trunk still caused issues.





You can see the crappy factory fit



A view of the scupper hole with the floor cut out



so this time I cleaned the fit up since the scupper/floor broke during my pounding on the bottom episode.

I still use the original simple brass tube scupper, it just slides thru the floor top, thru the rubber, into the top of the keel trunk.
No hoses or clamps. I don't think I am going to put the scupper bolts back in, I might brace the cockpit a different way so I don't have the thru bolts any more.




Original layout of compression post.
I don't know if you can see it but the post always was in there at an angle leaning back.
I never liked that since all of the force of the post is straight down. That is why I am building an extension the the keel trunk forward (only a couple of inches are needed) and the post will rest directly on the trunk directly up and down (many boats do this)and it will carry the load directly to the floor. I am also beefing up the entire keel trunk and surrounding floor.




Original compression post top.



Current compression post top.

Slider - never had a problem with it moving on the highway, but maybe thats because mu pop top is a bit of a sway back causing the slider to resist movement anyway. Never had a problem with water from the slider either but it is a vector for insect ingress by virtue of how it fits. I'm eventually changing it to get a better fit as well as fixing the inevitable edge cracking that these things always seem to have.

My boat is heavily modded with more to come. The pounding episode was a real set back because I was finally getting to cabin fit and finish.One of the best mods we did was to extend the vberth over the space that the portapot lived in. Made the vberth way more usable. Let me know if you want pics.

If you are going to strip all of the deck hardware off (which I have done), and you are going to do any serious time on or sailing with this boat - ditch all of the cheap barley usable factory deck hardware and get something decent such as this type of horn cleat, one you can actually get a line UNDER/THRU.




I have added many good horn cleats to the boat (bow, midship, etc) and all come in handy.
Don't use silicon to reseal your hardware. I use butyl tape from mr MAINSAIL. Great stuff.
Be sure to "pot" your through bolts.

There is no part of my V224 that i am not intimately acquainted with.

End of sermon

[JohnnyP]

I am extending the keel trunk, the compression post will sit directly on it.
On my V224 the compression post is bolted to the overhead with a thru bolt and L bracket.
I don't see a need to fix the bottom or glass the post in. When its all in tension it isn't going anywhere but downward.

Sorry about the sorry state of paint - dasbOOt is perpetual construction zone until I retire and take off...
I have or/am changing almost everything about this boat - it is truly mine.

First of all, I freakin' love the name dasboot! I took German in college and am studying Italian in my spare time* so perhaps I should go with La Barca for my wreck?

Second on the keel trunk extension. I'm not sure what's under the post but I'm sure it ain't pretty. Also am seeking to refit a port-a-potty as we've already agreed that we'll be overnighting aboard.

[JohnnyP]

Topcat, you just made my evening: that is almost exactly what I'm dealing with, although my cockpit floor hasn't sunk, from what I can tell. The scupper and guide tube are completely missing and I suspect the turn bolt and other associated hardware are MIA, as well. I can't seem to find a direct replacement so some thrifty/crafty solution will have to appear in my mind's eye one of these days.

Sounds like there is a consensus on the upgrade to the compression post in bedding it over an extended keel trunk - I just can't fathom (yes, I can...) why 1/2" ply and a void would have been chosen to support all of that compressive force. Mind blowing... I also cannot imagine why there are not knees under the foredeck or walkway along the cabin; I can feel the decking bow underfoot as I move about and it's shocking to me that there is no sign of compression fracturing in these areas. I am considering tabbing out a few simple knees fore and aft of the windows to help distribute the top deck load to the hull in a more sensible manner. Wondering if anyone else shares this concern?

Second on the deck hardware. I figure if I'm going to be stripping the gelcoat and fairing the entire hull, I might as well rid myself of the garbage and go with a little bling here and there, e.g. a pushpit (which was not an option for the V224). Did you find your chainplates to be adequate or did you replace those as well? While this clearly isn't a bluewater boat, I'm hesitant to put all of my faith in what appears to be a minimally sized chainplate for both cap and lower shrouds...

Thanks for all the great info, folks! Any more pics of your 224 would be greatly appreciated - especially if you've made significant mods - as it will help me determine which direction to go along the way. I would definitely like to see photos of the vee berth extension you have completed as I've already committed to that upgrade, since the original layout seems small, even for my two toddlers.

Thanks!!!

[OverEasy]

You’re really an inspiration on getting after what needs to be done on your vessel!!

I’m just getting to that point in early retirement where you’re past sleeping in, past wondering what’s going on at work, past the novelty of working on home projects for more than a weekend, past making a sizable dent in the “honey-do” list, past the binge watching the TV series one missed multiple episodes of while working late on the crisis project du jour past organizing one’s workshop and past trimming the hedges and past making the initial “must do mods” on the Mac ….. only to be stopped by the excessive heat and humidity of summer. My fiberglass resin sets up almost as soon as Part A is poured and I reach for the Part B activator!

If this is the activity level you sustain pre-retirement that boat of yours is gonna be the envy of the MacGregor Navy once you get going in retirement!!!

Great work, descriptions and photos!

[topcat0399]

Vberth extension - it is swung up at the moment



Sette cushions UP



Sette cusions DOWN



Floor frames Might be eliminated once I get going on the keel trunk new glass work



I don't know what you plan to do with the foam flotation material that might still be in the boat.
I had stuffed the box under the compression post with it but now I have gone the opposite. I now call it "the chain box"
and that's where I store loads of anchor chain I'm not using, heavy weights down low and center whenever possible.
The rest of the flotation I have bothered to keep is all shoved under the settee boxes from the companionway all the way back to the laz. Eventually I will probably ditch all of it since I think it was originally useful only as a marketing ploy and free up the room for storage.

My batteries are also no longer in the laz, they live directly below that gaping hole you saw in a previous picture above left and right of the rear of the keel trunk. I figure I have room for 4 trojan sized batteries there.

Under the vberth is room for 20 gallons of H20 piped by a foot pump to the companionway area.

[topcat0399]

When we slept in the vberth, I never liked having my head right next to the turlet.
And I didn't like messing with the waste tank.
Converted it to a wag bag system and gave it a new home.
The thing was mostly a receptacle for admiral by products....







I haven't yet messed with the chain plates much other than with the constant leaking problem.
Mine appear in good shape and they haven't given me any reason for worry.

I have a push pit, I think it was dealer installed. It is both a blessing and a curse.
With no motor well on this model of boat dealing quickly with the outboard can be a challenge,
especially in choppy water or in the middle of the night when you are being pounded on a lee shore....

[topcat0399]

SIDE DECKS
If your side decks are giving way when you step on them I wouldn't be surprised if the cores in them are wet.
They shouldn't be flexing much at all given their small size.
The usual water vector would be life line stanchion and/or fairlead mounts. I have had to replace both side deck cores
and anything mounted to them now go through solid glass with alum plate backing. They are plenty stiff now and the stanchions can now take a lot more abuse, and if they leak again, core doesn't get wet.

FORE DECK
Lightly built in the first place with factory through fittings poorly installed and PO's using silicon in past decades trying to stop leaks. I have also had to replace most of the fore deck core and it still has a lot of give when someone normal sized walks on it (I am 115 lbs soaking wet). I will be addressing this when I get around to finishing my Vberth rebuild plans which will amount to knees under the fore deck. I think I have replaced nearly every core on this boat already. The one under the mast step more than once. The mast step plate bolts now also go thru nothing but glass. Avoid bolting through a core if you can.

A heavy duty bow roller for the anchor was an excellent addition - I don't know how we lived without it.

I didn't fair the outside hull much but I did spend a week inside the stripped out boat with a grinder and faired the INSIDE of almost the entire boat. It was NO FUN. But, with the very rough finish of the factory interior, when things got wet it took forever to clean it up plus mold liked to grow. Now with it all smooth and all the nooks and crannies eliminated it is a breeze to wipe it all down - takes minutes. It will get wet: rain, unexpected leaks, wet bodies, condensation, it will get wet.

When dasbOOt is on the trailer I use it as a tow-able RV, on the water 2 of us have spent as much as 21 days straight on our little wreck. Now that I am single, my first big trip might be the Great Loop, this will be my home.

I love/hate/love/hate hate hate/LOVE my little wreck.

[Freedom77]

YES - split backstay with adjuster. Will also keep from chewing up the tiller on the stay.
YES - boom vang or kicker, helps keep boom down on reaches
YES - mast post reinforcement. Mast reinforcement under deck. TOPCAT has good pics
YES - TOPCAT mid boom traveler is pretty much same as mine. I put 6 "legged" bale on boom perpendicular to traveler. You will be amazed at how much better sail shape and higher pointing you will achieve.
NO NO NO - Roller furling was not one of Roger MacGregor better ideas. PITA. By the time you decided to roller reef it's too late. Two set of reef points in main will do it. You can reef in about two seconds.

[Freedom77]

Monsoon season in Las Vegas, 110 and HUMID!!! Use interior of Freedom as sauna

[Freedom77]

A BOAT IS A HOLE IN THE WATER INTO WHICH YOU POUR ENDLESS AMOUNTS OF MONEY