MacGregorSailors.com

K9Kampers wrote:

Phil M wrote:Boat, that's a lot of stuff. And with two backbones? That certainly sounds sci-fi. My boat has no backbone so I guess that makes it a lowly invertebrate. and I won't be able to launch any misiles from inside the cabin either. Everything will have to be done topside, including straining my neck to look at the wind indicator. Your system sounds like it's going to be able to compete with Highlander.

X2!

I sail old school, chart in hand and do time / distance calculations in my head - if I'm inclined to. GPS and dumbphone stored below.

Difference between the left coast and the Maine coast is that I have more to look at - scenic shorelines and islands, wildlife, lobster pots... No offence, but sailing over here is more rewarding than always being face down in electronics.

Yeah that does not work in Maine or even in the pacific north west. All those places with lots of islands and inlets and fishing traffic really need to be negotiated from the helm by an experienced skipper who knows how to operate a VHF set. There is no way I would let the plotter do all the driving around a place like Whimby Island.

Out in the Pacific down here where I am it's all just a cruise.

You set the course on the helm and walk away for many hours at a time - my wife and I sit around a bottle and have long talks or study the sonar for whales or just lay back in the hammock to nap a little - for us it's all about leaving all our problems behind and relaxing in the warm breeze. If we see any boat at all it's such an anomaly that I usually will alter course to get a closer look. For the folks on the east coast it's just the opposite - they are trying to AVOID other traffic as much as possible. Over here your hoping to see someone, ANY-one, even a whale or a dolphin.

In those conditions there is no need to man the helm - I prefer to walk around on the deck and stretch my legs or go below for a sandwich or something. I could go on like that for days and be as happy as a clam.

Is this what your's looks like?...

K9Kampers wrote:Is this what your's looks like?...

Not yet but I'm working on it.

That's why I think the 250 dollar tiller pilots are good choice just to get things started - you can put a cheap tiller pilot below decks or on an auxiliary tiller in the cockpit and still get out for less than 300 bucks. At least by doing that you can sail with an AP while Captain victor is getting his wheelhouse pilot finished.

Autopilots are awesome, (love my tillerpilot on my tiller boat) however I think they get over encouraged quite a bit too, especially on the X/M with a wheel. I just had to have one after hanging out here on the board and bought one for my X. I went cheap with a used oldschool belt drive. The first step with it was a lever that locked the wheel and second step was poke 1 button to set the Ap on the heading. What I found was most of time I used the AP I was motoring straight lines or sailing straight paths in consistent winds. Both of those situations the wheel lock covered it and I quit switching the AP on 90% of the time, just locked the wheel and got the same results.

If I were to do it over I would skip the AP and go with a wheel lock in a heartbeat.

Seapup wrote:

That's why I think the 250 dollar tiller pilots are good choice just to get things started - you can put a cheap tiller pilot below decks or on an auxiliary tiller in the cockpit and still get out for less than 300 bucks. At least by doing that you can sail with an AP while Captain victor is getting his wheelhouse pilot finished.

Autopilots are awesome, (love my tillerpilot on my tiller boat) however I think they get over encouraged quite a bit too, especially on the X/M with a wheel. I just had to have one after hanging out here on the board and bought one for my X. I went cheap with a used oldschool belt drive. The first step with it was a lever that locked the wheel and second step was poke 1 button to set the Ap on the heading. What I found was most of time I used the AP I was motoring straight lines or sailing straight paths in consistent winds. Both of those situations the wheel lock covered it and I quit switching the AP on 90% of the time, just locked the wheel and got the same results.

If I were to do it over I would skip the AP and go with a wheel lock in a heartbeat.

If I am sailing out of Norfolk or Newport News trying to get out to the ocean so I can see Nags Head or Hatteras I’m going to be negotiating an awful lot of bridges just to get out of the bay! But after that I need to sit on my butt for 70 miles keeping the Outer Banks to my right. That is the situation where the AP is very handy. Those are the kind of distances I need to deal with here in Southern California if I am going to Catalina or San Clemente island or tour the Channel islands. Balboa and all the other stuff is always going to take me 50 to 100 miles out to sea. That’s not the same as banging back and forth between Yorktown and Cape Charles which over here would just be day sailing.

Like I said before – you guys in the inlets sailing Portsmouth and the Chesapeake and up and down the Elizabeth with all those big cargo ships need a steady eye and an experienced hand just to reach the ocean! I would be scared to death to even turn on the AP in a place like that but then I am not accustomed to that kind of navigation – it’s the hardest and most dangerous kind.

If I were sailing like that every day I’m not so sure I would have any use for an AP either.

Can you still buy those wheel locks anywhere, as I do get sick of tripping over Mr Bungee.

A wheel lock would suffice in genteel winds.
Because of the high freeboard our MacGregors can be too easily blown off course when heading directly into the wind, even with a crew member at the helm and watches the main being hoisted instead of where the boat is heading.
Then stuff happens.

RussMT wrote:
I agree. This is why I've been waiting. The silence from Vic has me thinking he's gotten too busy to keep up on this.

However, BOAT has engineered a good alternative where the entire business is all below decks and can easily be disengaged. With the nice Raymarine head unit, it's a good solution.
If I had more time to install it, I might pull the trigger and do the "BOAT" AP mod. I still might.

--Russ

Hey guys, long time no chat. Neither Victor nor myself has had much time lately to keep up with the forum unfortunately but he is still around and working on the A/P albeit at a slow pace the last year or two due to his partner moving across the country. But I am lucky to be his Florida tester for the unit and he did send me some new belt pulleys last November which gave the unit much more power to fight against strong helm conditions. I have been testing the unit for a few years now and this latest adjustment made the gear ratio as tough as the motor which is a good sized unit. The Raymarine sport pilot I had previously used a much smaller (and noisier) motor with a huge gear ratio to compensate (and it used to get hot if you used it for too long).

Anyway, I hope Vic does hurry up and market it since I know some people have been waiting a long time and its not surprising that people are installing some wheel pilots or going through the mods required to install a tiller pilot because having an A/P is such a great feature on this boat. But Vic's unit is very nice. It's built specifically for the Mac and its very tough. Its completely in the helm attached directly to the steering pinion instead of taking up real estate on the wheel like a wheel pilot. I do a lot of cruising and my former sportpilot burned up one time when I ran it for 10 hours straight. The Vic unit is very heavy duty and I have had many 10 hour days with it where it doesn't break a sweat. I was cruising the lower keys for 8 days in December and in the 10K islands 3 days in January and used the A/P a lot every day through many different courses that I had pre-programmed. I'm hoping to cruise in Cayo Costa a week from tomorrow.

Motor sailing from Key West to Bahia Honda in SCA conditions (20-25 with 3-5 foot waves) was a blast and since I single hand, it is essential to have an A/P and would have been very difficult to do a trip like that without it. I took my kids to 10K islands and the A/P is connected via NMEA to my GPS so it was driving through tracks that I had made 2 years earlier which navigated through the Cape Romano shoals. The A/P followed the predefined GPS course through some deeper parts of the shoals that I had mapped out earlier while I go below and make sandwiches for lunch. For that kind of precision, a wheel lock is not the same thing.

And as for the remote, although it is not wireless, it is on a long cable so it can either be used on the helm, or on the seats (if you are sitting beside the helm in heeled conditions) or its even long enough to take it down below a bit into the cabin so it is possible to drive the boat from under the hatch if it is raining.

Dimitri

Cool news and a great update....... Fingers still crossed Ron.

Hello,
That is some great news.

That is good news. Dimitri I thought we had lost you a couple of years ago, so it's nice to hear from you again and see you are still Mac-ing.

I'll wait for Vic's Autopilot. Unless there's a spare unit that needs some Canadian beta testing? We could check and see if it survives the winter in deep-freeze mode, and then make sure that it can perform in Fresh water as well.

I've broke down last year on a sub $1000 offer for the new wheel-pilot and installed it.
But I still think that Vic's drive-unit is a superior design and communicated to him that I would be more than happy to purchase his drive-unit, as an upgrade to my system, if he made it available.

my $0.02

Obelix

I'm still on board too
Ix

Just throwing my name in the ring again. At this point, I don't think it even has to be "Sub $600".

From the beta units I've seen, and the reports of the recent upgrades it sounds like if its priced like an EV-100 it's still a better deal.

We are still slowly finishing up the production of 10-15 initial units.

My partner is very busy with family, job and new additions but squeezed in the time to have 3 more final sets of electronics made (Due May 15th delayed due parts out of stock) which use a larger memory processor and higher output.

He will need to finish the reconfiguration of the current software to work with the newer processor.

The beta guys will need to test before release.

My unit still works perfectly for many, many years. Used on every trip last season.

Victor