MacGregorSailors.com

Envious. Gonna try to launch our boat this week.

Our winters are so long and Summers so short. Can't wait to get back on the water.

Hi All!

The weather Memorial Sunday was quite stormy here in our part of SC! A real frog choker with LOTS of rain, lightning and thunder!
Not a day to be out on the water!

Much better on Memorial Day Monday!
Humid but great to get out in the mid afternoon. Even the clouds had a happy face!



Around 6 pm we cut short our cruise down the Beaufort River to the Broad River Basin as a front was moving in.
Nice to be able to cruise along at 5 mph but also nice to get up on plane and get back to our slip ahead of the front with enough time to give the boat and engine a good fresh water rinse. There was even some time to enjoy a wine spritzer on the dock.

Best Regards,
Over Easy

Hi All!

Ya ever have one of those days…..
Yesterday after getting up at 8 am we had a nice cup of coffee and chitchatted with the admiral. We had an appointment this morning at 10 am for some shots.. no time to do much until then … but after the last frog checker rains I’d found that the gutters were clogging up and I decided that the gutters needed cleaning out before getting on with the boat trailer refurbishing…
But first we needed to get our second shingles vaccination… that ended up taking over an hour so it was now past 11 am…
On the way back from that we figured that we needed some groceries while we were out and Thursdays are senior 5% discount day at the local grocery store & given the continuing rise in groceries since January who’s gonna pass up saving 5%? (Eggs while more available aren’t any cheaper!)…
Once we got home it was time for lunch after putting things away…
By this time it was getting on to about 1 pm … but first I thought I’d better paint the bunk brackets while the sun was shining (hard to spray paint in the rain)… As you all know the set-up takes longer than the task so a half hour later I finally go to apply the first coat of paint…
Finally got the ladders off the side of the house around 2 pm… then the hose… then the debris bucket… then moved it all to the first section to be worked on… then finally climbed the ladder by about 2:30 pm… after seven repositioning of the ladder, three debris buckets later and managing to soak myself with the hose I’d managed to complete the gutter over the main garage door and it was now 3:45 pm… not a land speed record by any means but at least it was no longer clogged with leaves and pine needles!…
Now to move the ladders to the back of the garage to do that section and the section over the kitchen windows and suddenly it was now 90 degrees with 100% humidity in the bright sun… and it was time to apply a second coat of paint to those bunk brackets…
After that it was time for a short break inside with the A/C and some iced tea… 10 minutes turned into 30 and I was finally back on the ladder about 4 pm… 12 repositioning of the ladders, five debris buckets later and another soaking with the garden hose this second section was finally done around 6 pm… whew!… but now it looked like rain was coming and on time came the mosquitoes swarms… battling past the bugs I retrieved the not yet dried brackets and carefully hung them up in the garage and cleaned up the hose and ladders to start on the third section of gutters when the rain hit…a short lived frog choker but it did let me see how much of a difference the gutter cleaning provided! At that point it was now 7 pm and I was done for the day….

So now the day was over as far as time for chores and dinner needed to be made but our younger daughter called! We happily talked for about and hour and a half… and now it was nearly 9 pm… & dinner still needed to be made….

There are still 3 more sections of gutter to be done and not much accomplished on the boat trailer… fribble…
Bet no one else has their day’s plans evaporate away…

Today is Friday and my legs are tired from all the multiple up/downs on the ladders yesterday so I’m gonna take a break from that and see how today’s To-Do-List works out… … Hurricane season is about to start and I’d like to be able to have the option to ‘haul out’ instead of ‘having to ride it out’ in the slip…

Best Regards,
Over Easy

Hi All!

We had a great couple of short cruises this past weekend on our local waterways.
Lots of Dolphins and Osprey!
The damaged pilings around the bridges have yet to be repaired.
They did their job protecting the bridges!
(A large barge crashed into them several months ago last year.
The federal funding to help repair/replace them was cut so who knows when that will happen now.)
Here are some pictures:























Best Regards,
Over Easy

Hi All!

New Season - Time to Check The Rules

Hi All!

Boy oh Boy did we have a real Thunder Thumper last night! Lots of lightning, thunder and rain!
It came so fast and furious it couldn’t get out of its own way… A real frog choker fer sure! Two water spouts were observed locally.

Went down to the marina slip and Over Easy was safe and secure! Whew!

The past 6 months has been a bit of a financial challenge for a lot of folks (S&P down ~2.5% over the last 6 months) and is showing up on the waters locally. There are multiple open slips at all the local marinas, boat traffic is measurably down on the weekends and a substantial reduction in the number of boat on the private dock lifts. I can’t help but wonder ….

The last of the parts (I hope) for the boat trailer refurbishment have finally arrived. I’d like to get this finished as Summer and Hurricane Season is now upon us. Last night and the country’s sweeping severe weather fronts are a wake-up call. I’m glad that it’s serendipity to have started on this project early rather than to have avoidable issues later when we’ll really need it to work. The hidden cracked spring leaves and the rust degradation of the nuts, while not really expected at the start of this project, are better to be discovered and rectified.

Best Regards
Over Easy

Hi All!

The new leaf spring sets are a small fortune!
Has anyone else seen how much these are costing? Almost $500 for the set of four!!! Sheeze!!!

They are what they are ….

They came painted but the paint seems to have been applied after assembly like the originals.
Given how the originals have so horribly rusted up I decided that I’d try and do something about it this time around to at least try to make these new ones last a bit longer. Given that these spring sets are already assembled the best I can figure to do was to take some gloss black Rustoleum oil enamel paint and thin it 50% with mineral spirits so that it can seep into the available space between the spring leaves in as much as might be possible given my limited facilities. So after two through coatings I finished up with a final undiluted coating. If nothing else they look nice.

I know that once they are installed that the flexing will compress and scrape the paint but I’m hoping that it will at least slow down the exposure and inevitable degradation. I might try to keep them up periodically… but I’ll probably apply marine grease to them in the future Just have to see….

If there are any other ideas out there to protect leaf springs from corrosion I’m very interested!

Best Regards,
Over Easy

I just replaced all of mine and it was about 50% higher than the last time. I think that was about six years ago. Springs, hangers, bolts, shackles, u-bolts for two axles all came to a bit over $300.

When I first made my parts list I thought my hangers were still good but the bolts were hiding some serious corrosion on the back side. Next time I'll get them on the first trip and just put them on the shelf if I don't need them. It's a 3 hour round trip for parts.

I forgot to mention, I'm in NC for the next week or so and I caught that storm you mentioned. Thirty mile an hour gusts and almost a half inch of rain. I was glad to be inside.

Hi Be Free!

Glad you were able to get the parts for what you did!
The 3 hour road trip adds a lot though!

I was trying to avoid going all the way to Charleston, Savannah, Greenville or Columbia which were my other options.
It was the best I could do locally for what I needed… not a whole lotta choices or suppliers around here within a reasonable distance …
It is what it is … just bit the halyard and am moving forward past the $ticker $hock.
Actually I feel it’s serendipitous to have discovered the actual state of condition when I did and where I did. There are a lot more difficult, expensive (and potentially dangerous) situations that we could have found ourselves in. I’m glad that I can still do the work (albeit slowly), afford to get the parts (albeit painfully) and have the facilities (driveway & tools) to get this accomplished at my own discretion. Lemonade anyone?

Glad you weathered the storm!
There seem to be more of them this year but that one was pretty much of a doozy!
And that wasn’t even a tropical storm!
But thats been small potatoes compared to the storms and devastation that have repeatedly pounded the Midwest regions so far this year! In many was it’s been a real slug fest for them!

Our local weather has stymied getting out this past weekend. Each of the past four days has been greeted with fast moving somewhat intense thunderstorms. Sudden abrupt fronts with lots of vavoom and bah-boom energy in addition to the heavy downpours.
Definitely not times to be caught out on the water down here.
I hope others have had better weather and were able to get out!

Best Regards,
Over Easy

Hi All!

Rather than repeat it all ….Here is a link to a discussion topic regarding our spring preservation concerns…. about painting vs. greasing the springs to hopefully help make the new ones last a bit longer than the originals:

https://macgregorsailors.com/forum/view ... 8046d4658a

Meanwhile the painted springs have had a couple of days to dry out and I hope to get them mounted soon…maybe this week?

Additionally our younger daughter Lydia came by for a visit and brought her friend Kate along as they prepare to host a music festival at midsummer. They’ve been doing this festival for several years now.

They have also been helping with knocking off some of our southern “To-Do-List”!
The screen porch has been emptied, scrubbed, cleaned and re-set! Looks perfect!
All the gutters have been cleared out and flushed! That was a lot of yucky ladder climbing work to accomplish!
The rear yard drainage ditch has been created! That should put an end to the water pooling after those frog choker rain storms!
The front side yard brush clearing has been initiated! Boy are there a lot of vines!
The first portion old worn interior carpet & foam backer has been removed from most of the house! Hooray! Big job!

Inch by inch…task by task we’re getting closer to accomplishing our remodel & new kitchen!

Last weekend was a wash out with the weather.. :cry…. but we did get to the beach for all of a half hour before one of those afternoon pop up thunderstorms chased us away… who wants to be a lightning rod anyway…


Best Regards,
Over Easy

Hi All!

Well the fun never ends!!!
In home renovation down here in the south it seems even basic electrical codes are optional….. again!
Should I be surprised? Phbbbbtttttttt!
In pulling up the carpets I finally got to look at an in-floor outlet …. Which was a real eye opener….
Was the wiring in conduit? Naw
Was the wiring below slab? Naw
Was there even a legal junction box even in place? Naw
Was the wire used just draped into the concrete? Yeah
Was the wire used even rated for in ground use? Naw

Am I disappointed? You betcha!
So much for a “premier area builder”…….

It is what it is… fribble!

Now all I need to do is lift up a dozen exterior deck boards to access the subfoundation,
make a proper under slab conduit,
cut into the slab to make new floor junction box locations,
Install the code compliant boxes,
And wire them in appropriately is all….. just love having to expand the work list with critical safety must do projects! NOT!

I can only hope that the fullness of Karma caught up with the electrician and builder who did this…
Yes I can be vindictive when sh@t-for-brains deliberately ignore basic codes and workmanship to endanger others to cut corners like this!
Especially if it was to self profit as is the case here.
Any sh@t-in-pants can bolix things ….

I need to get on with fixing this and move on to better things.
Piecemeal work on the boat trailer moves along.
The new springs are going on today hopefully.
Really want to get this trailer up to snuff as soon as I can given we’re now into hurricane season (even if the twit in charge does know basic metrology). The local weather forecasts are not as robust as they once were…. So I suspect any appropriate hurricane forecasts aren’t gonna be either which makes being prepared to haul out at a moments notice all the more appropriate as Over Easy on a trailer is part of our bug-out planning down here.

Best Regards,
Over Easy

Hi All!

Hope all goes well for you!
It’s really warmed up down here in SC! Whew! It’s hot!
Trying to work on inside projects when I can.
How is the weather up by you?

My younger daughter came to visit for the past two weeks with her friend.
They hit some of the deferred items on my To-Do-List like giving the screen porch the through cleaning it’s been needing (since last year!), dug a drainage trench for the backyard to prevent flooding after our now near regular frog choker thunderstorms, started knocking down another section of vine entangled jungle along the side yard, cut down a big old rotten pine tree and ripped up all the old worn out carpet in the family room, old dining room and hallway! They did fantastic! These were big items to knock off the list! Really appreciated!

The two of them are helping put on a music festival over the next week up in NC.
I’ve got to drill under the concrete slab and put in two floor outlets before they come back on either this coming Sunday or Monday. They want to help lay the new flooring when they come back so I need to be ready for them. They may also be bringing two additional friends back with them who want to help out so I have to get the various projects landed out and defined enough for them to work on independently for the week or two they will be able to stay after their music

The boat trailer work got delayed a bit this week due to the several thunderstorms we’ve been receiving lately.
I got new bushings that fit to the springs. The old ones were a bit worn. I don’t think it will hurt to apply a light coating of marine grease to the inner and outer portions of these new bushings as long as I don’t get any on the bot or nut threads. As the spring bolts are the most dynamic areas I’ll be adding an additional lock nut and split lock washer to help ensure nothing works loose inadvertently. Yes, it may be overkill but they can’t hurt.

The weather has messed up yet another potential weekend on the boat again.
Friday the Sea swells coming up the Beaufort River were even affecting our marina with lots of swaying docks and bouncy boats on the one day we had reasonable weather. It wasn’t going to be safe or fun with all the ruckus so we checked our dock lines and fenders and called it a day.
On Saturday we went downtown for a great rally with a huge turn out. Lots of really nice people came and participated. Lots of positive constructive and energetic people to share the afternoon with. So that was a good trade off and again the late afternoon pop up thunderstorms swept in yet again. Lots of noise and rain.
Sunday was Father’s Day with a nice at home brunch with fresh bagels and smoked salmon (a real treat) along with time to spend with my younger daughter in person as well as a long phone call with my older daughter. It was only yesterday that they were babies and now they are adults with their own lives! Time flys by so fast it seems….and I’m glad that they are who they are.
Monday was perfect weather but it was time for the younger daughter and her friend to pack up and head out to get things set up for their music festival. So no real time to get out on the water. Maybe this coming weekend?

I hope that all is OK for you and your loved ones.
I hope that you are enjoying the warm weather and the beginning of summer.

Best Regards,
Over Easy

Hi All!

Boy has it been hot out down here in SC!
90F for over a month now!
(I think the humidity has been following the temperatures with all the pop up thunderstorms we’ve been having!)

My limited ‘get up and go’ has been severely ‘gotten up and gone’ when attempting to get anything done outside as of late.
Getting drenched in sweat isn’t as much fun as it used to be when I was a tad younger that’s for sure.

We loaned our pop up shade to our daughter for her music festival this past week so being in the direct sun didn’t help with the work flow.
She’s back now so I hope to get it back up today!

We were able to get out on the boat Saturday and Sunday for several hours finally!
It was great!
On Saturday we turned to Port after leaving the marina toward downtown Beaufort …


On Sunday we turned to Starboard leaving the marina toward Cat Island …


Both days we saw lots of dolphins and wildlife!

Got to see the Beaufort Swing Bridge operate…
















There were multiple “Mommies & Babies” out on both days.
It was really nice to see them swimming and playing.
We took some videos but can’t seem to attach them to the forum… (Anybody know how to do that?)

We stayed in on Monday as a recoup day of sorts…
The heat and humidity was getting a bit oppressive and our daughter and her friends were due back from their Music Festival.
(Her festival was a great success by the way! )

On the SC ‘To Do List’ front there was a bit of progress.

Now that the old carpet is up I wanted to proceed with making the two new floor electrical receptacles a reality.
The first step was making out exactly where we wanted them. CHECK
The second step was to access how to get them there.
As we have a slab foundation the proper way to do that is to penetrate the outer perimeter of the foundation and ‘drill’ through the sand underlying the concrete slab to route conduit to the receptacle locations. The slab is about 4” of grid reinforced concrete so I planned on making the the receptacle holes with a concrete core drill as I’ve done in past projects up north. This avoids all the dust and debris that concrete sawing generates and minimizes the potential for future slab fracturing that trench cuts through the slab can generate. (Especially as the two receptacles are about halfway across the room.) A core drill can be used with a bit of water to minimize the dust and it is designed to cut through any reinforcement bar it come in contact with leaving a nice round smooth hole to work with.
I attempted to rent a concrete core drill from Home Depot but after explicitly asking for and getting confirmation that they had 6” dia core bit and driving over to Savannah (1-1/2 hrs each way) I was disappointed to find out that they actually never had what they said they had!!! That’s frustrating!!! They couldn’t even look at their own tool inventory!!! So all in I lost most of the day and a quarter tank of gas!
I really can’t stand it when people just can’t do their basic job functions… (It seems to be endemic here in the South unfortunately).

Oh well, moving on …. Plan B was to rent a hammer drill but that wouldn’t work with what they actually had in inventory! Fribble!
At that point I decided that for the cost and hassle of renting a hammer drill I might as well buy one and the bit set to go with it.
Harbor Freight was my next stop when I got back home and they happen to have a nice one on an open box sale for about half the going sale price. Nothing wrong with it or the case… only the box had been ripped open. So now I’ve got a real hammer drill that can also do chiseling or spike driving! All for less than a day’s tool rental! Voila! (Now I’m set for building the timber retaining walls I’d like to accomplish up North when we get to that point!

I drilled the perimeter holes for the first receptacle in about an hour. The drill works perfectly!
I only stopped because the Admiral reminded me that our daughter and her friends were due to arrive that evening and it was time to clean up for them.

On Thursday of last week the Admiral and I went to an estate sale and picked up a very nice 8’x10’ area rug for the living room (now that the carpet is gone). It’s really nice and may find a home there after the new flooring is finished. So after cleaning up the concrete drilling we moved furniture (again) and put it down in place. After a 4x through vacuuming the furniture was moved back into place. It looks great and an improvement (even if temporary) over the bare concrete!

The boat trailer refurbishment has two of the four new leaf springs in place.
After we get the pop up shade back up I’ll get on to the remaining two springs.
Then I’ll be making and installing the new long bunks.
Inch-by-inch I’m making my painfully slow progress on my SC ‘To-Do-List’

Meanwhile it would seem that on the world stage there are those who rather break things than actually make things better….
Especially those least capable of ever actually fixing what they have seemed to have enjoyed breaking…
And haven’t been held accountable for their criminality or harms that they have caused…
What goes around comes around …


Best Regards,
Over Easy

OverEasy wrote: ↑Tue Jun 24, 2025 11:10 am
There were multiple “Mommies & Babies” out on both days.
It was really nice to see them swimming and playing.
We took some videos but can’t seem to attach them to the forum… (Anybody know how to do that?)

I don't think the forum will host video, that would eat a lot of server space, I just upload to the youtube account associated with my gmail and use the embed video link tool at the end of the posting tool bar with the youtube sharing link.