MacGregorSailors.com

BOAT wrote:Swing keel has it's advantages - I had a swing keel on my Aquarius - but I can tell you if you use the swing keel properly the advantages quickly fade away:

If you know your shallow or going to beach your going to pull the pin on your swing keel so it can fold - so, same deal on the DB just pull up the DB - I don't see a difference unless your sailing around without lock pinning the swing keel in place (not too smart because in a knockdown the swing keel will fold back into the boat). ....

True with some swing keels, but the S (not sure about the X) doesn't have the centerboard pinned. It will always swing up without you doing anything, as I have put this to the test more than once... .

Some pin their rudders on their S's but ...



... I use the adjustable cam cleat release and it allows the rudder to swing up when you hit something and keeps it down the rest of the time.



More here...

http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner ... ing-1.html

One of the reasons for us buying a S was the swing centerboard since we felt we would end up sailing in a lot of unknown water,

Sumner

============================
1300 miles to the Bahamas and back -- 2015

The MacGregor 26-S

The Endeavour 37

Trips to Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Canada, Florida

Mac-Venture Links

Sumner wrote:True with some swing keels, but the S (not sure about the X) doesn't have the centerboard pinned. It will always swing up without you doing anything, as I have put this to the test more than once... .

Same with the . It's light weight, and not part of the restoring moment in any meaningful way.

And I've forgotten to pull it up more than once when loading the boat. Good thing for the CB, and the ID lights on the trailer, that it's both angled back a bit, and swings up freely.

Tomfoolery wrote:

Sumner wrote:....And I've forgotten to pull it up more than once when loading the boat....

We launched once in Canada and didn't get the boat off the trailer all the way and then had to try to pull it forward and forgot the rest but the centerboard was jammed down on the trailer for a bit.



When I added the second axle I put in a couple boards so that even if I forget the centerboard will ride on them loading an unloading....

http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner ... ods-8.html



It sits on the roller above going down the road....

http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner ... ods-1.html

Sumner

============================
1300 miles to the Bahamas and back -- 2015

The MacGregor 26-S

The Endeavour 37

Trips to Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Canada, Florida

Mac-Venture Links

My main reason for liking a retractable centerboard was because of all the room it makes inside the boat - but, Alas: that was not the case in the Aquarius - in the Aquarius designer Peter Barrett knew all too well about the squirrely performance of narrow centerboards and how hard it is to control rounding up when the centerboard is too narrow so he designed in a centerboard on the Aquarius that was 30 inches wide!!

Well, yeah, that did indeed make the Aquarius track like it was on rails and no matter how hard the wind hit the boat it would not round up but that centerboard required such a tall centerboard well that it came all the way up to your waist and blocked the interior of the boat just as much as the daggerboard trunk in the M boat!

Man! I remember how roomy the X boat was when i first saw it back in 1996 and by the time i finally had the money to buy one in 2012 I was SO disappointed to see the boat now had a daggerboard trunk. It really sucked up a lot of the space inside.

I have come to appreciate the reasons for it and now i get why Roger did it - the tracking and performance is improved with 22 inches of keel in the water and the trunk makes the deck strong but my favorite thing is the maintenance - no metal parts - the metal parts and winches and cables and stuff were always a headache on the A23. I am glad to be rid of that stuff.

Sumner wrote:

Tomfoolery wrote:

Sumner wrote:....And I've forgotten to pull it up more than once when loading the boat....

We launched once in Canada and didn't get the boat off the trailer all the way and then had to try to pull it forward and forgot the rest but the centerboard was jammed down on the trailer for a bit.



When I added the second axle I put in a couple boards so that even if I forget the centerboard will ride on them loading an unloading....

http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner ... ods-8.html



It sits on the roller above going down the road....

http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner ... ods-1.html

Sumner

============================
1300 miles to the Bahamas and back -- 2015

The MacGregor 26-S

The Endeavour 37

Trips to Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Canada, Florida

Mac-Venture Links

In my case, the CB will ride on the middle bunk if I slacken the line, or forget to haul it up the rest of the way. But if I Mac Bump® it too hard, the trailer will flex enough, with the bow riding up and forward a little more presumably, until this happens.



The first time it happened, I was annoyed. Had to drop the hanger to get it free.

The second time was this past fall when I hauled it. It's still hanging there. I'll get to it when the snow goes away.

I have an angle I intended to bolt to the cross bar with a piece of wood on it to catch it so it can't happen again. I guess I should have done it after the first time and before the second time.

BOAT wrote:Well, yeah, that did indeed make the Aquarius track like it was on rails and no matter how hard the wind hit the boat it would not round up but that centerboard required such a tall centerboard well that it came all the way up to your waist and blocked the interior of the boat just as much as the daggerboard trunk in the M boat!

This is what BOAT is talking about. My Aquarius 7.0 (later called a Balboa 23), which was an A23 with a transom mounted rudder and off-set OB on a mount. The A23 had a balanced rudder in a cassette through the cockpit floor, and an OB mounted directly on the transom in a notch. But the heavy steel swing CB had a huge trunk and winch (that's a replacement; the originals were works of art).

Yeah, I don't have a lot of pictures of the interior of the old boat but the set up was very similar to the very early M boats that had the galley on the back side of the head :






I don't know what to say about the decor except "Hey, it was the 70's man!"

BOAT wrote:I don't know what to say about the decor except "Hey, it was the 70's man!"

And it is California after all, the 70's and California brings some hippy connotations to mind

Tomfoolery wrote:

BOAT wrote:. . . if those snaps are longer than the original factory screw pin shackles your baby stays are now too long and 1/2 inch length on the baby stays will add 1/2 foot of travel to the mast at the crutch.

Tom could probably do a cad drawing to get the exact calculation that shows the ratio of travel that is added for every 1/4 inch you add to the baby stays - with that you guys could better adjust your stays.

I think that's close. A quick sketch comes up with 1/4" change in baby stay length, not counting the lash that's built in already, resulting in about 2-1/2" of movement at the tip of the mast. But I had to wing the geometry, as I don't actually know what it is. I assumed the baby stays terminate 3 ft off the boat centerline (for the , which has deck mounts inboard of the stanchions), and about 6 ft above the mast base, which I think is close as I use that termination for the flag halyards, too, and it's somewhere around face height or higher.

In my opinion, the baby stays should be just loose enough that you can make them fast with the mast in the crutch, and in my case, I usually have to bounce the mast sideways a bit to get the second one made. It takes a lot of mast movement to get a little baby stay slack. The bottom terminations should be just a little forward of the mast hinge centerline, so they slacken a little as the mast approaches vertical and the stays take over and hold the mast centered. If they're too tight with the mast up, you can't get them off, but the system uses a hound which I suppose can rotate downward once the MRS is released, so maybe that's already built into the system.

The baby stays on the terminate directly on the mast with the same tangs the regular side stays use, so some slack has to be incorporated with the mast up, if you want to remove them. I often just leave them, but sometimes remove them from the deck mount (takes seconds) and strap them to the mast, especially if the boat will be in a slip for a long time rather than on a road trip.



Edit: Corrected the sketch, as the mast was drawn 2 ft short. Mast tip lateral movement is more like 2-3/4" [70 mm] for each 1/4" [6.4 mm] of baby stay length change. About 11:1, at least per my educated guess of the geometry of the system and mast.

Thanks to you and Boat! What this illustrated to me (even though I have an M), was that my stays must be too long. I have many feet of "swing" available when the mast is at roller level, and my stays never ever get taut, they are loose the whole time. Now to figure out what length they are supposed to be... there must be someone out there with a 26M with the OEM mast raising kit that works properly that could measure their stays?

(And on another note, somehow page 3 of this thread ended up being a discussion about centreboards... Mods, did this sneak in from some other thread by a glitch?!)
Edit: I see Sumner was quoting something from BOAT on page 1, now I know where it came from! Carry on folks.

I just made a new set of baby stays. I copied the originals at 6' exactly, center to center of the eyelets.
I also bought the "V" bend mast hound to replace the stock "Round" bend hound from BWY.
That made my 6' stays slightly to long, but was easily corrected for by re-sizing the bowline loop at the mast.
I also replaced all 3 of the Pin shackles as came stock.
They are a PIA to use sometimes IMHO.
I went with those loop things that have the threaded nut installed that can't ever come off. Unthreading the nut exposes the gap in the loop, then close the gap by tightening the nut-piece.
I don't know what they're called, but I think you usually use them to connect chain. Home Despot has them in SS.
Much easier one-handed solution to rig the MRS to the stanchions and mast hound, IMHO.

One other M handy tip I use:

Add one more 4'- 6' x 5/16" line to the MRS to make life more simple.
It's valuable when the mast is up and being set-up to come down.
Imagine this:
Gin pole on the fwd deck, bolted at the mast base as usual, no other normal MRS lines installed yet.
The new line goes from a bowline loop through the center hole in the upper sheave on the gin pole, then raising it up, tied off with a clove hitch around the mast at a length to achieve the "somewhat correct" gin-pole angle relative to the mast/deck.
This makes the gin pole hands-free and tied to "about" where it should be, angle-wise, with gravity keeping the line somewhat tight.
Because it's tied through the center of the sheave, it will not be in conflict with the line from the MRS winch to the mast.

Hands-free positioning is the big, big deal here.

At your leisure, you can tie off the forward gin pole line to the bow cleats, (or better, make a big bowline loop that uses both cleats and becomes the correct length forever)
At your leisure, attach the baby stays.
At your leisure, attach the Mast Pin Shackle/Loop to the mast hound.
Loosen the clove hitch as the new lines job is done, but leave it looped to the sheave for future use.
Lower away.

No more fighting the pole during MRS install.
Simple and effective.
Next time you lower, try it and see if it makes your job easier also.

Thanks Hardcrab!!