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what about making the "canard" removable? using track similar to the ones close to the cockpit,you couls have a slide on and slide off canard?

Divecoz wrote:Kevin mentions Styrofoam removal...Oooopppppss....and after looking at the photos.... I am thinking about adding some 4 inch Styrofoam panels I have around the garage. I am thinking under my aft berth panels and cushions?? Not much weight and maybe a little insurance? What do you fellows think? Could it be worth the effort?

I wouldn't bother. From my understanding, the installed Styrofoam is quite adequate. But then I've never been on a boat before that I didn't expect to sink to the bottom if it got a hole and I don't believe a standard bilge pump could keep up with even a minor breach in the hull. Also, the Mac essentially is a double hulled boat.

I'm in the remove the foam for storage crowd since I don't do any offshore bluewater boating with our Mac and wouldn't with such a small lightweight boat anyway.

If you wanted to add more flotation, how about some airbags under compartments?

I'm only aware of one incident where a Mac got truly capsized and that was skipper idiocy. Has there been a case where the flotation saved a boat and crew? The boat in OP didn't get to the point of needing any flotation.


--Russ

Kevin mentions Styrofoam removal...Oooopppppss....and after looking at the photos.... I am thinking about adding some 4 inch Styrofoam panels I have around the garage. I am thinking under my aft berth panels and cushions?? Not much weight and maybe a little insurance? What do you fellows think? Could it be worth the effort?

I did that a little. I put a few empty quart oil jugs under the aft berth. I was going to fill all of it but decided against. If she did ever flood completely, that would put a lot of strain on the flimsy aft berth floor and could damage it. Also, a lot of flotation down low would tend to lift the bottom of the boat and may turn her over on her side or turtle her. Instead, I added flotation high up under the gunnels. I don't use that space. It is easy to remove when I need to do something in that area. And, it is high up and would tend to add stability. I wanted to insure the engine would be as high as possible and the cockpit hatch would be dry.

Kelly Hanson East wrote:Berful - do you understand that a keelboat would go straight to the bottom in this circumstance, and that the Mac design saved both the sailor and the boat here?

I confess I dont understand your concern..

Are you suggesting that ALL fixed keel boats that are blown on their side sink? Do you believe a "keel" boat (even a small one) would be knocked down by a dingy caught in its rigging? Clearly the Mac design caused this event and the Mac design also kept the boat afloat. I would not guess that a keel boat that was knocked down would simply lay on her side but if it did it would follow that your scenario would be inevitable. I appreciate your comments and believe that the combined experience of those on this site to be unapproachable anywhere else.

kmclemore wrote:Oh, for crying out loud, you just bought the boat in June. I know it's been 20 years since you last sailed, but you really ought to give it more than a couple of months before you bail out. Your 26D is a fine boat, and very safe. Now get your butt out there and sail it! Take another sailor with you the first few times, if you feel more comfortable, and soon you'll be sailing like it was second nature.

Thanx for the encouragement. You might have assumed a bit too much as I have had my boat out every weekend since I bought it and have done some sailing in between the 20 years of sailboat ownership albeit on my sisters boat. However, I"ll accept your comments in the spirit that I'm sure they were intended and simply say thanx!
I do realize that the "D" is a safer sailing boat than the early "X"'s .It does not ,however, have the capacity to use a large motor to simply haul ass out of a bad situation. I'm not inclined to want to make those Catalina trips that I was planning unless buddied up for the trip both ways. I sailed a 14" dingy there and back from Newport Beach a few years ago but had a friend motoring his boat along with me.
I mean no offense to any Mac owner nor would I suggest that what may be right for me should be the same for anyone else.
I truly enjoy the opportunity to chat with this skilled and experienced group of individuals.

Berful

Dinghy not secured right on the deck , gets caught in the rigging "thats the Mac's Fault !! Man Get your Spitt together Thats stupidity , Mans carelessness or incompinense. Brass balls is what it takes to admit this !!!!!!! give your head a shake !!!? where are you coming from
Spit Happens but so does STUPITY But Common Sense has to RULE As well as Reponsability
Too Tired to do a spelling check !!!

I hope this does not get sensored !!!!!
So you get a flat tire on the road while driving your car , change the flat & put on the spare tire drive more than a 100 miles but do not due the recomended wheel nut retorqed & the wheel flies off & I guess its not your fault right !!!!!!!!!!! ?

J

Highlander wrote:Berful

Dinghy not secured right on the deck , gets caught in the rigging "thats the Mac's Fault !! Man Get your Spitt together Thats stupidity , Mans carelessness or incompinense. Brass balls is what it takes to admit this !!!!!!! give your head a shake !!!? where are you coming from
Spit Happens but so does STUPITY But Common Sense has to RULE As well as Reponsability
Too Tired to do a spelling check !!!

I hope this does not get sensored !!!!!
So you get a flat tire on the road while driving your car , change the flat & put on the spare tire drive more than a 100 miles but do not due the recomended wheel nut retorqed & the wheel flies off & I guess its not your fault right !!!!!!!!!!! ?

J

Dude: you might want to get your medication adjusted. What I said was the KNOCKDOWN was due to the Mac's design. I'll leave conclusions about the dingy to the genious of people like you.

I dont think its fair to say the Mac design 'caused the incident' but I think I know what you meant - the fact that the boat is lightly constructed makes it susceptible to several knockdown scenarios that wouldnt occur with a conventional keelboat

That's a fair assessment.

Your comment that a keelboat wouldnt be on its side in the first place in this scenario is valid of course.

People assume that this boat isnt ballasted, in fact it could have been - remember it only takes 150# at mast head to tip her over WITH BALLAST and a dinghy fouled in the rigging and taking on a load of water could easily have exceeded this.

There was a fair amount of Mac bashing/defending on the boards - some feel a boat that can suffer this fate is 'fundamentally unsafe' while others say it has to be sailed like what it is - basically a cruisiing dinghy..

YMMV

Re: mid to low speed motoring characteristics:

The boat needs something to keep it on track and while extending just a bit of centerboard sometimes helps, and is not a problem at any speed, it just doesn't get the bite on the water necessary. It is an interesting thought that perhaps at 10-12 knots when we think the board is out a few inches it may indeed be lifted back into the trunk by the higher force of water flowing over it.

Wow, really interesting... because the handling has always seemed so squirrely to me at that speed. You have to constantly correct the boat's tendency to wander. My mate refuses to power about 7 mph because of the wandering.

I didn't see how modifying the cb would be different from lowering it but maybe you're on to something. Maybe at that speed the cb drops and raises, rather than being at some particular constant depth. That would explain the wandering handling as the boat would yaw every time the cb is driven back into the slot.

There was a glue-on hull protector product advertised on this site, the purpose was to protect the forward part of the boat from being scraped by the trailer.
I wonder if something like that, a strip of vee shaped plastic material only an extra 3/4" or so thick, glued down the hull's centerline would improve tracking in that 7-15 mph range. Maybe only from the CB aft... because then it should help low speed maneuverability which is my big problem.
I have a super shallow slip so I can't motor all the way in fins down, my depth in-slip is maybe 3 feet. So getting in and out of slip my boat handles like a flat bottomed barge and no matter what I do it's dicey till i get some cb and a rudder down. I'm fine in the channel but turning left into my slip I have to raise the cb and the crosswind always catches me and yaws me cockeyed... it's not pretty.

So anything that gave some lateral resistance would also help even in the idle speed range I think.
I'm just not sure how far forward that skeg/fin/edge/whatever surface can go before affecting the low speed maneuverability.
Wish I had a crane handy so I could try this!

Sounds like you could lower the board 1' to help with the tracking into your slip. One foot of draught and one foot more of CB makes 2, and your slip is 3' deep. If the CB is dropped one foot at the rear, there will be some considerable length of it exposed to help tracking. Some owners have proposed and maybe modded a shallow third rudder that pivots up/down on the same axis (longer bolt) next to one of the regular ones, and can be deployed for shallow running.

As for 8 mph with the board lowered a small amount, I really don't think the water flow against that front edge can lift it up. I could be wrong, but surely someone has tried the test of checking for line slack , no ??

has no lifting section (it will just be a flat piece of aluminum) it should induce no bad behavior at any speed.

I think I'll stop over to my neighbors metal shop tonight and see what we can get started making. I plan for the skeg to be simply bolted or screwed to the centerboard so installation will be quick and simple once I get it and the mounting brackets made.[/quote]

Duane,

If you go ahead with this mod. please let others know your results. I'm not sure how the skeg will match with trailoring the boat, I guess if it's extension below the hull is slight that it will be okay.

Newell
Fast Sunday 96X, Windancer 89D

Just back from a weekend sail to Lossie,

had a wee incident with excessive heeling, the weather was gusting around the 20-25 knots on a beat to windward. Water ballast full & a reef in the main with the roller reefed back as well. We went way past the bubble point & dipped the rails in the water, this took off the lifebelt light which looked like we had deployed a drogue.

The main was dumped but with the hull so far out of the water we started to get windage on the hull, now going sideways at about 2 knots, managed to get the weight onto the rail & return back onto a horizontal level.

Noticed water coming up between the toilet & the bulkhead, initially I thought I had split the water ballast tank, after further investigation it was found to be coming in from the sink in the toilet. No isolating valves fitted to either sink in the galley or the toilet , although this has not been a problem before.

Sea state at the time was slight, I am thinking about adding some lead to the keel, along the same lines as Knotshore's installation.

On the way back we were in about 30 knots of wind with the waves cresting & we motored on through without any problems with the water ballast out & keel & rudders up.


Anyone else added lead to the keel ?

Rob

good to see your back on the water Robbie,i was thinking of copying knotshores mod,i was considering using carbon fiber to strenghthen the keel,i think that adding weight to the keel would improve the boats "firming up" it would be at a loss of top end motor speed methinks.

whooa Matt,

Carbon fibre centre board, now you are talking expensive, next it will be dyneema halyards all round

definately going to look at it & change the cb line from 8mm braid on braid to 8mm dyneema to compensate for the extra load