MacGregorSailors.com

Hey Macgregor sailors, it has been a while since I have written on here. I've been doing a lot of day dreaming lately, about sailing and was curious. How long do you think it would take to sail a small sailboat like mine from say, Daytona Florida to southern Maine. I have a VN23, that is still being repaired but am curious that perhaps at some point in the future, after I have a lot more experience, if that would be doable?

I know I am incredibly naive at this point, which is why this is more of a daydream than anything serious I was thinking though, since my wife is a teacher's aide and has summers off, and I mostly make my living online we would have three months to get back and fourth, visit some family in Maine, enjoy a lot of sailing, and have a place to stay for free. It would be sort of cramped quarters as we would take my two kids along, but my wife and I could keep them entertained. I would be interested in saving money, so I don't know if the ICW would be possible, and would rather not tow my boat to Maine.

If you were thinking of doing this, in my boat or one that is similar, how would you go about it - or would you deem it too crazy to do in the first place?

Anyways, thanks for taking part in my day dream.

Lets do some rough math...

Cruising at 5 knots for 8 hours a day means about 40 miles per day....I don know what the distance is up the ICW but I'm guessing its al least 1200 miles?

30 days SWAG? That might be a great vacation for some but crew may mutiny if you don't offer some perks....

You might want to consider driving empty trailer up, fly back cheap as you can, sail up, and trailer back home

This is serious mutiny material. The Admiral and I can spend a max of one week on our Mac 22. At least in our area, the ICW is not a restful place. You are always doing "hurry up and wait" for a bridge opening; while being buzzed by clueless motorboaters. YMMV.

Chip
S/V Macaroon
Dania, FL

Mutiny? Bah, I'm bigger than them all. I'll just lock em up in the cabin with a portable DVD player and Cheetos. 30 days is a long time though, I'll probably postpone this for 14 years after both kids have graduated. We always have the keys though, perhaps with any luck we will be out exploring them in another two years or so.

The standard in the Pac class is 100 miles per day using some sort of wind driven autopilot. (Yes, you sail at night Pac cruising, there is nothing else to do). Coastal stuff your referring to I suppose you could put in every night but that takes a lot longer.

with a portable DVD player and Cheetos

..dont forget the cheez whiz too...

If you intend to sail all day and anchor at night, plan on between 30 and 50 miles per day depending on the winds. If you're going to supplement with the motor when winds are not favorable, you can count on 50 miles per day. With two people, its highly unlikely that you'd be able to sail through the night.

Accounting for port days, unforeseeable circumstances, poor track keeping, etc., you should figure about 250 miles per week for time-away planning purposes, if you're really motivated to keep moving.

1200 from daytona to maine is a bit conservative too. I used to drive from NY to Port Orange a lot, (because I loved to visit my grandma). That ride is 1,250 down the I-95 corridor. Add on another 300 to get up the coast to Maine, and you'll be close at 1,550-1,600 miles. Of course in 14 years you will probably have a nice new/used Mac 26m,n,o,r or even p. with all the latest goodies.

Zone...the ICW is mandatory for boats of this size...you cannot cruise in open ocean in these boats,

My greatest concern would be weather. T-storms and fog. Also, Cape Hatteras offers rough ocean on a nice day. You need to research thoroughly.

Thank you all for your responses, I'm a bit paranoid now though. My boat should be able to handle a bit of coastal day sailing in the gulf of Mexico, say about 50 miles north of Tampa, right? I was sort of looking forward to sailing a week or so solo, just exploring a bit of our coast and a bit of adventure (just not too much adventure, I'm a noob). I more than likely, would remain as close as possible to land - which would probably be three miles where I live as it is shallow according to a few charts I saw online.

What I really would like to do, is get a feel of what sailing is like and if it is something my wife and I may be interested in pursuing a bit more in the future. If she likes it, and it is as much fun as I imagine it will be, then we would go for a bigger boat some point in the future and do a bit of cruising on our summers off.

Unless I win the lottery, I still have at least a year to fix up my boat, trailer, get a suitable vehicle to tow, and an outboard. So, this is all still mostly a dream than anything.

Zone, our first sailboat was a mac22 and we spent 2 weeks doing the Florida Keys. We put the boat in at Key Largo and sailed down the ICW to Key West. Yes we hit rain and got drenched both inside the boat and out . Yes we drug anchor but we were the only ones in the area between two islands so I just kept wach so we didn't hit anything and let it drag since it was a slow drag . yes it is tight quarters. Yes we raised out voices at each other . AND YES WE BOTH AGREE THAT IT WAS THE BEST VACATION WE HAVE EVER HAD . Starting out in something that size and going a couple of weeks at a time is a great way of determining if your marriage will survive sailing. It has convinced us to buy a sailboat to live on and cruise when we retire. For now I can only enjoy every weekend and 4 weeks of vacation doing what my wife and I love best. SAILING

Tell us how you make your living online and I'll tell you how to do this.


First forget about offshoreing it. Leave that for the big girls.
You can peek out from time to time from one close inlet to another on nice days.
Forget about night sailing. It's too stressful for a family in nearshore waters. Ships and other boats require constant lookout. Try it a few nights but don't plann on it.
Forget about doing it all at once. The idea is to have fun and say wow what a time not holy crp what were we thinking??!
Research the rought. Take your family for a month or however long it's fun but don't worry about making Milage. Put the boat someplace cheap in the Carolina's until the next year. Then do the rest or another portion. YOull soon find out what kind of sailboat you want. Maybe even find one cheap on the way. They are literally giving older sub 30 ft boats away or cutting them up for salvage in some places.

The last option is to install a 20 hp engine on the back and be willing to burn fuel. You should be able to make 10 k to keep the trip manageable time wise. Sail for serenity motor for Milage I always say. At least in small boats like the Mac.

cptron wrote:Zone, our first sailboat was a mac22 and we spent 2 weeks doing the Florida Keys. We put the boat in at Key Largo and sailed down the ICW to Key West. Yes we hit rain and got drenched both inside the boat and out . Yes we drug anchor but we were the only ones in the area between two islands so I just kept wach so we didn't hit anything and let it drag since it was a slow drag . yes it is tight quarters. Yes we raised out voices at each other . AND YES WE BOTH AGREE THAT IT WAS THE BEST VACATION WE HAVE EVER HAD . Starting out in something that size and going a couple of weeks at a time is a great way of determining if your marriage will survive sailing. It has convinced us to buy a sailboat to live on and cruise when we retire. For now I can only enjoy every weekend and 4 weeks of vacation doing what my wife and I love best. SAILING

That does sound like a fun vacation. Thanks for the heads up on how well things went in a 22.

Ixneigh wrote:Tell us how you make your living online and I'll tell you how to do this.

This is mostly my day dream as well, lol. Right now I am making about $50 a week doing surveys, I'm hoping I can make another $100 doing data entry.. and possibly get a part time job from home taking calls. I just started out, so hopefully I can make it to $1000 a month, mostly doing online jobs - but that is really stretching it. For surveys, I only make about $2 to $3 an hour, but you have to figure in the time you are competing with other people so really, it is less. I'll be sitting at my computer for around 8 hours, and make about $10 if I am quick enough to gobble them up. Mind you, there are a ton of sites out there that offer these, and I am only really using four of them. From what I hear about data entry, if you are really fast you can make up to $6 an hour, but the hours are not that great.

On the plus side, I've gotten some free macaroni and cheese, and toilet paper last week I really would like to make a real living off of doing online jobs, perhaps after I get a degree I can do a bit of programming, but I'm not counting on it.