Weight distribution.

[barryst1300]

Hi guy's,
I'm in the process of setting up our so that we can stay out on her for two or three nights and be self sufficient without needing to come in for supplies such as water and food. I'm currently installing a 205 watt solar panel and charge regulator/battery monitoring system, TV DVD entertainment system and an AM/FM VHF radio combination that will allow me to plug and play my ipod for music and a decent sized fridge between 85 and 110 litre (

I'm also equipping the boat with a transom shower that will feed from a bladder stowed somewhere under the floor, and I'll be hooking up a small 12v hot water system so we don't need to suffer cold showers at night (my wife's idea).

Given I'll have the batteries, fridge, and the weight of the people on board towards the stern of the boat most of the time, I am wondering if I then fit a decent sized water bladder under the rear bed if I'd be mucking up the weight distribution of the boat by doing so?

If I go for a 100 litre bladder that's another 100kgs of weight at the rear of the boat and given my wife and I have a combined weight of around 160kgs I'm wondering how that will impact the boats weight distribution. I can see us easily having over 300kgs on the rear of the boat with much more when there are extra people on board.

So can I ask if anyone else has a water bladder under the rear bed, how big it is and if there's merit to fitting a smaller bladder to other areas of the boat? I can see I could fit a smaller bladder under the starboard vee berth opening, and maybe another under one of the dinette seats?

Am I right to be a little concerned about this, or am I worrying over nothing?

Cheers

Barry

[Mac26Mpaul]

Barry,

Me the wife and the two kids are probably 215kgs. Have a 120 watt panel hanging off the back and a 47l fridge under the cockpit. We use the stern berth as a storage area and stow our inflatable down there, (20kgs) and sometimes have its motor hanging off the back on the rails I installed (another 15kgs). Also have 4 x 22 litre fuel tanks in the cockpit. Store some beach furniture (table and chairs and other junk) on the stern berth too. I have two batteries in the battery compartment, and a 50 litre bladder under the galley aft.

Don't have any issues with balance, well, of course if people sit on one side in the cockpit it can be noticed when there is no ballast water in, but otherwise, its all fine....

You can always even it up by storing all your cruising junk and extra water under the V berth, but basically, I'm sure you will be fine with your 100 litre bladder under there (in fact I believe others have done that).

We only use our bladder for washing up water and washing hands, and the 50 litre one only lasts maybe 3 or 4 days out and then we revert to our 15 litre bottles which we have about 7 of for longer trips.

Back in my Navy days we had to have 90 second showers. That's 30 seconds to get wet, water off and lather up, and then water back on for 60 seconds and wash the soap off. You're gunna have to teach the Admiral to have Navy style showers and not wife style showers or your 100 litre bladder wont last bugger all

Our shower is a bit more primitive , Jack the boom right up with the topping lift and hang a solar shower off it and stand in front of the pedestal and have your shower. Not ideal, but any sort of a fresh water wash is of course heaven after a day messin about in the briney

[barryst1300]

Hi Paul,
Thanks, it looks like I may be over thinking the weight distribution.
Can you tell me the brand of the fuel tanks your using in your please. My boat came with only two tanks, but the shape of the top of the tanks doesn't allow the cockpit cover to close properly (by about an inch). So it stresses the hinge point if you stand or sit on them. I need to replace them and get 4 tanks that fit under the covers properly so I have a better cruising range. (Not that I know yet how far I can expect to motor on a 22 litre tank of fuel?)

Can I also ask if you have run your main and jib halyard lines, topping lift line and jib furler line back to the cockpit?

I am a little confused about how I'm going to do this given I'll have to mount some kind of triple block somewhere near the base of the mast (but not on the mast so it can still rotate), then run the three lines that go up the mast out to the side of the boat (probably to the mid way stanchion) to another block that will then direct the lines aft to a triple clutch I'll mount on the cabin roof between the winch and safety line stanchion. But I'm not sure how to mount all this stuff so that it keeps clear of the jib blocks on the cabin roof as well. Not having sailed my boat yet I'm not sure how high up the foot of jib sits above the deck when it's up. If your lines are run back to the cockpit I'm hoping you might let me come and have a look at how your's is set up?

Cheers

Barry

[Mac26Mpaul]

Some guys like the 45 litre tanks but I prefer to have 4 x 22 litres (often take my tanks out and fuel up at the servo rather than taking the boat there, or the marina and you cant do that with the 45s). I have two Evinrude ones which can cause the seat to lift slightly if the pressure builds. The new Whitworths ones work fine and are a good fit. I have not had the problem Bob had with the cheap fittings. They worked fine on our Hervey bay trip.
http://www.macgregorsailors.com/forum/v ... 19&t=23154

Can't help you with leading everything back to the cockpit as my boat is still pretty stock in that way,,, unfortunately ...

Search the main forum, there's plenty of stuff setting her up like that.

[Tempus]

Hi Barry.

We bought our 'pre-loved' fairly well optioned/set-up. That included solar panel, twin fuel tanks, water bladder under the rear berth and another under the seat rearward from the galley. Not too sure of the bladder capacities. We have an 80lt Waeco fridge secured on the seat opposite the head with a deep cycle battery under the vee berth to power the fridge.

It's just the wife and me on board (I'm a touch under 100kg....and am sworn to secrecy as to the wife's displacement!).

We really haven't had any balance problems with the boat as set. The Waeco sitting on the port side so high and wide had me initially concerned that it would set up a bit of a list to the left, but that hasn't been the case. Maybe it's because I have the vee berth deep_cycle low and firmly on the centreline and we have safety equip and galley supplies stored under the STBD seats.

All in all, and considering she's a shallow draft water ballasted little boat, we've found nothing to worry about too much regarding balance.


We have lines lead aft (Genoa furler, main halyard and downhaul) our topping lift is a fixed line. The furler line is simply through a small deck mounted block up on the bow and through the lifeline staunchion loops. The halyard and downhaul come through small blocks at the foot of the mast and back to cam cleats just STBD of the companionway.

[lbaldwin]

We've had our Tattoo 26 for around 7 months now and have added a lot of weight all over the boat with fridges, tv's, spares etc. From what i learnt from most sailors is to keep the weight to a minimum in the bow area.
I'm just about to install a water bladder and will probably put it under the dining seating area.

I'm interested in the water heater that was mentioned in the first post. Can you supply the details.
Also, i am thinking of installing a flexible solar panel over the Bimini with bungees.

I have a question for Paul. Did you replace your anchor roller to accommodate your plough anchor? If not, how is it fixed as i want to replace our sand anchor with something more substantial.

Lance

[barryst1300]

Thanks for the replies Paul and Tempus.

It's comforting to know what other have done so that I don;t need to worry to much about the weight issues. As for running the lines aft I have found some gret photo's on the net that show how others have done it, so I have that sorted in my mind right now. I get my rear mast crutch back today with the new solar panel mounted to it and my new set of stainless spreaders (plus a spare set to keep on board). Now that I have that it's going to be a weekend of wiring everything up and getting things sorted. I'm aiming to take the boat out for our maiden voyage over Easter. But still have some issues with the trailer brakes to sort out yet as one was dragging when I towed the boat home from the yard and made my Nissan Patrol work bloody hard for teh last few kilometres (lots of smoke from the left wheel). Hopefully that will just be a sticky caliper piston?

Ibaldwin here is the link to the various water heaters we are considering. There is a 5 litre option and a 10 litre option available. The specification for the 10 litre model suggests that when used on 12 volt the unit draws 25A/h and takes a minute of heating time to change each 1 degree of temperature. That means it will take around 30 minutes of heating time to reach 30 degrees and would draw about 14 amps from the house battery to do so. Which may be fine with a good sized house battery.

The claimed heating time for the 5 litre unit is only around 4 to 8 minutes. There is no amp draw figures for this model but the watts divided by volts calculation comes out at a staggering 83A/h. Though if it's only used for 10 minutes that's only a 21 amp draw down, and I'd even be happy to start my engine up and let it idle for the 10 minutes to supply the extra current for the luxury of having a nice hot shower at the end of the day

http://www.australiandirect.com.au/shop ... owers/1217

At this point we're still pondering whether to go down this route or not. We figure we'll set everything up in the boat the way we want it first, and then see how we go for power consumption on the first few trips before deciding if installing a hot water system is the way to go? In the mean time we'll either use a solar shower bag, or just boil a kettle full of water on the stove and mix that with cold water in a bucket to get the temperature right and use one of these cheap shower kits.

https://www.whitworths.com.au/main_item ... lutePage=1

Cheers

Barry

[Mac26Mpaul]

Hi Lance,

I had planned to put a new fitting on the bow but just havn't got around to it. All I did was drill a hole through the plough anchor and use an eye bolt to hold it in the standard bow roller fitting, then wrap the chain onto the cleat and into the anchor locker. Been like that for years and works well enough..


If you want to upgrade to a new bow roller and a new anchor, just get both at the same time at Whitworths to make sure they work well together. Putting a new bow roller fitting on is pretty easy. You just undo the two screws in the front of the V berth and pull out all the foam.


Then you can undo and remove the original bow roller fitting. Fill the two holes and redrill for your new fitting. Here is the bow section looking up from in the V berth.

[Mac26Mpaul]

Barry,
I bought one of those cheap shower kits from whitworths years ago when they were on special. It only lasted a few times and died. They are pretty simple with a little electric motor and I'm sure I could have fixed it, but I didn't bother. The couple of times we used it we found it used a LOT of water very quickly. A 20 litre bucket disappeared in minutes where as the whole family can have a bit of a shower with the 20 litre solar shower and still have some left for another shower.. I bought another of those electric ones but it is slightly different in that it also has a battery compartment with a belt clip that fits 4 x D size batteries in it. Only bought it because I saw it somewhere on special for $10 but we have never used it. The solar shower is a better option in my opinion using far less water.

If you, or the Admiral is the sort that must have their luxuries, yeah, rig a shower, but just remember that all the electric showers use a LOT of water very quickly. Another popular option is those garden spraying weed bottles, but I know they just arnt going to put out enough water to keep me happy... This guy uses a pop up tent in his cockpit and one of those weed spray bottles.

[barryst1300]

Hi Paul,
I went shopping yesterday and picked up a 100 litre water bladder, good electric pump and a trigger operated shower handle and hose assembly. I am on a first name basis now with manager of our local Boating and RV store. In fact I think he's almost as glad that I brought my boat as I am .... lol

I went for the trigger operated shower set so that it only pumps water when you want it too. We're still going to use the solar shower bag for the end of day shower for the time being, but I wanted something to be able to rinse off during the day after swimming etc.

I have already purchased everything I need to run the lines aft to the cockpit, but I'm having second thoughts about whether it's a good idea? I figure I am still going to have to go forward to tie up the main once it's dropped anyway. so I might leave things as they are for now and just sail it a few times first before deciding whether to do that conversion or not? I'm not keen to go drilling more holes in the cabin roof at the moment as there not the easiest boats to gain access to the cabin roof with that inner fibreglass skin, and I'm not keen to go cutting more access holes just yet.

[Mac26Mpaul]

I bet you are his new best friend! A wise one once told me to expect to spend 10 % of the purchase price again after buying a boat, on buying presents for the boat that it simply MUST have! With Macs, that seems to turn out more like 50 % of the purchase price

I hope to eventually (when the kids are a little older) be able to do some sailing by myself... On the few occasions when I have managed to get the boat out by myself, I have wished for a main halyard to the cockpit set up, and it is on the list of mods,.. (may need a downhaul too, somebody on the forum did it in one with a continuous loop halyard). Yes you do have to get up there to tie the sail up, but if the wind catches the sail it can be dangerous trying to get up there with it still up. I'd rather be able to drop it while still having the helm at hand. Mind you, if you have an autopilot, its not such a big deal.

What have you bought for the halyard back to the cockpit and how are you intending to do it?

If you are going all out, why not put a stack pack on it too so you don't need tie up the sail!

[barryst1300]

To run the lines back to the cockpit I have purchased 3 stand up blocks (blocks on a spring mounted base) and will mount them on the cabin roof near to the mast but out of the way of the masts rotation (two on one side and one on the other. The lines are then directed out to two double cheek blocks mounted where the centre board cheek block is mounted. The double cheek blocks then direct the lines aft to either rope clutches or cleats. I am using clutches for the halyard lines and cleats for the topping lift and furler lines.

I have seen that single loop main halyard and downhaul all in one. Looks good!

I went down to Repco this morning and picked up 2 x 100A/H Deep Cycle house batteries and a new Marine crank battery. They have 25% off all batteries at the moment. So I got the new marine crank battery for $171, and the 2 deep cycle batteries were $168 each. Both Deep cycle batteries fit into the Mac battery compartment perfectly, and I have moved the crank battery around to under the rear dinette seat on a small wooden platform. It all fits in neatly and is easy to wire up. I have to make up new battery hold down clamps though.

[lbaldwin]

Hi Lance,

I had planned to put a new fitting on the bow but just havn't got around to it. All I did was drill a hole through the plough anchor and use an eye bolt to hold it in the standard bow roller fitting, then wrap the chain onto the cleat and into the anchor locker. Been like that for years and works well enough..


If you want to upgrade to a new bow roller and a new anchor, just get both at the same time at Whitworths to make sure they work well together. Putting a new bow roller fitting on is pretty easy. You just undo the two screws in the front of the V berth and pull out all the foam.


Then you can undo and remove the original bow roller fitting. Fill the two holes and redrill for your new fitting. Here is the bow section looking up from in the V berth.

Thought as much re drilling the anchor. I will also drill the current roller so i can slip a pin through both the anchor and the roller assembly to hold it. Thanks Paul. I've actually been on Little Annie. You were selling it for a while an we came and took a look at it. We bought a new one in the end as the exchange rate was so goo.


You guys should join my 'Macgregor / Tattoo 26 Owners Group' facebook page.

[lbaldwin]

Hi Paul,
I went shopping yesterday and picked up a 100 litre water bladder, good electric pump and a trigger operated shower handle and hose assembly. I am on a first name basis now with manager of our local Boating and RV store. In fact I think he's almost as glad that I brought my boat as I am .... lol

I went for the trigger operated shower set so that it only pumps water when you want it too. We're still going to use the solar shower bag for the end of day shower for the time being, but I wanted something to be able to rinse off during the day after swimming etc.

I have already purchased everything I need to run the lines aft to the cockpit, but I'm having second thoughts about whether it's a good idea? I figure I am still going to have to go forward to tie up the main once it's dropped anyway. so I might leave things as they are for now and just sail it a few times first before deciding whether to do that conversion or not? I'm not keen to go drilling more holes in the cabin roof at the moment as there not the easiest boats to gain access to the cabin roof with that inner fibreglass skin, and I'm not keen to go cutting more access holes just yet.

You definitely do not need to bring the main halliard forward. Its saver to lower and raise the main sail standing next to the mast i think

[Mac26Mpaul]

Hi Lance,

Yes, I remember, your on the canal and have two daughters right. It must have been after you looked, I had some people decided they were coming up from Victoria to look. The day before, I decided to move the boat (mast up) to wash it and promptly hit the side of the house with a shroud and bent the mast LOL. The missus was really happy with me that day!! Luckily Cameron had one spare mast in stock....

Anyway, I didn't really want to sell (obviously) so we decided to delete the "For Sale" adds and to start planning some trips. I was going to buy something like a Sabre 22 but I'm so glad I didn't now as I know I would have seriously regretted it... On the Gold Coast where you are mostly motoring one way and sailing the other, its got to be the best trailer sailer out there (probably why Cameron sold so many), and certainly it is for those of us with children.

I'm not on facebook.