New onboard - Venture 25

[RickD]

Greetings...

Name is Rick Donaldson, Ham radio call sign is NØNJY and I'm in Colorado Springs.

My wife and I purchased a 1979 MacGregor Venture 25 this past Saturday. A few months ago we started discussing "retirement" and decided we 1) don't want to actually "retire" - because this basically means "quitting" and "settling down" and 2) we like to travel and want to travel on a somewhat limited budget. We also love the Caribbean.

About 30 years ago when we were first married we had a short, fantasy discussion about someday learning to sail and cruise the world. We never had the discussion again in all those years until we started our new "retirement discussion".

After some serious examination of finances, savings, and property we decided we're GOING to go with the original idea - eventually cruising around the Caribbean (if not the world).

We've set out our plan to buy a smaller boat here in Colorado, take classes and learn to sail - then get on a couple of sea-going live-aboard cruises where we can get more experience on the sea.

We've both grown up around boats, in the Great Lakes, but neither of us ever SAILED.

Over the last few months we started putting our plan together (to pay off some bills and save money) - and find a boat.

Saturday morning we picked up the boat we decided we wanted from a man in Gunnison, Colorado (about 185 miles from us). Made a couple trips there, examined the boat, compared it to other boats and after about two weeks made our decision to go with the Venture 25.

It was small enough to control by one person, big enough that it's not a small cat with my butt in the water most of the time, and we can spend weekends or a week on it on a lake. The boat is in excellent condition - with some minor issues I need to repair. Sails are good. Has a working, albeit, tiny motor (9 hp, which I understand is normal - and for what we want, perfect) and it needs a little work, but not too much. One important thing... the boat was never named in it's 29 years of life. I think it is looking for a good name

I JUST found the manual (on this site I believe so thank you to whomever did that and re-typed it to be readable!) and now I can disassemble the rigging and put it all back together to make sure I know the boat inside out and outside in... (I don't think I know want to know it upside down).

One other reason for getting the boat... it is trailerable, and it has a dropdown keel - something that I wanted to make sure about. That way, I can use it in shallower areas, but still have the FEEL of the KEEL. Eventually, we want to get through all the ASA certificate classes and get to the coast where we can start looking for a bigger boat - the one we will eventually sail on.

Last thing... if for whatever reason we get out on the ocean and decide its not for us, we will probably keep out smaller boat and stick to lakes and rivers, but I don't think we will stop sailing now that we've gotten bitten.

Hope to help out where I can.

IF you have any amateur radio related questions, I hold an Amateur Extra Class license, and my job for 26 years in the military was radio communications. I've been involved in HF type communications since I was about 9 years old. So... I went from a shortwave listener building my own antennas at 9 to repairing radios around 10-11 and running my own TV shop when I was 16. I went in the military, was in Combat Communications for five years, spent eight years at the White House Communications Agency with Reagan and Bush and another twelve years in Colorado here in a Tactical Airlift Wing as NCOIC for the communications flight.

These days, I still keep my hand in electronics where I work - so, if you guys have radio-related questions, or electronics questions I can probably answer them.

In return, I would hope you all will be gentle on a Newbie Sailor when I ask dumb questions I ought to know.

Thanks all!

[Hamin' X]

Welcome aboard, Rick. It is always good to have another Ham on the forums. Questions come up about electronics in general, as well as radio specific ones and your additional input will be welcome.

Congrats on the new boat. there are a number of 25 owners here and the others will be glad to lend their expertise from the other boats, as well. No dumb questions, as long as you don't know the answer. Play with the search functions of the website and you will find a wealth of knowledge.

~Rich---Hamin' X---N7ZH~

[Pete]

There are quite a few of us, that have recently purchased our winter projects. Mine is a '77 venture 22 with no name. Should be lots of discussion on these boats over the next few months.

[Venio]

I just bought a Venture 22 1979. I'm starting work on it tomorrow. Good luck with your plans.

[noahvale]

I bought a Venture 25 this summer. For it's age, it's in great shape. They are solid boats, but very basic.

[RickD]

hi folks, thanks for the welcome.

I did some glass work on the upper deck. Had to remove all the hardware for the mast bracketing and re do, sand and paint the area.

Over the years it leaked and the wooden overhead in the cabin had started to rot. It looks good now.

I've got to find a not-windy day, with not much chill in the air to step the mast up and check out all the hardware, shrouds, stays and everything.

Also removed all the wood from the outside last week, cleaned it all up, sanded and re-stained it all. It was pretty weather-worn.

I don't know how most of you feel about polyurethane coatings but I used it on the wood because this is Colorado.... and the weather can do very bad things to wood (my deck is 10 years old and I'm already looking at replacing many of the floor boards in my back yard!)

Anyone have any ideas on building a new rudder for the Venture 25? Suggestions? Where can I find that information? I've done massive searching on the internet and have had very little luck in locating much on how others have done it (NONE for the Venture in fact).

So, if anyone has insight or can point me to some resources, that might be helpful.

Thanks

Rick

[noahvale]

IdaSailor sells replacement rudders. Kinda pricey, but they are an upgrade. I would love to get one of the kick-up rudders.
http://www.idasailor.com/catalog/defaul ... 47b7e10277

[johnnyonspot]

Yes, I would buy rather than build, but if you have all the hardware it would be a fairly simple deal to make one out of wood, leaving space to glass over the entire thing and thicken it up to the point where it is a nice tight fit in the bracket. If you go this route be sure to drill all the holes bigger than needed, then fill epoxy and re-drill the correct size so that the interior wood of the rudder is completely sealed off from the elements, just as you would do when through-bolting anything on deck through the wood core. But again, were it me, I'd simply go with the Ida Sailor rig.

[RickD]

Hi folks,

Been a really long time since I visited or posted here. Sorry.

I became very disillusioned with the online "cruising" community. I hopped around several sites over the past two years and found some of the attitudes of people to be simply rude and even downright stupid.

Asking simple questions gets you called "Noob" or worse. Giving advice about things you might be an expert in but doesn't agree with the prevailing (usually wrong) beliefs held by a number of people who claim experience has shown them science is wrong does not do well for a person.

So... I bailed out for the last few months.

BUT, since I started here a couple years back, I have bought my boat, fixed her up, sail her most weekends in the lakes in Colorado.

Yesterday, my wife and I wrote checks paying off the last of our credit cards, set our Retirement Date for March or April 2012 and are still learning the ropes - so to speak.

We've gone to San Diego for courses, learned to sail, put a hull of a lot of hours out on our own boat and did a major bareboat cruise in the Virgin Islands (2 weeks) back in June.

We sailed a 40' Jeanneau and decided that we want a monohull vessel, most likely a ketch somewhere in the 35-40 foot range.

We're paying the last of some bills off, putting away our cruising kitty money and I've been working diligently on making sure I can run email over HF radio WITHOUT a damned expensive pactor III modem (I refuse to give the Germans money for a proprietary piece of gear).

I've not only been able to do it well, I'll be, if I can, setting up a permanent radio station on the Ham Bands running Winmor for the next year or so. Any hams here that need to send email can do so when I get set up.

My station is in the middle of the US therefore away from areas where hurricanes hit, and with good power, good altitude for HF antennas and I want to help the Sailors and Hams.

So... Anyway, forgive me for not posting for some time, but I'll try to visit from time to time now.

73 - and Fair Winds

Rick, N0NJY

[RickD]

By the way, I bought an Ida Sailor kick up rudder and tiller. Man, that thing is simply AWESOME!

[Sumner]

.......and I've been working diligently on making sure I can run email over HF radio WITHOUT a damned expensive pactor III modem (I refuse to give the Germans money for a proprietary piece of gear).

I've not only been able to do it well, I'll be, if I can, setting up a permanent radio station on the Ham Bands running Winmor for the next year or so. Any hams here that need to send email can do so when I get set up.

My station is in the middle of the US therefore away from areas where hurricanes hit, and with good power, good altitude for HF antennas and I want to help the Sailors and Hams.........73 - and Fair Winds Rick, N0NJY

Hey you are going to love retirement, Ruth and I certainly do. We are busier than ever, but doing what we want .

Keep us informed on the e-mail deal. I'm not a ham now, but would like to add that feature to the boat eventually, especially if we go to Mexico with it.

If you get over to Utah stop and see us,

Sum

Our Trips to..

Our Mac Pages

Mac-Venture Links

[Catigale]

Asking simple questions gets you called "Noob" or worse. Giving advice about things you might be an expert in but doesn't agree with the prevailing (usually wrong) beliefs held by a number of people who claim experience has shown them science is wrong does not do well for a person.

Heaths website is one of the few sailing websites that is civil and still informative, but dont believe anything Scott posts unless it is about bacon.

[RickD]

Howdy all.

Haven't posted again in some time except a question today.

Thought I'd just give an update here.

We're working on the house to put it up for sale in a while... I figure we're going to be here one more year, plus or minus.... retiring early for sure.

Just trying to get the house empty of JUNK. Man, it's amazing what you collect after 34 years of marriage, raising five children and even some of the grand kids!

We have mostly decided this year to NOT keep our Venture at the lake, saving the nearly 500 bucks storage fee and we're going to travel a bit around the country and do some sailing elsewhere.

I'm strongly considering buying new sails since we've had the boat 3 seasons now and I'm thinking these are original sails and are pretty blown out. They work, but the jib is really only a storm sail, the main is kinda floppy now adays

I've done some work inside, changed all the running rigging out, replaced a couple of the blocks, some cleats and lighting. At this point though - I don't really NEED to do more, unless I just do minor things.

Right now, sails are looking like the next, most important thing. Maybe when we are closer to putting the house up, at that point I'll look at selling the boat too and maybe get some of my money back out of it so someone else can have a nice little boat.



Rick

[RickD]

Thought I'd drop a note here real quick.

We've got a line on a 41' ketch. A friend is visiting that particular marina this week (it's out of the country) and he's going to look the boat over for me and send me pictures.

Wife and I have had some discussions about "What If" stuff. Came up with a plan A and plan B.

Plan A - is if everything works out well on this ketch, we will likely do that purchase (based on the common sense stuff of a survey and sea trial etc of course) and keep the boat in it's present location for the next year. We'll fly out a few times, including checking out the boat and doing sea trials, and then over the course of the year we'll have her hauled and whatever work needs (painting, etc, whatever). About one year from now we'll be retiring and then we'll head there and put her back in the water and find our next few destinations.

Plan B - Keep our little Venture (named her, "Winds of Change" - no, I'm really NOT an Obama fan hahaha, we came up with the name before he showed up on the scene - it's more about changes for my wife and I) and we will do a year or so of cross-country trailer sailing, lakes and other areas where friends live. We have quite a few friends scattered from California to Virginia, and points in between - and it JUST SO HAPPENs that nearly all within a few miles of large lakes. Imagine that! (Including the Great Lakes in Wis., Mi. and other areas up north). So with some careful and prudent planning we ought to be able to spend about a year (north in the summer, south in the winter) catching up with friends, enjoying some lake sails and traveling SLOWLY across country without having to rush everywhere. So, we can sailing to windward at 60 mph!

Anyway, that's the thoughts. Running through this site and others, I see a lot of people do similar things full time, and part time and you all have given me a lot of ideas on mods to make the boat more comfortable.

So - sometime next week we will know if we're going to pursue the ketch (expecting pictures tomorrow or Wednesday - my friend is doing some sailing himself and then he's going to take some good pictures of the ketch). So if not, then I'll be ordering new sails in a few days for the Venture, a genoa and a new main. Doing some inside work to make things more comfortable, find one little leak and repair it, look at some rigging changes (I want a heavier set of stays on the boat, the ones there are... in my estimation too small). We need cockpit cushions (don't have any at all) and the old things inside need new covers, a new Vee berth set of cushions and ... oh, I have a list of things the Admiral gave me....

So I might not get a lot of sailing done this year but we will certainly have the boat prepped and ready for a long trip next year!

[Don T]

Hello,
Sounds great, the wife and I were looking at maybe retiring someday but first came taking care of our aging parents then the financial situation the last couple of years. Looking out to the future it it appears I'll have to work until I drop. We get one good trip in a year, usually in the San Juan Is or up into the Canadian gulf islands. I love hearing about Ketch's and sailing around the world. We once made plans to do that but now it seems out of reach.

Good luck and enjoy,

Don T