Foam blocks in weird areas

[Kittiwake]

As you know, there is a saying, "don't abandon your sailboat for your dinghy until you have to step UP to do it". This reflects numerous examples of the relative safety of the original sailboat ... as compared to drifting in a pfd or dinghy. For sure you won't find me messing with Roger's flotation.
Kittiwake

[u12fly]

I've added so much weight to my boat, I know exactly what is going to happen if it ever takes on water

[seahouse]

For me, knowing whether your craft will sink or float when swamped is of paramount importance. Whether or not it actually sinks or floats is secondary to that because without that knowledge you are ill-prepared to take the appropriate action in an emergency. Far from being a marketing ploy, it should be among the information provided in the passenger briefing prior to sailing.

You want to get away from a sinking swamped boat ASAP and avoid entanglement in the rigging etc before it sinks like a stone. Not the same action you would take on a "floater".

That said, the ability to stay afloat and upright is in itself a characteristic of considerable value. A swamped but still floating 26' hull with all souls aboard is much easier to find in open water than a number of hypothermic immersed individuals floating freely waiting to find out which one of them will be shark food first, if they survive that long. I honestly cannot see any individual, given the choice, choosing the boat that sinks. With the majority of boats, you are not even given that choice. Keelboats must go straight to the bottom without passing go or collecting $200.

Don't underestimate the value of the Mac's ability to stay afloat.

-Brian.

[Tomfoolery]

That said, the ability to stay afloat and upright is in itself a characteristic of considerable value. A swamped but still floating 26' hull with all souls aboard is much easier to find in open water than a number of hypothermic immersed individuals floating freely waiting to find out which one of them will be shark food first, if they survive that long.

Shortly after I first moved up here and got a boat, an older gentleman sailing solo from my marina was out in the evening, and didn't come back. I remember reports of faint radio calls from a hand-held, but they didn't find his body until the morning. I don't now recall whether the boat went to the bottom, or if he somehow fell off, but every time I recall that event, I can't help but think that the big white target of a deck couldn't be anything but a huge help in locating someone at night, or in weather, or even during the day. Life jackets/vests with strobes are good (and necessary), as are floating VHF's with DSC and GPS capability (which mine doesn't have), but having that barely floating white island may buy you enough time in cold water to allow you to live.

I wouldn't necessarily not buy a boat because it didn't have flotation (this is the only one I've had that did have it, in fact), but if it's there, I wouldn't take it out. If I need more space, I'll get a bigger boat. Or leave the extra stuff at home.

Edit: It happened in late summer or fall of 2003 somewhere in Braddock Bay (west of Rochester, NY, on Lake Ontario), and he was in an 18 ft sailboat. The channel, what there is of it, can get pretty rough, as I found out when I got beat up in it on a 23 footer, and almost holed it on submerged pilings from a long defunct railroad trestle that used to cross the bay. I couldn't find anything more than a mention in a yacht club's newsletter.

[BOAT]

I have always wondered why they don't ever put those compressed canisters of air attached to air bags in a nice saftey kit. I know the emergency life rafts have them - you just pull a cable and the cannister of compressed air filles up the raft with air and it floats. Would air bags be good secondary flotation?

[kmclemore]

I like the fact that the Mac has flotation, and there's no way in heck that I'll remove any of it.

Of course, there's the classic photos of the Boston Whalers, too... *all* of their boats are 'unsinkable' as well, and have saved many people.

[Russ]

I've added so much weight to my boat, I know exactly what is going to happen if it ever takes on water

Mine too. Unlike the marketing photo, my boat has a 70hp motor on the back and lots of gear. Plus I generally have the ballast full. Hard to tell if the marketing photo has ballast in. I doubt it.

Here's a sunken S or D


Yea, it's afloat. Might give some people comfort.

So I guess there is a market for an unsinkable boat. Eeh.. I'd rather have the storage as the odds of putting a hole in my boat are extremely low. If I did, it would mean I'm close to shore anyway.

Again, for most people, I would never recommend removing the flotation.

[Kittiwake]

I have always wondered why they don't ever put those compressed canisters of air attached to air bags in a nice saftey kit. .....

I have seen such things advertised commercially for pleasure craft.
Kittiwake

[sunshinecoasting]

I have decided to pack as much foam back in to the forward hatch and screw it down as it was, I am going to jam as much foam in to the locations indicated on the diagram added to this thread, it already has all that foam in there anyway, it looks like the stuff I photographed is additional. So she will be back as Roger intended this weekend.

Just one point, someone in this thread mentioned that they thought the ballast tank was probably empty when they took the factory photo of the flooded X, wouldn't an empty ballast tank cause a flooded X or M to go turtle? I think a full ballast would actually be safer as long as the foam provides buoyancy. I do know that I would rather stay with a flooded Mac than in a PFD, just the barrier between me and the sharks is reason enough to keep foam in. We don't have cold water here (think of my area similar to south Florida) like many of you guys so hypothermia is much less (but not impossible) risk for us.

Cheers, Dennis.

[BOAT]

What about that spray in foam stuff??? I think they call it "great stuff" or somthing?? It floats, right? Or that black fountain foam they use to seal up fountains that expands in the rocks to seal up leaks?? Whai if he prayed that in all the nooks and crannies? Would that make his boat float better even though it's real heavy?

[finding41]

Don't use "Great Stuff". It is an open cell foam. It will soak up water and become waterlogged and heavy.

[finding41]

Just a note as to the sunk boat picture. That's a Mac 25. The 26D/S has a different cabin top and paint stripe. I think there is a video on YouTube of someone diving that boat. It looks as if the aft is sitting on bottom. If it was deeper I think it would be standing strait up on its aft end.

[BOAT]

Okay, I hope that u guys think of somthing because I would hate to hear that guy got eaten by the sharks.

[vizwhiz]

Just a note as to the sunk boat picture. That's a Mac 25. The 26D/S has a different cabin top and paint stripe. I think there is a video on YouTube of someone diving that boat. It looks as if the aft is sitting on bottom. If it was deeper I think it would be standing strait up on its aft end.

It is also probably a 25 because a 25 has a full-weight keel, and although it's a Mac, it will sink like a keelboat with a 600+ pound hunk of steel/lead under it. The 26 S/D is water ballasted and wouldn't be as prone to actually sinking as a 25. So for me, I'm happy to have the foam flotation and the possibility of a swamped-but-floating boat in the event of a leak, as opposed to a boat that actually sinks like a rock.
Along these lines, the M would probably be not-as-good at floating compared to the X or S/D boats because of the 300# of permanent ballast, depending, of course, what makes up the 300# (lead vs resin/sand - a density thing).

It think we're also underestimating the difference between what your boat/components weigh on land vs in the water. Your engine, sure, it's gonna be close to it's land-weight in the water, but fiberglass isn't all that negatively buoyant when in the water...everything is lighter depending on the density. What I'm trying to get across is that it takes less "air space", flotation aids to buoyancy, to keep a boat floating on the surface when swamped, than the total weight of the boat OUT of the water and above the water...the small amounts of foam in our boats would probably do a very credible job of keeping the swamped thing floating, not to mention the bunk cushions and the cooler (which floats) and all the other "floaty" things that would be trapped down below and would aid in flotation...swamped-but-floating type of flotation is what I'm speaking of.

[seahouse]

Yup – because of buoyancy everything weighs less under water. It's pronounced when lifting rocks out of the water – they get heavier the second they break the surface! “Yipes, I'm not so strong any more”.

I would have to assume that the factory's target buoyancy for the X and M was similar, so that there would be a corresponding increase in the foam volume to compensate for the extra fixed ballast in the M. And the buoyancy demonstration in the literature was done with an M, to showcase the virtues of that feature. The fixed ballast low in the boat would make the M more stable if it were swamped in turbulent high waves too.

The bags of sand listed on the Mac website in the section where contractors can bid leads me to the conclusion that the ballast is likely sand, and possibly with a resin matrix. When I was a kid I mixed sand (should be clean sand, like mortar or sharp sand, not dusty beach sand) with polyester resin in my basement as a test (it settles to the bottom), and it made a good solid composite that would be appropriate for ballast.

Unfortunately I will not have the opportunity to visit the factory in California before it closes to confirm this. Maybe Florida once they're operational.

Another point (there are a gazillion more) – a boat that floats leaves the opportunity for self-rescue available.

A “sinker” doesn't.

-B.