Measurable improvements.

[delevi]

Do you know where you can get a steering wheel brake, or is there a mod for this? That is the one thing I wish I really had.

Gemini,
Mine was a dealer installed perk, standard on all their M boats. There is a knob which you can turn on the wheel shaft which will give tension to the wheel. It won't lock it completely, so you can still reach for the wheel and make adjustments, but enough so the wheel won't turn on its own. Works under sail & power. It is basically a rubber fitting over the shaft of the steering wheel, sitting inside the shaft housing. There is a threaded hole through which the knob threads. As you tighten the knob, the rubber constricts around the shaft of the wheel. Arena Yachts might be able to sell you one and ship it. 415.456.2644 (Jeff or Dan) Still wish I had autopilot instead, but I'm saving my boat bucks. (probably next year's mod, along with new sails.)

Will that list soon be available in paper backk with numerous PICTURES ! or maybe a DVD/VHS like speedy rigger . .

Divecoz,
I plan to take some pictures of all the mods I made and post them here. Every time I'm at the boat working on it, I forget the camera. Stay tuned

Leon

[Highlander]

Hi Scott

have reduced mast rake from 4 to 2 degrees but have not sailed with it yet but it should help

installed outhaul
main sail reefing
added 4ft genoa track on both sides of cabin top
changed from a sloop rig to a cutter rig with a 4ft bowsprit gives my mac 19. 75sq ft of more head sail. going to try sailing with 3 head sails spin, gen, jib when I get my spinnaker
next back stay adjuster
ida sailor rudders maybe
right now I'm in the proccess of adding a wing to my center board
have pic's posted on the mac19 yahoo site have'nt figured out how to post on this site yet

cheers John

[Scott]

have pic's posted on the mac19 yahoo site have'nt figured out how to post on this site yet

Post a link to the site, I'd like to see the sailing equivilant of a 429 in an MG!!

[They Theirs]

[Catigale]

TT in that lower picture the main sheet is cleated back on the transom..is this a mod or are they just shackling it to something light to keep it out of the cockpit...???

[They Theirs]

[Terry]

Someone somewhere claimed that a Mac never quite makes it up out of the hole so therefore never truly planes, yet those top two pictures definitely appear to be Macs' planing. I believe the M19 has a max HP of 40 but those two must be sporting more than 40hp. Without the spars the M19 makes a nice cabin cruiser.

[Scott]

By asking for pic of a 429 in an MG I was refering to sailing with 3 headsails and main!!

[They Theirs]

Highlander provided these from his Folder

[Dimitri-2000X-Tampa]

Pretty cool Mac...it would be great to have two furlers like that!

Someone somewhere claimed that a Mac never quite makes it up out of the hole so therefore never truly planes

Don't believe everything you see in print, once the bow wave is behind the stern, the boat is planing. The nose goes down after breaking over the bow wave, just not as far down as conventional powerboats since it is a hybrid hull.

[Frank C]

Don't believe everything you see in print, once the bow wave is behind the stern, the boat is planing ...

Not debating you Dimitri, but curious to fully understand your definition. TT's M19 picture shows the nearest I've ever seen to a Mac really planing. But if it was beyond its bow wave, shouldn't the bow be back in the water again?



Looks to me like this boat is ON its bow wave, not beyond it ... ??

[Dimitri-2000X-Tampa]

Frank, unfortunately, this could easily degrade back into the too long discussion of yesteryear.

The reason the bow isn't in the water is because of the hybrid hull design. There is always going to be part of the boat in the water. When the boat is planing on the rear part of its hull, it is designed to lift the displacement type bow out of the water. The definition of planing is that the boat is now skimming near the top of the water versus pushing/plowing through the water at displacement hull speeds. When it is plowing through the water, the displacement of water causes a wave which comes off of the bow. The photo I used before for this is here:



You should be able to see the bow wave coming off the bow and rising up on the hull where the arrow is. There is no such wave in the picture above of the Mac19. As you transition from displacement mode to planing mode (about 7-11mph in a 26X), the bow wave moves further back until you have passed it. This is the hump that you see in your wake. Now the only thing you see coming off of the bow of the boat anymore is the spray deflected from the chines, not a displacement wave.

When you are doing 12-13 mph, that hump is very close to the stern of the boat, as you are on a very slow plane..just barely planing. As you speed up to 15-16 mph, the hump moves away from the boat and starts flattening out. The boat comes out of the water further and rides further back on the hull too as your planing speed increases. If you have a really big motor that gets up to 30mph, then there is a lot less of the boat in the water than at a 16mph plane.

Here is another way to look at it, the supersonic jet never leaves the air, but the air is necessary for sound waves to occur.



I think all this fluid dynamic stuff is similar in air and water.

[Captain Steve]

Dimitri,

Thanks for the Pic of Wildest Dream on the 2003 San Juan trip, going out under the Deception Pass Bridge. Thats BK behind me...and...the photo credit goes to Frank M!

[mighetto]

We are currently moving Murrelet to the San Juans where we hope to duplicate the wonderful MacgregorSailors.com experience of 2003. There are 40 M and X boats attending and the event is a Blue Water Yachts cruising club event. This year a not quite race around Lopez (I think) is to commence on Saturday. (two weeks from now) The objective will be to keep up with pearl and you can use your engine to do that - just keep track of RPMs and time under power please so we all can compare notes.

By far the biggest measurable improvement in X performance is a new racing head sail. It will set you back about 2000 but wow. The other improvement not mentioned and you can measure it is to lift a rudder. Vangs on the X are also important and moving crew forward when ever possible can also be measured on GPS. Keeping them still also is important.

I expect to follow pearl and replace the wires with carbon fiber rope. This will allow me to keep full sail up a bit longer in increasing wind. One of the things I will be looking at carefully are how those fiber shrouds are holding up on pearl. The carbon fiber centreboard line I tried out this winter proved execellent but no speed improvement. There just isn't enough line for drag I suppose.

This summer we are using unpainted and waxed foils. There is a new wax sold through West Marine that sistership SummersTime has been successful with. Its pricy but I have become tiered of her crew bettering mine and think this part of Kelly's success. I think a seasons worth is about 40 bucks. The wax apparently retards growth pretty well.

South Sound Sailing Society has a fellow running for office that is encouraging MacGregors to race Island and Inlet Series races in South Puget Sound. Bill hopefully will prevail next tuesday. His platform involved starting all pocket cruisers out half an hour before others. Anyway back to the boat. Take Care

Frank L. Mighetto

[Duane Dunn, Allegro]

I can confirm that all those Macs in the picture of Steve's boat were not in anyway shape or form planing. I was at the head of that line of boats as the leader they were silly enough to follow out through Deception Pass into the San Juans. We were going just a tad under 10 knots as we all crossed Rosario Strait.

http://www.ddunn.org/LogBook28.htm

Frank, see you in a few weeks in Friday Harbor for the Rendezvous. We'll be in slip G7. Oh, by the way, the Saturday event is a 'Sail Around Shaw Island', not the much larger 'Lopez'. There is a 4 hour time limit for making the loop.