MacGregorSailors.com

Hello again everyone. As you can probably tell I am totally sick of winter and dieing to get sailing but its still 3 months away:( This is like my "Mac Support Group" for winter stranded sailors. My questions for everyone now is.....for 2015, do you have any trips planned already and where are they to and for how long. For me I have a 10 day trip booked to beautiful Flathead lake Montana (that you guys helped me with thank you) in the month of August. I also am taking the Mac up to a northern Lake called "Jan lake" for a week probably in July as I have never fished there but my buddy has and he knows all the hot spots so time to recon Jan Lake. Anyone else got plans?

Hello,
Nothing in the planner yet for us. Employment has gotten sketchy so I will either be incredibly busy with no time to sail or I'm gonna be unemployed with lots of time.

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Cumberland island in Feb .then keys ,the exumas ....

We're heavy into planning for our Great Loop Trip. We are targeting a launch at Grand Haven on Lake Michigan on August 22, southbound, and if all goes well, we will return to that port from out of the north in September, 2016.

I make reg trips into my back yrd shop to work on my boat over the winter when ever the weather is not too cold & if I have time
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new toy to play with now too
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Overhead cubbies
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J

With my new line of work I will have no free time til June, then I'll have about twelve weeks to sail the coast of Maine - Casco to Penobscot bays.

30 000 islands in Ontario. I will probably leave the mast at home as sailing looks difficult.

White sulphur springs. Trying for years, maybe the weather will cooperate this year.

Chinook wrote:We're heavy into planning for our Great Loop Trip. We are targeting a launch at Grand Haven on Lake Michigan on August 22, southbound, and if all goes well, we will return to that port from out of the north in September, 2016.

Take lots of pictures! That is a bucket list item hopefully 2017.

FishyFabs wrote:30 000 islands in Ontario. I will probably leave the mast at home as sailing looks difficult.

I recommend taking the mast for the 1000 islands. The prevailing wind and the current are in the same direction, so sailing east can be a downwind pleasure and faster than it feels.

I do the 1000 islands a couple of times a year and would love to meet up with some other Mac-ers. We are on the kids' schedule though...means being there is more important than getting there.

I agree with u that taking the mast for 1000 islands is a must and did it once before. I am referring to the 30 000 island area on Georgian bay. It looks only suitable for small crafts with shallow draft but would welcome opinions on it.

FishyFabs wrote:I agree with u that taking the mast for 1000 islands is a must and did it once before. I am referring to the 30 000 island area on Georgian bay. It looks only suitable for small crafts with shallow draft but would welcome opinions on it.

Lol. I thought you were exaggerating and had no idea about the 30,000 island area. The 1000 island regions has closer to 2,000 islands and we joke around by calling it the Billion Islands.

After 3 motor failures in about 10 years you would actually have a hard time convincing me to go anywhere without the sails as a backup. But I obviously don't know that particular region.

My first motor failure was a prop strike shortly after I bought my first boat out of a farmer's field. It was a 17' Siren with a 6hp Johnson that had a shear pin that did its job, but I had no idea about things like shear pins and had a 3 hour sail back home at about 1/2 knot the whole way. Makes me wary of shallow areas. The second failure was me forgetting to open the gas tank vent for the Johnson and sailing all the way back home again. The third was running out of gas with the new Etec90 after not realizing what a thirsty beast it was. So, I guess I haven't really had any motor failures at all and I should have said "After 3 captain failures..."

No far trips planed but this is my list for the summer.

Dallas Corinthian Heritage Cup, May 1-3

Rush Creek Founders Regatta, May 23-24

Dallas Race Week, June 21-26

Tommy Wunderlick Reggata September 5

As many weekend on the lake as possible!

FYI, Michigan City, IN has a nice little Mall, park, beach, marina, zoo AND the "Blue Chip" Casino. If you lose several hundred, they'll comp the buffet (so I'm told).

Chinook wrote:We're heavy into planning for our Great Loop Trip. We are targeting a launch at Grand Haven on Lake Michigan on August 22, southbound, and if all goes well, we will return to that port from out of the north in September, 2016.

Michigan City looks like a good possibility for a visit while leapfrogging down the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. We plan on heading across the lake from there or somewhere in the vicinity for Chicago. We won't take the industrial waterway route, since we'll not have any issues involving bridge clearance, once we lower our mast. Unlike the big cruising sailboats, who typically need to ship their mast down to Mobile, we look forward to just lowering our mast to clear the Chicago and Illinois River fixed bridges, and then putting it back up so we can enjoy the wind, when conditions allow. Most sailboats miss out on sailing opportunities on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, and on Kentucky Lake and other waters. The Mac will let us sail much more than most.