Keeping a Mac at a Slip

[Sassy Too]

Good evening fellow sailors.....We had put our name on a list at a local marina,for a slip,about a year ago.Well,they called last Sunday and said they had a slip open.Although it is more money then I want to spend,plus Hurricane season approaching,I am going to take it for two months.I can't wait,it is going to be so great to just drive to the Marina,untie the lines,and go Sailing .But,having never kept a Boat at a Marina,I would appreciate any helpful hints to be sure of both my mental state{worry about boat not at home} , and proper tie-up at the slip for "no damage". I thank you in advance! Happy Sailing.....Don

[Frank C]

Florida, huh?

Does your boat have bottom paint?

[Scott]

Before you leave after securing your boat, Coil your dock lines. It looks cooler.

[Sassy Too]

Frank C....I'm sorry, I guess I neglected to say that the marina is on a Lake,off the St.Johns River.Fresh water. In answer to your question, anyway ,no I don't have bottom paint. Now that you mention it, I think I read someware that some Fresh Water lakes could be more trouble than Salt Water , true? Don

[Frank C]

Don,
True, I think. More importantly perhaps - your warm waters. The reason I asked was just as fore warning. It seems that some Macs don't have a problem, other do. My own was in salt water for a couple of months without any problem. In your case, I think a month is safe ... beyond that, I'd have wished for an epoxy barrier coat, at least.

[Terry]

Well I can't address the bottom paint or epoxy coat concerns but I can tell you that you will only slip once and then never look back. I did it the first year trailoring the second year slip for three months the third year for four months now I am going to slip for six months. The convenience is just too much to ignore, it is a bit costly but the benefits far exceed the cost. I don't have epoxy or bottom paint, no severe problems yet but the growth is a bit of a pita and I do have to pull it out & pressure wash the bottom every six weeks. This year I am trying the Aurora Marine VS721 bottom wax with the marine growth inhibitor, hopefully it will help. You will never regret the slip, but you will get spoilled by it, I did and now I would not have it any other way. I don't use bottom stuff because here in the Pacific Northwest sailing season is only 6 months at best, usually four so it is not worth the hassle & cost even though the waxing is a major effort.

[Beam's Reach]

I'll ditto Terry & Slamjammer's comments. We kept our Mac at our cottage about 30 minutes away from our home for part of the summer and then at a marina 3 minutes from our home for the rest. We made the long 30 minute trip only a few times.

But once at the marina, I was at the boat almost every day. Some days I'd just leave the office, pick up a sandwich and go sit on the boat. Turn on the VHF and listen to the marine forecast or put a CD on and eat my lunch before heading back to work.

Even better - a few times we picked the kids up from school at 3:20 and headed out for a late afternoon September cruise. Watch the sun set, back to the dock for a barbecue, then home to bed. Pretty terrific treat on a school night! And something we couldn't do if we had to rig and launch.

We used the boat so much that we stayed until well after the marina officially closed for the season. All the fixed keel boats were out for a good month and there were only about 3 of us tralerables left.

[Frank C]

WADR ... I would never assume the same results for my hull as may be reported by a dozen other Mac owners. If you had the hours to read in just this archive, you'd find reports of several owners who experienced blistering of their Mac hulls in a disappointingly few weeks ... and even more likely in warm waters. My conclusion is it's simply luck-of-the-draw. Macgregor does a pretty good job on the majority of his hulls, but they occasionally err. And, it's nearly impossible to get the factory to correct the problem.

That repair effort and cost would make it, to me, a disasterous disappointment. Read up on the complexity, plus the months of lost time to properly repair blisters. Even if only a minor probability, this is one example where a stitch-in-time yields perponderant benefits.

Just the epoxy barrier coating will prevent the blisters, even foregoing the anti-foul coating. I think a professionally applied barrier would be about $600. Any alternate widget - GPS, wind meter, dodger ... if I was planning to slip the boat, they would be less important, to me.
YMMV

[Dimitri-2000X-Tampa]

A couple of comments:

Scrubbing the boat every couple of weeks sounds like great fun...not..

My boat has been in a wet slip in FL waters for several months at a time with just some crappy bottom paint on it, no barrier coat that I can tell. Not a single blister on it. Also, there are parts on the bottom (ie. near the CB slot) where the paint was completely worn away. Lots of barnacles.... but no blisters. My O'Day I sold a few years ago did have blisters though. So what's the deal, some difference in manufacturing technique? Or maybe that a inboard keel boat has a wet bilge so its wet from both sides?

[Frank C]

... My boat has been in a wet slip in FL waters for several months at a time ... Not a single blister on it.

My O'Day I sold a few years ago did have blisters though. So what's the deal, some difference in manufacturing technique? Or maybe that a inboard keel boat has a wet bilge so its wet from both sides?

Wet from both sides ... has prolly no bearing on the issue, since water tends to migrate through the gelcoat into voids underneath ... not to penetrate or migrate through the various layers of fiberglass. Read David Pascoe's several articles on blistering, but be also aware that the explanations for blistering are many and varied. (Search on Pascoe)

The consensus is that some boats have a defective layup of the first (exterior) layer of mat beneath the gelcoat (think backwards, where the exterior gelcoat is the first layer into the mold, followed by the initial layer of glass mat). The critical defect is a failure to fully wet that first layer of mat with resin, leaving air pockets within the mat. Water pressure (just the weight of the boat) over time forces water into those voids. The water cannot penetrate the other layers of glass (inwards), so it bubbles the gelcoat outwards = blisters. (It's revealing, for me anyway, to realize that 90% of blisters are BELOW the waterline - hence, this particular explanation seems valid).

Few Macs ever report this problem. A recent poll showed about half of owners keep their boats on the water, so I doubt it's just a simple result dry storage. It's fortunate that Roger seems to build in enough volume that he's got a handle on the QA process. However, when a rare hull gets through his factory to result in a blistering problem, it's been rare (also) to see any owner reports that Macgregor is willing to fix it. The hull warranty leaves enough wiggle room for a blue whale to skinny thru!

Remediation is so costly and time-consuming, it's not worth the risk. I'd sooner shimmy on my back under my trailer to avoid the problem.

[Ron]

I keep my boat on a mooring year-round in Coconut Grove, FL. I can go for a short sail in the evening after work, which just would not be possible if I trailored the boat. Two concerns you should have are:

1. Bottom paint. Other's mentioned the need to paint the bottom. Here in Miami it is also common to hire a diver that 'scraps' the bottom every month or so. I repainted my bottom in October and haven't needed any cleaning yet, but last year with paint about 2 years old I did need a monthly cleaning. In Miami they charge for the Mac around $30.

2. Hurricane Season. The mac is much safer on a trailor anchored to the ground. My hurricane plan now involves pulling the boat out. It is possible to protect the boat in the slip (Boat US had an article with some recommendations) but why bother when the Mac is so easy to trailor?

Enjoy.

[Dimitri-2000X-Tampa]

Thanks for the clear explanation Frank, I had always wondered about that.

Reading the various posts, the key difference is the northerners can get away with scrubbing the bottom versus the Floridians who have to scrape

Once that paint wears off and you get hard fouling (ie, barnacles), you can't just scrub it off with a long handled brush with the boat in shallow water. You really need to don a mask (preferably with an oxygen tank) and get under the boat so you can scrape with a paint scraper. Its no fun. For that matter, you can get some barnacles on the paint too after it gets a bit old. I used to use a diver for many years too (scubaclean of St. Pete). They will come out to your house once a month if you have a home dock. Water is chilly enough in the winter to need a wet suit too so its just not something that most busy people could keep up with on their own IMO.

[Terry]

Reading the various posts, the key difference is the northerners can get away with scrubbing the bottom versus the Floridians who have to scrape

Wish that was true, but even up here in the cold Pacific Northwest if you leave an unpainted bottom in the water too long (more than 4 weeks) those little suckers find a new home on your hull. I have found that as long as I haul out every 4-6 weeks I can blast off the growth with a 1600 PSI pressure washer, wipe it clean with a cleaner, then another waxing and back in she goes ( a one day job). I have noticed that if I leave it too long that I get muscles and barnacles homesteding on my hull and even after a pressure blast they still leave a residual root attachment that requires a bit more elbow grease to remove. Actually the little guys appear after a couple weeks but if you get them before the grow too big they come off easy. Just prepped my hull for waxing last weekend with Aurora boat scrub before I try their new VS721 antifouling wax, can't wait to see if it lives up to the marketing hype. Even though I cleaned the hull thouroughly last fall I cleaned it again and was quite impressed with the condition of the hull while I was under there, no visible blemishes, blisters, cracks or holes, looks good as new. I guess mine has no manufacturing defects or it would show by now one would think. I am still loathe to applying the epoxy & bottom paint since I am never in the water more than 6 months, usually less due to the short sailing season here so I will take my chances.