Weak links in the macgregor

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BOAT
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Re: Weak links in the macgregor

Post by BOAT »

The way that stupid people like me find out about bad stuff that can happen is to look at actuarial tables. My dad was an insurance man - that's how he made the money he used to buy boats and take us all over the pacific. In his insurance bags he had these things called "actuarial tables" that had statistical counts on everything that was ever recorded over the past 30 years - stuff like the age of people when they died and what they died of, in every accident recorded he had info on the make of car and year, same for boats. Fires, drownings, geography - storms - you name it - all these books were thousands and thousands of tables. Dad said "with these books and the Bible you can tell the future" - he always seemed to know what was going to happen and nothing ever surprised him.

I'm not as smart as my dad was, but I did learn about those tables - so now I can look up anything by going to the actuarial tables (now a lot of them are on the internet too).

I looked up loss of life on boats and it was divided between passenger and crew: number one for passenger was falling overboard - number one for crew was "loss of control" in two categories: propulsion and steering.

Your highest chance of dying as the skipper is loss of steering. Those are just the plain facts based on the raw statistics. If your going to gamble Vegas style all the winning gamblers will tell you to play the odds.

If something is gonna break *something that can risk your life) - chances are best it will be rudder steering - so carry a spare system. I think the one kurz found is a good one - and I'm sure there are others out there too.

*I think Roger knew these things too - thus the dual rudders
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Ponaldpe
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Re: Weak links in the macgregor

Post by Ponaldpe »

kurz wrote:Maybe you should go with a course keeper system
Image

Question is if it is strong inough...

BUT: As you can it stay mounted all the time and arrive in situations where you are worry about the normal rudders... Just take the rudders out of the water BEFORE they get damaged an sail with the ob/course keeper...

At the moment I will not try it as I have a hydrofoil - and like it...

Imagine how cheap you can go just take something that already is ready to go.

With this engine rudder add a tiller to the outboard and have a back-up for the steering too.
whgoffrn
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Re: Weak links in the macgregor

Post by whgoffrn »

The only thing I worry about with those is size ..well I guess also strength and durability..... I don't doubt they wouldn't work on a calm lake but I know many times when ive been in rough seas my outboard prop is coming all the way out of the water ...... our rudders already suffer from having too little surface area and why a lot of people add more .....anyrhing is possible but I have doubts on if the little surface area those have if they would even work ..well in rough seas that is

This guy I'm talking to is going to make me some rudders from white oak and from the reading I've done on wood types vs strength white oak is one of the strongest..... with solid white oak rudders, vices on my rudder brackets to keep them from spreading apart and the rudder grudgeons welded to the outboard base plate so there is zero risk of them moving ....i can't think of any way this wouldn't work to add LOTS of strength and function like a normal rudder system....the only problem would be if I ever needed to replace a geudeon id have to use a grinder to break the welds
Bill at BOATS 4 SAIL
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Re: Weak links in the macgregor

Post by Bill at BOATS 4 SAIL »

BOAT wrote:number one for passenger was falling overboard
My recollection is that the number one for both male passengers and crew(s) falling overboard was while doing number one.
Bill at BOATS 4 SAIL :mac19: :macx:
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sailboatmike
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Re: Weak links in the macgregor

Post by sailboatmike »

whgoffrn wrote:The only thing I worry about with those is size ..well I guess also strength and durability..... I don't doubt they wouldn't work on a calm lake but I know many times when ive been in rough seas my outboard prop is coming all the way out of the water ...... our rudders already suffer from having too little surface area and why a lot of people add more .....anyrhing is possible but I have doubts on if the little surface area those have if they would even work ..well in rough seas that is
As the water gets deeper the space between the swells increases in general, this being said in deep water the boat won't pitch as much and thus the rudder will stay in the water far better.

I know of boats built for specific locations and the length of the boat is designed to sit between the swells so its not constantly pitching
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Re: Weak links in the macgregor

Post by kadet »

*I think Roger knew these things too - thus the dual rudders
No Roger did this cause he wanted to plonk a great big outboard right where the rudder would normally go 8)

The jury rigged dual rudders on the :macm: are it's greatest compromise in my opinion, the pipe homemade rack steering is woefully under engineered for the task, lacks feedback and has a crappy cheap outboard wheel and steering cable. I would have preferred a better engineered rack with proper bushings and tiller steering as in the :mac19:

But every boat is a compromise and I compromised on the steering to get the other features I wanted,big volume, easy tow and setup and a good turn of speed when needed :P
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kurz
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Re: Weak links in the macgregor

Post by kurz »

another question:
If you loose the rudders: How about sailing and let the OB idling. Would this not be enought power for steering with the idling OB?
So you eat 1 litre of gaz, for a 10 hour ride you need just 10l...

I never tried, but what's wrong about that?
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kadet
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Re: Weak links in the macgregor

Post by kadet »

kurz wrote:another question:
If you loose the rudders: How about sailing and let the OB idling. Would this not be enought power for steering with the idling OB?
So you eat 1 litre of gaz, for a 10 hour ride you need just 10l...

I never tried, but what's wrong about that?
Nothing but I bet you would need a little bit more that just idling in gear beating to windward to hold the boat on course. In fine weather with well balanced sails you might not even need the motor on, but you are not going to lose both rudders in fine weather :?
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Re: Weak links in the macgregor

Post by Ixneigh »

After giving the situation some thought I have decided to make a molded fiberglass boot, and fin, that will attach to the lower unit by fitting over the gearcase buldge. The fin will drop down 2 feet and have enough area to steer the boat effectively in marginal conditions.
This will negate the need for an upgrade to the rudder system.
Once the conditions become to bad to make progress to weather, (30k maybe) and you are forced to take an off the wind course, the sailing rudders come up and the outboard with its extended and very very strong fin, go down. The boat should steer fine long past the point the mast would stay up.
This fin will offer some drag under power but when cruising I hardly ever try to put the boat on plane , so the boot could stay on the whole cruise, or get removed after traversing a sketchy area like the gulf stream. The motor should function fine at 6 knot economy speed and maybe even steer better. Ill find some way to make the boot easily installable with maybe four bolts (not into the OB itself)
The fin could be shaped so that when the motor is up, it is mostly out of the water.
This will be an off season project.
Ix
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Re: Weak links in the macgregor

Post by BOAT »

Ixneigh wrote:After giving the situation some thought I have decided to make a molded fiberglass boot, and fin, that will attach to the lower unit by fitting over the gearcase buldge. The fin will drop down 2 feet and have enough area to steer the boat effectively in marginal conditions.
This will negate the need for an upgrade to the rudder system.
Once the conditions become to bad to make progress to weather, (30k maybe) and you are forced to take an off the wind course, the sailing rudders come up and the outboard with its extended and very very strong fin, go down. The boat should steer fine long past the point the mast would stay up.
This fin will offer some drag under power but when cruising I hardly ever try to put the boat on plane , so the boot could stay on the whole cruise, or get removed after traversing a sketchy area like the gulf stream. The motor should function fine at 6 knot economy speed and maybe even steer better. Ill find some way to make the boot easily installable with maybe four bolts (not into the OB itself)
The fin could be shaped so that when the motor is up, it is mostly out of the water.
This will be an off season project.
Ix
Yes, that sounds reasonable - I think for those who have the skills to make a rudder for the OB it could be a very nice option for storms. For those of us (me) who are not much good at metalwork I think the off the shelf options are probably good enough to steer the boat in a storm.

Ixneigh summed up the problem quit well - the issue is heavy seas and high wind so great you can't sail - one year back in 72 with my folks at Cortez Bank we got a 30 foot following sea that was breaking at the top from 28 knot winds - we could surf down the wave because we had good rudder control and the A23 had the rudder well UNDER the boat where it was protected. Still, at the top of each crest where the wind was the wave would SLAM the back of the boat and sometimes you just could not stop the boat from turning to the side. These are the situations that concern me about the M rudders - I am even worried about them when they are in the UP position. They might be a lot stronger than I think - I don't know because I have not taken 'boat' to Cortez Bank yet but plan to this summer.
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March
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Re: Weak links in the macgregor

Post by March »

Cool! I like that!
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Re: Weak links in the macgregor

Post by Highlander »

kurz wrote:Maybe you should go with a course keeper system
Image

Question is if it is strong inough...

BUT: As you can it stay mounted all the time and arrive in situations where you are worry about the normal rudders... Just take the rudders out of the water BEFORE they get damaged an sail with the ob/course keeper...

At the moment I will not try it as I have a hydrofoil - and like it...

Imagine how cheap you can go just take something that already is ready to go.
Rene
Where can u buy these eng rudders if I can see more pic,s of them I could easily fabricate a set of my own & maybe make them slightly either wider or an deeper

J 8)
PS As I already have the Ida Sailor H/P rudders so I can very easily carry the originals as spares on extended cruises hopefully this yr , the plastic Ida Sailor rudders r now made with fiberglass by Rudder Craft USA
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Re: Weak links in the macgregor

Post by BOAT »

They make a few variations - this one is spring loaded so it will automatically flip up out of the way when your going real fast:

Image

I sort of like this one myself - but I would want a latch to make sure I could lock it in the up position because it's not something I would use much. It looks easy enough to install - I don't think installing it from the cockpit would be all that hard.

I guess this guy just pulls his up using a boat hook:

Image

I guess these are real popular for folks plying the North Sea (! I should think so!!) That's a rough place!

Still, don't know much about people from the Netherlands but I am told they are pretty nice - here is their email - I hope they speak English in the Netherlands? (They are really close to England, right? Like a boat ride away?)

Here is the address

Adress : Sweelinckhof 2
ZIP code and City : 4941 WP Raamsdonksveer
Country : The Netherlands
Phone : +31 620629938
E-mail : [email protected]
whgoffrn
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Re: Weak links in the macgregor

Post by whgoffrn »

It's definately an interesting design but I wonder if there were seas bad enough to bend our stainless steel brackets and snap our rudders would those hold up? And is there enough surface area to adequately steer in seas that already destroyed our steering systems on our boat...... it may quite possibly be an upgrade but I can't help but wonder...
I took one of my rudders off today and plan to mail it to Texas this week ...should take the guy about a month to make me 2 white oak rudders...will post pics when I get them back
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kurz
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Re: Weak links in the macgregor

Post by kurz »

In fact I don't know how strong the course keeper are. BUT: If you use it instead of the stock rudders in very strong seas und you destroy the course keeper, you still have your rudders... But even more important: The things that you keep twice in your boat will never destroy... Becouse of that alle spare parts you bring home new :D
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