Keel for motoring

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ris
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Keel for motoring

Post by ris »

Since we are thinking of doing the Great American Loop again in 2019 we are doing this mod to the boat. We had to hand steer the whole 5,800 miles the last time because without a rudder down the 26 X when loaded will not go straight for even 3 seconds. Nor will the wheel pilot work. (We use the Mac as a trawler) So we have installed a 6" X 40" keel at the very back of the boat. We will post a mod on this if it works. If it does not work we will cut it off, sand the bottom of the boat smooth and repaint. Below is a pic before 1 layer of chopped strand fiberglass and a second layer of woven fiberglass was put on. We used west systems epoxy 105 with 205 hardener. The keel is 2 pieces of 1/2 plywood epoxied together to make it approximately 1 inch thick.
Image
Last edited by ris on Wed Dec 01, 2021 4:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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kurz
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Re: Keel for motoring

Post by kurz »

looks very interesting. Hope it will work.

Why did the auto pilot not work well? Thats the reason it was designed...
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Curwen
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Re: Keel for motoring

Post by Curwen »

I will be dreaming of the Great Loop tonight....thank you!!
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ris
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Re: Keel for motoring

Post by ris »

Kurz with both rudders down the wheel pilot works well. With one down it works ok. The wheel pilot works well with the 26 X unloaded. With a lot of stuff, 30 gallons of water, 4 batteries, clothes for hot and cold weather, 100 lb dinghy, 60 lb dinghy motor, food, toilet, fridge and other boat stuff, the wheel pilot will not work. The reason it will not work is the back slides around more and more as the wheel pilot tries to stay the course until it finally turns in a circle and losses its way. We spent over 25 hours on the phone with the tech guys and even sent the unit back but no luck. If you sail and have the rudders you will have no problems. We are hoping the keel will do what the rudders do which is keep the back from sliding around. Let you know in a few weeks if it will work.
vizwhiz
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Re: Keel for motoring

Post by vizwhiz »

Hey ris, is there a reason you don’t putter along with the rudders down? If you were motoring at high speed, i could undersand, but you’re using it as a trawler... :?:
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Ixneigh
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Re: Keel for motoring

Post by Ixneigh »

The skeg mod on my M model makes a big difference.
On sailing as well.
Before cutting off the addition, you should sail the boat with it once or twice. Also, dual fins help more than single imo

Ix
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ris
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Re: Keel for motoring

Post by ris »

vizwhiz we only use the Mac as a trawler. Since we do not sail we took all the rudder stuff off that hooked to the motor. We did devise a way to hook one rudder directly to the motor so we know the auto pilot will work with the one rudder but not very good. Which is why we are trying this keel mod. When we bought the boat we bought it to do the Loop. In 2016 there were 2 other Macs doing the loop. We all traveled together at different times. They both had auto pilots and both rudders so they got a lot of use out of their auto pilots. We did not take our Mast and rudders as they are not needed on the loop and in fact cause hassle. Mike on Chinook and Lee on his M both took their masts. I think Mike logged about 6000 + miles and only sailed 600 miles. Lee even sailed less. They both love to sail but the loop is a great place to leave the sailing stuff at home. You cannot sail on canals and rivers much and it is hard to sail on the inter coastal. We normally travel at 7.5 mph which is 2500 rpm on our 4 stroke honda 60. So if we had the rudders we could use them with the auto pilot. If the keel does not work we will most likely build two shorter and wider rudders and hook them back up so we can use the auto pilot. We will also be trying out our new prop. We have a 14 X 9 aluminum prop that we had re pitched to a 14 X 7 that seems to give us a better top end when loaded for travel. With two people, 2 batteries ten gallons of gas and the ballast full we can go 17 mph. We tried it with the ballast full in order to simulate a loaded boat. With the 14 X 9 prop we could only get the boat to 13 mph with the ballast empty and the boat loaded for travel. A 26X planes at about 16 mph. Last loop we could not plane the boat so we stayed at 7.5 mph. A couple of times being able to go 16 mph would have been nice. For instance the trip across lake Michigan which took 8.5 hrs, would have been shortened with the ability to do 16 mph.
vizwhiz
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Re: Keel for motoring

Post by vizwhiz »

Aaahh... no rudders when you’re trawler-ing. Makes more sense now. I like the idea of a set of shorter rudders to help. Just leave them down and locked straight to act as a skeg. Then you could always use them to help maneuver in tight spaces at low speed also...
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ris
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Keel for motoring a success

Post by ris »

Forty-two inch long keel by 6 inches high changes the boat handling. If you have ever tried to motor a 26 X onto a trailer you know what a circus that can be. Even with ropes from front of trailer to rear supports someone usually ends up in the water lining up the boat with the trailer. Today with the new keel, we had about a 7 mph wind from the port side of the boat, 50 feet from the trailer I just lined up with the front trailer ladder winch and it went straight on. No sliding to the side, or using the trailer posts to spin the boat nothing. Just drove straight on the trailer the first time. I have never done that even in absolute still water and wind. It was worth all the fiber-glassing just to make loading the boat easy. Out in the lake with almost white-capping waves hitting dead on the beam the auto pilot would hold the course. Now when we loaded the ballast with water the auto pilot would eventually loose track. But there were some nice sized waves on the lake. The other nice thing was you could turn loose the wheel and the boat would stay straight for quite a while. (remember there are no rudders on the boat).
A while back we re-pitched our 14 X 9 prop to a 14 X 7. With the boat loaded with everything ( including 30 gal of water) but not our clothes and food we could do 16 mph. Later on we emptied the water bag and we got to 18.5 mph. With the water bag about half full at 4500 rpm we could do 14 mph with a burn rate of 3 gal per hour. Our normal travel is 2500 rpm, 7.5 mph with a fuel burn rate of .8 gallons per hour. Loaded like this our top rpm is 5700 rpm, so 4500 rpm is not WOT. After we travel for a couple of hundred miles in the spring, we will update this info. The motor is a 60 hp honda with a 70 hp lower unit which is like a Mercury big foot.
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kurz
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Re: Keel for motoring

Post by kurz »

when you have no rudders, did you think about a course keeper?

Image

Maybe it would be the easiest and cheapest to upgrade your OB steering.
OverEasy
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Re: Keel for motoring

Post by OverEasy »

Hi Ris!

Wondering if you might give an update 4-5 years on regarding your Skeg mod, handling, experiences?

We’ve been using Over Easy as a trawler and have successfully using a partially deployed swing keel on our Mac26X as a Skeg.
It has really improved our low speed (6 knots or 7 mph) travels.
We fully retract above those speeds as our boat tracks well without it.

It’s an interesting mod that others have mentioned periodically on the forum and we don’t think we’re alone in our interest about your long term use experiences.

Best Regards,
Over Easy 😎😎🐩🐈
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