Newbie Mac owner. Mistakes made and lessons learned.

[fireant]

Hi all ....
I thought I would start this thread as I have had just about zero sailing experience and thought my folly's might amuse the experienced captains and serve as a warning for the rest.

First of all a very big thanks to Darren (BrazDaz) who generously gave up part of his weekend to help the crew and my self with our very first sail on the swan river in Perth Western Australia.
Darren gave us lots of tips and provided a much needed security blanket for this "3 hour cruse" (insert gilligans island music here).
Cheers Darren very much appreciated.

We have been out twice in our boat so far.
The first time we just putted around the river getting used to it.
Mistakes made included.

MISTAKE 1. Read and re read ALL the manuals for your equipment.
Particularly your chart plotter manual if you have one. I thought I had it right ... but I missed a very important minus sign when setting up the keel offset. (I obviously need my prescription changed for my glasses, having said that it was microscopic even with a magnifying glass).
So ... you guessed it .. I put in a positive keel offset and not a negative one so I thought I had a lot more water under the boat than was actually there.
And ... you guessed again..... I hit a rock.
Thank god I had the centre board and rudders up that day and I only managed to bugger up a prop. (which fortunately still worked well enough to get us home).

MISTAKE 2. Do a full load (full amps) check on all your equipment with all lights radios TV microwave and washing machine etc on.
We took so long rigging it was dark by the time we found our first mooring for the night and when I went to plug in the spotlight it worked .... (for a while) ... then blew the main fuse to the switch panel. (I am actually an electrician so this is an even dumber mistake my me).

MISTAKE 3. Take 2 boat hooks. One is bound to fall over the side ..... edit: this is going to be our next boat hook. http://www.wrino.com/
One did .... and no spare.
We are going to tie a small line on the hook and clip it to the boat before attempting to pick up buoy mooring line. My wife finds it very difficult to do if she can't just drop the hook and put both hands on the buoy line. The line on the hook will just let her drop the boat hook without worrying about it.

Sailing and rigging tips from Darren were invaluable.
I think the best one was.
Leave every thing you can connected to every thing else that you possibly can when de rigging to enable you to do a quick rig.
I had pulled just about everything apart. Firstly just to check it all ... and to make it a bit neater when loading up the boat.
Neatness gets in the way of sailing time. So as ugly as it looks .. the mainsail is NOT going to be put in the sail bag every time. In fact it will probably never see the inside of that bag again.

Second trip out with Darren also included a couple of errors (on my part.)
Not really a mistake but prepare well ahead of time for your docking.
ie: centre board up, rudders up. (one down helps for manoeuvring (Darrens tip).
Rushing these at the last minute can distract you just at the wrong time.
Darren and myself are both pilots (me an ex one .. with only 100hours) .. and Darren reminded my of the old, 'Fly ahead of the plane" advice given to me as a student. It applies equally well to boats.

MISTAKE 4
The swim ladder leg will take a nice little chunk out of your starboard rudder if you don't have it fully up. (I wondered why the rudder had been repaired there before, previous owner had obviously made the same mistake.)
Unless the ladder is secured with the pin and not just hooked up with a rubber strap (like mine) the little leg that sits on the transom will bite the trailing edge.

Anyway .. we are all still alive .... and had a great day apart from my son getting a sore throat and fever. So sailing was cancelled early.
I will continue to add to this thread as more mistakes and tips for newbie's emerge.

Thanks again Darren,

Phill

[Matt19020]

Darren,
There is definitly a learning curve for these boats ...some have more of a arc then others...Most important, All are well and once you get all those bumps out of the road you will have smooth sailing!
My first outing 4 yrs ago:
http://www.macgregorsailors.com/forum/v ... f=9&t=7843

[fireant]

Wow !! mast coming down is NOT good.
You have made me feel a lot better
Thanks for the tip about doing up the vent plugs too.

A Mistake 5 I made and forgot to mention was not securing the fuel tanks.
They kept sliding around and hitting things.

Secure the fuel tanks with straps.
My straps are going in before the next sail.

[restless]

our first outing nearly ended with being assisted in by coastguard... and the second and third we limped home, the fourth we actually were towed home! (all steering failures)
Check out my top check list http://www.ironengineer.com/mac/minimod ... ng/nb.html
anybody wants to add to it let me know!

[pmcco]

The first time my wife and I went to Pirate Festival we were leaving Beaufort docks going to Cape Lookout I ran into the dock . And you guessed it, there was about 20 people on the dock to see it all.

[Boblee]

Phill
My advice seeing you are a sparky would be to rewire most of the wiring and fuses etc and also upgrade any new cable sizes for voltage drop.
Instead of two boat hooks use one that floats and if you are going to tie it to the boat use a clip so that it can be used at any point on the boat and quickly also have it fixed where it is available quickly.
The swim ladder should never be left in the down position in the water as if you forget it and get underway it lines up perfectly whith the prop of in our case the powerthuster and the results are not only ugly but expensive .
Don't worry about stuffing up as most if not all of us have done worse.
Best of luck with future excursions

[fireant]

The swim ladder should never be left in the down position in the water as if you forget it and get underway it lines up perfectly whith the prop of in our case the powerthuster and the results are not only ugly but expensive .

The ladder was up. Under way but just with a okkie strap. ... just not up far enough.... so when we put the motor right over to get out the transom end on the beach we took the bite out then.
Darren was saying that it needs the bolt installed on the swim ladder to be fully up enough to clear the rudders when they are fully up.
Lesson learned.
Bog is cheap ... it was already bogged there anyway ... from the previous owner

[Berber Boy]

Hi fireant from an almost newbie in NSW, Wow! I thought I had a few mishaps mainly in docking my craft or getting it on the trailer but thanks for sharing with us. Thats how we can learn and for me feel comfortable to a degree about my many mistakes.
My second-time out I had fitted the mod of a quick release on the motor - steering connection. I forgot to connect it. Floated the boat off the trailer with motor idling in front of an avid group of ramp watchers admiring the shiny new With no steering I was being blown into a group of moored boats until a guy in a tinny took a rope from me and held me off until I could connect. Embarassing!
I have broached in front of a ferry and last trip out had to dump sail in a hurry in front of the Water police cruiser as I tried to enter a narrow channel under sail and suddenly found myself in less than 2m of water. Why does this stuff always happen in front of a crowd?

Good luck and keep on sailing. I am still learning how to sail the Mac. it is very different

BB

[Mac26Mpaul]

|Hey Phill
Wondered what had happened to ya. Glad you finally got her bottom wet. As others all say, a few hiccups is totally normal and things will only get better I'v had mine for about 8 months now and certainly still get it wrong sometimes. A few months back I was trying to navigate the channel out the front of my place by myself, under sail, and found myself in shallow water and then grounding (no damage to board) I was then stuck there on the board. I quickly threw out the hook so I could sort the sails and everything out, but the anchor line then decided to wrap itself around the board and totally jam up in it, so that I could not even pull the board up! I thought I'd have to swim to sort it out but managed to get it all sorted with my boat hook (which I had only just bought a few weeks before).... That boat hook you linked to looks pretty nifty. I have one of those extendable ones from Whitworths which I have handy on the lifelines using the lifeline clips you can also get from Whitworths.

You can see it on the port lifeline in the photos here
http://www.trailersailerplace.com.au/fo ... s&start=25

[fireant]

|Hey Phill
Wondered what had happened to ya.

Hi Paul.
I live here now .... I can't be bothered with the Mac Bashers on the other unmentionable site so this is my forum from now on.
Lots of good guys on there I know and I really appreciated the advice they all gave on which boat to choose.... but I think this site is better for my needs as a newbie.

Thanks for the tip on the boat hook location.

Phill.

P.S. Just in case you don't know, there is an Aussie forum on this site ... you can't see it unless you subscribe to it. Go into control panel and enable it. (under user groups)

[Mac26Mpaul]

mm, maybe I shouldnt have linked you to that tspfordimwits.org website thread... TSP is okay because they dont let the Mac bashers get too carried away with their nonsensical tripe, although yes, its always there in the background. I try not to let it faze me too much because there is some very useful info shared at trailersailerplace.com.au. The reality is - At the end of the day, most of those guys (Tim and all them) would swap their old crappy barges in a flash for a nice shiney Mac.

Dont let them get ya down, the Mac is a fantastic boat for the purposes you described you want a boat for (basically exactly what I originally described to them on that site, but I ended up with totally the wrong boat for me, even those she was a nice little boat. The Mac is exactly what we wanted

But yeah, I understand your point, why bother with some dimwits childish negativity when you dont have too.

[Boblee]

Actually haven't been on that site for a while and thought it was gone as I couldn't access it last time but the TSP stickers on the boat prompted a bloke to come and have a talk when free camping on the Murray on the way home.
Agree though most would swap their boats in a flash if they had the chance and for sure their wives would do it quicker.

[BrazDaz]

Hey Phill
I didn't tell you about the time i hit the bridge at Fremantle. But the lessons learned were put the rudders all the way down and center board part way down. then wait till all the other boats have gone through and the wash has settled down. The old wooden bridge is at the shallowest and narrowest part of the river so the water flows fast when the tide is going in or out. stop first and think ahead.
Daz

[fireant]

I have been through there in a tinnie .... thought I was white water rafting !.
I had better get a tape measure out to find out just how high off the water line the top of the boat is with the mast down....
Might even write it somewhere on the boat so I don't forget.

BTW helm is completely in bits today. Pulled the wheel off ... swapped over the tacho and the speedo and put on a grab rail on the helm. (the upside down U thing.) Ordered straps for the tanks from Klaus too ... fitting them when they get here.
Fixed the throttle on with bolts .. not self tappers as it came. That fibreglass is too thin to rely on self tappers.
Got a neat little bearing for the bottom of the mast too. Cheap as. Direct swap replacement part for the crappy copper washers that were virtually seized solid when we got the boat.
2 new spreaders go on too.
More mast tweaking. gotta get that sideways bend out.

Electric water pump next.
Mattress upgrade.
and on and on...... and on.

[Mac26Mpaul]

Sounds like you are having heaps of fun playing with the boat Thats deffinately half the fun of owning one. Looking forward to seeing some of your mods in the mod section.

Where did you get this direct fit bearing to replace the washers? You deffinately need to get the sideways bend out of the mast, as the smallest bit will mean the mast will bind up and not rotate. Mine was set up very badly and would totally bind as soon as it moved one way. I spent about half a day climbing up and down from the boat adjusting.... Finally I got it to the point where it works okay, but not in a light breeze. I'd be interested to see if one of these bearings would improve it any more.