MacGregorSailors.com

Check out the article on pages 64-67 in the July issue of Latitudes & Attitudes magazine. Interesting article on trailering from New Mexico to Florida, then sailing to Bimini in a Mac 26X. Sorry they don't have the July issue online until the end of the month.

Heartland boating is doing an article on Macs , think its the next issue .

I was interviewed for it , because of our plans to retire aboard ours , and why we chose a
to retire on.

Gypsy wrote:Heartland boating is doing an article on Macs , think its the next issue .

I was interviewed for it , because of our plans to retire aboard ours , and why we chose a
to retire on.

Retire "aboard"? As in live aboard?




--Russ

Yep !

We plan to live aboard for a few years , till we run out of money or to old to , then move back to dryland .

We are selling our house and downsizing our furniture , etc. just keeping our tow vechicle .
We own a vacant lot and have placed a shipping container on it , that we will store our stuff in it and the lot will act as an address , while we are aboard.

We have been doing some modifications to the such as making the bow berth a queen size , bought two 450 watt solar cells that will go on the hardtop on the stern . ETC

Our kids are grown , our parents are all passed on, nothing holding us back from traveling fo as long as we are able.

That doesnt seem far fetched to me. My pops and I lived abord a 28 foorter for 2 years together and I lived an additional 2 years on it when he got a bigger boat. And it was more space limited than a Mac due to inboard engine and the space eating ice box and pump out head.

Its been done , quite often .

On the internet is Bill & Ell Fiero who have lived aboard a 22' C-Dory for 10 years now and have no plans to move to dry land .

We have known people who have lived aboard small boats and its not that bad.

We have spent up to 2 weeks aboard our 22' bayliner cabin cruiser , and were not ready to go home at the end of it.

That was one reason we picked a Mac , it is 26' of cabin , what you need to live aboard.

Just spent 3 days on Le Zephyr with my wife , my daughter and my dog. I could have lasted longer , but the Admiral gives the fleet orders and a captain obeys!


Day 1


Day 2


Day3 to remind you that when dock side ...there is also the floating deck to hang out on.
Q1

I will give you 4 mo. before you abort your trip, if Trailer sailing it could last as long the both of you are Tiered and spent, this could last for a year until the lauch and Trailer fees add up.
Give this serious thought and don't go off on a drift.
Dave

Gypsy wrote:Yep !

We plan to live aboard for a few years , till we run out of money or to old to , then move back to dryland .

We are selling our house and downsizing our furniture , etc. just keeping our tow vechicle .
We own a vacant lot and have placed a shipping container on it , that we will store our stuff in it and the lot will act as an address , while we are aboard.

We have been doing some modifications to the such as making the bow berth a queen size , bought two 450 watt solar cells that will go on the hardtop on the stern . ETC

Our kids are grown , our parents are all passed on, nothing holding us back from traveling fo as long as we are able.

Gypsy wrote:Yep ! We plan to live aboard for a few years , till we run out of money or to old to , then move back to dryland ....

Neat, go for it and keep reporting back. I think this whole concept really depends on the people involved. 3 days and some are ready to come in and 3 months for someone else is just a start. I know a couple that lived for years happily in the back of a pickup with a narrow homemade camper. They always were camping, so they weren't in the camper all of the time, but the camper was smaller than the inside of our .

The longest we have been in the boat, water and road, has been a month and we hated to quit, but had some other obligations. Our Lake Powell trip was 18 days with only a stop at a 'on the water' marina for an hour or so to get some stuff and if I wouldn't of been hurt we would of probably been out for another 10 days by ourselves. It seems like the longer we are on the boar the larger it gets, not the other way around and we have no where the room inside as a or .

Our real test will be this fall when we hope to be gone for 3 months with most of that on the water. If things get bad for some reason we will go ashore and take the Suburban on a trip or something, but I doubt that will happen.

Ruth and I gave some thought to selling some stock and other things and buying a cheaper 30-34 foot and try living aboard for a year or more cruising and then selling it (probably at a loss, but we would have the memories). We wouldn't of sold the Mac and would of gone back to it. There were some problems with the plan. We live in Utah about 1500 miles from gull cruising and so would not of been able to work much on the boat and with the budget we had in mind I'm sure there would of been things needing worked on. Before and after there would be slip fees with us being a long ways from the boat. Afterwards depending on how long it took to sell there could be a bunch of slip fees. The idea is still there, but there are so many places that we can go with the Mac and places we can go that would be very hard to go to with a larger boat it just didn't make sense to us.

For us a year sounds great as long as we were moving most of the time. We wouldn't be interested in being tied up in a marina for most of that tiem. We all have different reasons for owning a sailboat and like to use them in different ways and that is great in my opinion . Mike and Sandy (Chinook) are our heros on here,

Sum and Ruth

Our Trips to..

Our Mac Pages

Mac-Venture Links

So Ivan, you have an awful itch to go live on a Mac for a while eh!
BM, I couldn't do that by myself, let along with 'her',(and she has a much longer fuse and less powder at the end of it than me).
I certainly wish you luck and hope you keep us posted as to how life works out for you and your wife.
Good luck.
Cheers
Phillip

Our plans are to live at anchor , most of the time, and travel . We plan to bring our kayaks and the inflatable dinghy. Besides the most cabin for the length , we also chose a Mac for its energy effiencency .
We are getting 10 mpg and hope to supplement that with sail.

We modfied the bow berth into a queen size berth . The rear berth will become a storage room .
We also are putting a small refrigerator back there.
We are installing a real toilet and shower in the head.

2 25 gallon water bladders in the bow w/electric pump ,

A hardtop over the stern with twin 450 watt solar panels on top of it. Twin 100 amp hour batteries.
two 500 watt inverters .

We cut our cruising teeth , first in a 19 foot cuddy cabin , then a 22 foot full cabin . But the cabin still was only about 10 feet long , 6 of which was bow berth . It did have a generous stern
We lived for two weeks at a time on this boat and never felt cramped . As someone said , the boat gets bigger as you live on it. I think that is that you get a routine down , and automatically get out of each others way.

We look forward to traveling . First the Great Loop , then the Bahamas . Then we might put her on the trailer and go west .

We aren't retiring on no great amount of money . Hopefully with carefull planning and carefull spending we can make it last . To achieve our dreams we are willing to live modestly.

Gypsy wrote:Our plans are to live at anchor , most of the time, and travel . ......

.......... We modified the bow berth into a queen size berth . The rear berth will become a storage room...

........ A hardtop over the stern with twin 450 watt solar panels on top of it. Twin 100 amp hour batteries.
two 500 watt inverters ...............

............. We aren't retiring on no great amount of money . Hopefully with careful planning and careful spending we can make it last . To achieve our dreams we are willing to live modestly.

We spend less while on the boat than at home, so I think your plan is realistic with your preparations and if you stick with it . How much can one spend while on the hook and only going ashore for supplies when you actually need them? Not much from our experience.

What size are the 450 watt panels and I'd like to see pictures of the install when you finish. I'm adding an 80 watt and a 60 watt to go along with our 40 watt and the 3 of them will take up about as much space as we have. Also have you considered just going all 12 volts and getting rid of the large inverter losses. We've added an Edge Star 63 quart 12 volt frig and we feel that is going to even cut our shore trips down more and make cruising more enjoyable. If I was going to the Bahamas for say the winter I'd think about a water maker also. Not cheap, but it would be convenient and one winter there might go a long ways towards paying for it.

We also enlarged the V-berth and mainly use the aft berth also for storage, but try and keep it so that we could move back there for a night if needed. The V-berth can be a bumpier sleeping area if you have a bad weather night.

I think you have a great plan, sounds like you know what you are getting into and wish you the best on it,

Sum

Our Trips to..

Our Mac Pages

Mac-Venture Links

We have been planning this for many years , down to the smallest detail . Which included what boat to buy , and what we could afford to put gas in . The makes use of all the space available in its hull . Our 2252 Bayliner had more wasted space than you can imagine .

While in the learning curve of the One thing I have discovered is the " glide factor" especially when docking . The Mac glides , the Bayliner pretty much came to a stop when you went to neutral . The Bay had to be pushed thru the water , where the Mac doesn't offer as much resistance even though its a larger boat.

I would rather go with 12vdc refridgeration , but the cost is way to much . The bar size refgridator we bought cost a few hundred dollars , compared to over a thousand for a comparable 12 volt.

I am WRONG on the solar panels , they are 80 watt each . I don't where 450 watt came from .
Please excuse my senior moment .

They are approx 2 x 4 feet each . The plan is to build a tubeular hardtop , starting behind the boom crutch and extending 4 feet astern . Then mount the panels on top of this.

Sumner wrote:Neat, go for it and keep reporting back. I think this whole concept really depends on the people involved. 3 days and some are ready to come in and 3 months for someone else is just a start. I know a couple that lived for years happily in the back of a pickup with a narrow homemade camper.

I think this advice is spot on. It depends on the people and their needs and their relationship.

As a teenager cruising for 2 weeks with my parents and 2 sibs was rough. We got on each other's nerves but it was probably because teens have other ideas of fun. Duane's family seems to really enjoy the Mac cruising.
For some people, living that close is too close. For others, it's a pleasure.

Some people are higher maintenance. Showers, potty stuff etc. can be a challenge for those who can't adjust to limited facilities. It all comes down to the people.

I agree with Sum, you MUST keep a blog. There are people who would love to live vicariously via your posts.

I would rather go with 12vdc refridgeration , but the cost is way to much . The bar size refrigerator we bought cost a few hundred dollars , compared to over a thousand for a comparable 12 volt.

I read that 450 watt panel and thought it must be HUGE to have 2 of them. Thanks for the correction.
RE: Fridge. You may want to rethink this. It's a biggie. That inverter to run a house current fridge has many faults. Do the electrical math and you may find it will really chew up your batteries. The buzzing the of inverter may drive you nuts also.
We bought the same 12v Engel Fridge Sumner did. It was under $500 and works great. I have one 80w solar panel and it has kept it running for weeks now. Top loading also makes more sense on a boat as it keeps more cold inside. 12v fridge is really the way to go.

on edit:
A 500 watt inverter probably won't start a 110v fridge. Operative word "start". Whereas the fridge may only draw 200 watts, it takes MUCH more on surge to get the compressor started, probably in the order of 1000 watts and then it will settle down. Microwave ovens are also misleading as most don't really have a "low" setting. They toggle on/off to achieve lower cooking. As Sumner pointed out above, living on the hook really means living on 12volts unless you use a genset. The Honda EU1000iA is a great solution for small boats like ours.



Good luck with the next journey in your life.



--Russ

This fridge we got is 3' x 18 " with a small freezer .
It draws about 1 amp .87 by one spec sheet , 1.15 by another

Thats less than 150 watts , the two panels are 160 watts total , and the fridge , hopefully won't run all the time , so we ought to be able to cover it . That and the alternator on the motor .

It shouldn't be much of a load on a 500 watt inverter.