Webb Chiles, a famous circumnavigator who was once the record holder for fastest solo monohull circumnavigation and was the first American to round the Cape of Good Hope solo, is attempting his 6th circumnavigation at age 72. He left San Diego last month and is currently in Honolulu, leaving tomorrow for Samoa.
Reading his passage log is fascinating; he details the minutae of life at sea--All the tiny battles and problems. Great information for people who want to live aboard in small boats. Also a cautionary tale for the foolhardy
I'll be reading his blog and cheering him on for the next year or so as he goes.
I've read a few circumnavigation blogs/books now and they are very interesting. One common theme seems to be a lot of naysayers in your home port and a lot of support in the foreign harbors of the world. The Moore 24 is an interesting boat, I wonder what a couple bulkheads and bolted on keel would do for my ? Am I sounding foolhardy yet?
Who was the world conquering sailor we don't hear from any more? Mad Mike? I would love an update on him and his exploits.
For reasons unknown my Blue Water Aspirations run to the ill tempered North Atlantic in a route to my ancestral lands, I'm not sure I'd take my though but a large OB would be handy for dodging Ice Bergs!
Good luck to Webb, I hope I'm still doing stuff like that at 72yrs old!
Were I fool enough to attempt a circumnavigation in a Macgregor, it would be a 26D with a bolted-on keel that ran all the way through the trunk, bolted at the deck and keel, and terminating in a lead bulb of about 1000 lbs. That would give the D an angle of vanishing stability greater than the magic number of 150 which means it would immediately roll back over when knocked down, without pause and in less than a few seconds underwater. My second choice would be the 26M fit the same way, with an 8hp motor. It would not be a pleasant trip, but it would be possible.
I've always thought the factory should offer these boats in a "real keel", non-power sailor variant for the occasional offshore mad man.
Mad Mike appears to have drifted off never to return, as offshore sailors are wont to do.
just read the blog and had to youtube the classical music he plays wile I read. Would a passage to Hawaii in a 26 M be a realistic thought or not enough boat for off shore waters. Ive heard of a married couple going to the Bahamas from Miami in a 25 venture . Really its a pipe dream of mine to do a round the world trip . but who knows what tomorrow will bring.
A 26M could probably make it to Hawaii safely and without much difficulty.
From San Diego or the coast of Baja in the winter and spring, going to Hawaii is an very easy trip. People have done it in kayaks and canoes. The winds are steady on a broad reach, and the most difficult part of the trip is the first 100 nm or so, when you can still just abandon and come back to San Diego easily under power.
The problem is getting back.
There's no direct route. Ever. The strong north to northeast winds along the Pacific coast of North America are unrelenting--they never change. Getting back to the west coast directly by sail isn't possible, ever. There are a lot of sailboats that never come home from Hawaii for this reason.
You have to go due North and around the North Pacific High, which is a constant high-pressure zone that moves around throughout the year and is basically the source of all the weather patterns in the Pacific. You can't go south of it because it creates the N/NE winds, you can't go through it because it's absolutely calm and a sailboat doesn't carry enough tankage to do that generally, so you have to go over the top of it, and then come back down around it to the Pacific Northwest or points south.
The problem with that trip is that it's fine until you round the NPH, but all the arctic lows coming from Alaska line-up above it and move south like airplanes leaving a carrier deck, and one of them is going to catch you on your way back down the coast of Alaska. Squalls with 20 foot waves and gale force winds are common and to be expected, all year round. It's basically the weather from Seattle, out at sea.
MacGregors have two seakeeping problems in this scenario: Broaching, and turning turtle.
Broaching:
The maximum wave height a MacGregor can withstand broaching is 8 feet, due to its 23 foot waterline. A broaching wave comes from behind, overtakes the boat, turns it to port or starboard, and pushes the hull over its own keel to roll the boat. Keelboats can be rolled this way, and water ballasted boats have no hope of avoiding it. The only thing you can do to prevent broaching is to hit these waves bow-on or stern-on and manage the helm such that you remain perpendicular to the wave all the way through its pass. Being hove-to in these waves is the recommended storm tactic for this reason, rather than lying ahull (dropping sail and praying). If you're hove to, the wind keeps you bow-to-the-wind, which is also bow to the waves. Remaining bow-to while lying ahull is almost impossible. This would be exhausting for a human but its something an autohelm with a 9-axis sensor could technically be programmed to handle (but they're not).
Now, being rolled is okay if you don't...
Turn Turtle:
The MacGregor 26M has an Angle of Vanishing Stability of 110 degrees. If you rotate the boat to 110 degrees, it will no longer pop-up, but roll upside down. The problem with this AVS is not that its low, but that it rolls very slowly, because the ballast doesn't weigh enough or have enough lever arm to right the boat quickly. With an AVS of 110, the boat may take more than 5 minutes to complete a roll, and may remain turtled in calmer seas.
The "magic" AVS is considered to be 150: Boats with an AVS this high roll so fast that they will be upright within 30 seconds--faster than the occupants can drown and faster than the boat can take on significant water. No boat can avoid being rolled under all circumstances: The trick is to have an AVS high enough to prevent rolling from being deadly. To have an A Open Ocean rating, the minimum AVS is 115, and many say 120 is more realistic.
A third problem is the "coastal fittings" used on MacGregors--I don't think anyone honestly believes a MacGregor's rig could survive being rolled a few times in a storm. Having bent my mast three times, I know I don't.
Now, none of this means that a MacGregor 26M couldn't be modified--and not expensively so--to be at least offshore capable. My new rig would fare a lot better than stock with its Dyneema stays, carbon spreaders, and a bigger forestay with properly swaged fittings. With a solid 1000lb. bulb keel with a reinforced fin that's bolted to the deck and the hull, the boat would be in the 150 AVS range that makes it survivable. If, in the first sign of real trouble, you hauled down the main and brought the boom and main inside the cabin, there would be little to beat itself up and the mast and rig would be largely unburdened of weather punishment.
I think the hull and deck is more than capable of withstanding the punishment. You'd have to do some work to latch down the lazarette lids and the helm seat, and you'd want to figure out how to make the cabin top hatch and companionway hatch waterproof. All these mods could be done for under $5000, which would mean a MacGregor would still be the cheapest reasonable boat to the task.
With these mods, the worst case scenario is that you lose your rig and motor, and have to call for help with an EPIRB, not that you're dead. And that, in my opinion, is a perfectly acceptable risk.
Catigale wrote:Even cheaper than modifying my Mac is a reward ticket from ALB-SAN and a hitchhike to Oceanside where my new Ocean 38 is slipped and ready to go......
That is indeed cheaper (although currently your boat awaits you in beautiful National City--which is a half hour closer to SAN--a drunken sailor could walk it)
Yeah, really guys, Matt is right - I have spent most of my life on Trailerable Sailboats and i would not consider any of them capable of a trans-pacific crossing because of the compromised keel. This was the very reason why The Coastal Recreation Company offered their Balboa 26 boat in a swing keel version for a trailer and also in a fixed keel version for a slip. The keel boat Balboa 26 was a very heavy boat and about the only version of a trailerable sailboat that I think one should even consider using for a trans-pacific crossing.
The water up offshore of San Fransisco and north are just way to treacherous to risk. If you go on the swell-watch website on any given day and look at the waters off Northern California to Oregon you will see 30 foot swells and 40 MPH wind as a common thing.
I'm not gonna sail that stuff in a MAC, no way would I do that on purpose.
Your better off in a submarine like the Benny-37-1/2 or the CAT38 or those other boats that are designed to take the waves over the deck and go through them as opposed to over them.
The "cork in the bottle" theory of floating it out may be possible in small boats but when the boat turns over, (I guarantee, it WILL turn over), the rigging must be strong or it will tear right off the deck. The rigging gets torn of boats much stronger than the MAC ALL THE TIME. Water pressure to too strong to fight - it will win. The rigging will get torn off.
Catigale wrote:Even cheaper than modifying my Mac is a reward ticket from ALB-SAN and a hitchhike to Oceanside where my new Ocean 38 is slipped and ready to go......
That is indeed cheaper (although currently your boat awaits you in beautiful National City--which is a half hour closer to SAN--a drunken sailor could walk it)
I did walk it, as a drunken sailor, a couple times back in the '70s
And...... it's really easy to take a wrong turn and accidentally cross the border too.
No comment on this ocean going Mac stuff. It's been talked about here, over and over again.......... and I'm still trying to forget you know who (all the old timers on this forum know exactly who I mean).
? Am I sounding foolhardy yet?
