MacGregorSailors.com

Has anyone set up a rig to pump out the 150 gallons of water ballast in the event of an unwanted grounding?

I believe in the old sailing days, the cannons were dumped over board as they were part of the ships ballast.

I"m setup to blow the water out but have never done it, others have using a 12 volt blower like used to blow up mattresses, water toys or in my case the Zodiac inflatable. For the S and D you pressurize through the visual check hole and then open the valve at the bottom of the tank. Not sure how the X/M's are setup in this regard.

Since my boat is usually heavily loaded and sits lower in the water...







I raise the check site and now have a fitting that I can screw into to do this (used JB weld on the fitting),

Sumner

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Our MacGregor 26-S

Our Endeavour 37

Our Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida

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I also have a air pump for blowing up dinghy's and such that I thought could be inserted in the air vent. It probably wouldn't pump all the water out, but enough to lift out of the water a couple of inches.

Of course we could always jump over the side and push off.

--Russ

Maybe a couple years ago now on a different forum, we were discussing what pressure was required to empty the ballast using air and Viswiz (who post here) figured it out. It was complicated.. and based on the height top to bottom of the water ballast tank but I believe number was between 0.5 to 1 psi - I think closer to .5 psi given a height of about 8 inches.

Lots of the small 12 volt pumps for filling air mattresses are around 1 psi and will pump out the ballast. I do this with a 26S just about every time I pull the boat out of the water.

I have also used a hand pump (dont have a picture of model but I think it was made by coleman) for getting my 26S off a sand bar I had run into at full sailing speed. I just dropped the sails, got out the pump and manually pumped out a bunch of ballast, got out of the boat and then easily pushed off the sand bar.

Maybe Viswiz will post how the pressure works again..

Should be about 0.3 psi at 8" depth.

I've done it through the 23' vinyl hose I installed that returns the vent to the transom (love that mod by the way) with our regular west marine 12VDC dinghy inflator. Only takes a few minutes. Did it at the dock when I wanted to dump ballast without moving the boat. I wasn't able to get it completely empty however, and when I closed the tank, the inflator popped out of the vent hose.

Matt

Im just curious, does the 26 not have a swing keel? I just got a venture 25, it has no ballast tank, but it has the swing keel figure if (when) I run aground on something, ill crank the keel up & float away.

walt wrote:Maybe a couple years ago now on a different forum, we were discussing what pressure was required to empty the ballast using air and Viswiz (who post here) figured it out. It was complicated.. and based on the height top to bottom of the water ballast tank but I believe number was between 0.5 to 1 psi - I think closer to .5 psi given a height of about 8 inches.

Lots of the small 12 volt pumps for filling air mattresses are around 1 psi and will pump out the ballast. I do this with a 26S just about every time I pull the boat out of the water.

I have also used a hand pump (dont have a picture of model but I think it was made by coleman) for getting my 26S off a sand bar I had run into at full sailing speed. I just dropped the sails, got out the pump and manually pumped out a bunch of ballast, got out of the boat and then easily pushed off the sand bar.

Maybe Viswiz will post how the pressure works again..

Back when I was shopping for a boat I visited mike inmon. He said the water pressure in the ballast tank calculated at 1 psi. In production they test the tank at 2 psi. So I guess keep the air pressure between 1 and 2psi.

The 26S, and 26X all have swing keels (26D, 26M have a dagger board) - subject to an owners modification.

bfd378 wrote:Im just curious, does the 26 not have a swing keel? I just got a venture 25, it has no ballast tank, but it has the swing keel figure if (when) I run aground on something, ill crank the keel up & float away.

Correction, the has a dagger-board, not a swing-keel

Obelix

dlandersson wrote:The 26S, 26X, and 26M all have swing keels (26D has a dagger board) - subject to an owners modification.

My had a daggerboard - original equipment. Hit something and you then have an owner modified daggerboard

Oops, you are correct.

Obelix wrote:Correction, the has a dagger-board, not a swing-keel

Obelix

I pump the ballast on my 26S every time it loads onto the trailer. Makes cranking it up to the bow snubber effortless and the pull on the truck minimal. I use a Coleman 12 mattress pump and a short piece of rubber tube with a plumbing fitting that fits the vent hole as shown in Sumner's photo. Doesn't even need to be a tight fit. Takes about 10 min. and is self supporting so I can unload other stuff while it pumps. Always blows away watchers on the dock when the bubbles start coming up the outsides.

gordl wrote: I pump the ballast on my 26S every time it loads onto the trailer.

gordl wrote:
Always blows away watchers on the dock when the bubbles start coming up the outsides.

Not me. I like to blow away the watchers when I pull out with a full ballast and then empty it. I just tell everyone we took on a little water.

cptron wrote:

gordl wrote: I pump the ballast on my 26S every time it loads onto the trailer.

gordl wrote:
Always blows away watchers on the dock when the bubbles start coming up the outsides.

Not me. I like to blow away the watchers when I pull out with a full ballast and then empty it. I just tell everyone we took on a little water.

I've always wanted to tell folks that I'll just be a minute, I'm emptying the holding tank. But the DEP cops around here don't play, and I don't need to spend the rest of my life explaining it was just a joke.