Another great issue. Many thanks, John
Responding to our Commodore's request for costs associated with trailer parking, I pay an extra £60.00 a year to keep my trailer at Bradwell Waterside Marina on top of the £2,200.00 approx annual berthing fee.
A propos widening the membership, yes, let's survey the membership to see if there is a consensus so that we can proceed. While doing this we could save postage and include another survey asking who would prefer to receive the magazine electronically instead of by post?
And on to Training, can a session be included in the AGM (as discussed)
Earlier this summer, I logged onto the RYA Push the Boat Out Programme and booked a session sailing Wanderers (a 14' dinghy from the Wayfarer Stable) so spent a very pleasant afternoon sailing them at Marlow Sailing Club. A brave owner let me helm his racing model.
I wonder if we, as a club, have enough interest in joining in and, being spread out as we are, offer a UK wide Mac experience.
http://www.rya.org.uk/programmes/push-the-boat-out/Pages/hub.aspx
...and finally, Radio Caroline lives again. We sailed past her last Sunday and saw some celebrations.
http://www.radiocaroline.co.uk/#home.html
Simon Armitage
Sowenna
26M
Hear, hear Simon!
On the subject of somewhere to keep one's Mac, we faced this issue when we moved to Cornwall and bought Sky's the Limit.
At first I'd planned to keep her on our our drive but the reality was that she took up too much room.
We went through a number of alternatives but ended up keeping her at Trevissome House, previously the country home of William Dorman, the owner of the Cutty Sark.
The deal includes a 6.5 month swinging mooring which is accessible at most states of tide. 50 meters from the mooring is the slipway and immediately adjacent to this there is sheltered winter hard-standing (doubling as summer trailer parking), car parking and tender parking. The total cost of this was £1,100 for the last year.
I can be on the water 30 minutes after leaving home with no mast-raising etc. This means that I get to sail a lot and jaunts of just a few hours are easily enjoyed.
I accept that this isn't everyone's cup of tea and it does rather seem to defeat the object of having a trailer sailer. However, the truth is that we selected the Mac after an 18 month search with pretty rigorous criteria and the ability to trailer wasn't a feature we needed, it just happened to be a feature.
MacGregor 26M 2009 - Sky's the Limit - Suzuki DF50
Comments on day sailing, trailer being a useful additional feature and mooring afloat:
I was interested to hear Mike Floutier’s comments re the trailer not being a key required feature when he was deciding what boat he wanted. It was the same with us – the trailer was just a useful feature. We also regularly use Radio Caroline as a navigation mark in the Blackwater.
We sail our Mac 26M Tarka fitted with a 50hp Yamaha on the Blackwater from Tollesbury mariner which allows us the convenience to be leaving our mooring within an hour of leaving home. Tollesbury is a small relatively sheltered mariner amongst salt marshes just across the water from Bradwell on the Blackwater estuary for those not familiar with the area. It has some good amenities at not unreasonable cost (Bistro/bar, pool and tennis courts + hard standing and permanently afloat pontoons). The trailer storage appears to be rolled up in our annual fee and doesn’t appear to be charged separately. The mariner is tidal with a concrete entrance bar that retains the water necessary to keep us always afloat as the rest of the creek dries out but access is dependent on draft and tides. Our Mac26 M (‘Tarka’ with 50hp Yamaha) is in our opinion an excellent choice for the area. The shallow draft of a Mac allows us to ‘day sail’ two hour each side of high water with easy fast access from our floating pontoon mooring. The Blackwater has a lot of coastline and many small inlets creeks and several other mariners all within a few hours sailing of each other and the speed of the Mac when we dump the water ballast makes it easy to make the tides and maintain a relatively large range on a single tide even when the wind drops on the return home (a regular occurrence!). It also reduces the anxiety of time and wind watching to make it back over the bar on a falling tide. A shoal draft boat with a lifting keel and an ability to dry out safely with good sailing and motoring ability were key requirements for us, as was the provision of at least basic accommodation for overnight stays. The Mac meets or exceeds in all these areas making it the ideal boat for us in this particular area. We did harbour the idea of trailer sailing in the early days but the sheer weight of boat and trailer required a larger tow vehicle than we had and the hassle of launching and rigging, although well designed in the Mac’s, is also a time consuming task. We find the trailer useful as it means we have easy out of water storage when we take her out every other year for basic hull maintenance. We lift her on and off the trailer using the boatyard lift at relatively little cost as it saves on trailer maintenance because the trailer doesn’t ever get salt water immersion issues. All in all the Mac is ideal for estuary work which is not very different in many respects to the large lake sailing she was originally designed for and that made them so popular in the US and elsewhere. There were four Macs on floating moorings in the mariner at last count so we are not alone in our choice. So basically I guess I’m making an argument for considering using a Mac on permanent floating moorings as well as a trailer sailer. If you live nearby you get many hours use a year without a lot of effort. I’m not aware of any other boat of the size that sails as well and provides the same level of on board comfort – don’t know what we will do if we ever want to replace her with a newer boat…..