Memorial Day Weekend raft up!

Mark Twain Lake (MTL)
Robert F. Spalding Access ( +39° 33' 4.30", -91° 40' 7.86")

We had a choice of heading to Truman lake and sailing up to the Tebo islands; or heading back to Mark Twain Lake (MTL) and joining the fleet there in an annual raft up with the Mark Twain Sailing Association.



We chose the later. We got there Saturday evening and motored out to the main channel to hoist our sails and get an hour of sailing in before seeking the raft up. We passed Tom and Sandy on their 37 ft Tartan Higher Porpoise and found out that the raft up was to be in Ski cove (39.548555,-91.677293). We decided to head straight there as the winds were light and sporatic. Here is Angie grilling shish-kabobs and chatting with Dennis & Lois on the 28.5 ft Hunter Mac2 which was tied to Galactica. Good People! I found it humorous that the Hunter Mac2 was tied up to the only Mac with a hunter in it. :) Hmmm, shish-kabob! Great stuff!

The next morning brought us heat, humidity and zero wind. We decided to hang out, hoping for some afternoon wind. We got some work on the boat done, read some, checked out the other boats and a lot of swimming!!!

Here is a picture of Tom in his dinghy, Higher Puppis which was used to ferry the dogs to land and relief. Later Tom rowed around the raftup and took some pictures of the boats. This was our first time rafting up Galactica! THere were guitarist and singers at night. I almost brought my guitar, after this raft up, I'll remember it in the future so that I can dazzle them with the three chords I know...




Even the dogs went for a refreshing swim! No wind ever showed up Sunday so we relaxed the day in Ski cove!

We were very pleased that most of my newest mods worked very well! This included the temporary galley mod whic is half finished and...unfinished...

We noticed how hot the stove was on the galley so I built a platform to raise it with a removable heat shield and provide some much needed galley-storage. Here is a picture of it Monday morning after breakfast was over as we waited for the thunderstorm to blow by.


After dinner Sunday night, we got word on radar that a major storm was coming in. Rather than deal with a raft up and storms dragging anchors, we broke up about 10pm and motored to Blackjack Marina at night. I borrowed a slip belonging to a sailor whose boat is out of the water at this time. Angie has a difficult time getting in and out of Galactica and was very tired. As she laid down to read, I headed over to Higher Porpoise for some awesome 'Dark & Stormy' dark rum drinks and conversation!

Of course, the rain didn't come. I woke up early and watched the tail-tales blowing lighting, consistently enough to get a good sail in yet! We needed to head home but wind was blowing for a good run back to the ramp. We ate breakfast and as I finished my coffee to go remove the canvas boots from the sails--thunder and lighting hit close. VERY close.
I explored the marina as we waited for the bad storm cell to blow by.


Eventually, I just cast off and drove back in the rain which quit as we got to the ramp. What a great weekend!!! Angie drew up lists of changes and things we need. We are getting there!

Here is a short video I took while we were grilling up the shish-kabobs!

Fitting out and provisioning for Galactica's first 'long weekend'

After replacing the spare tire and the fender which was shattered during a blow-out while returning from our last sail on Mark Twain Lake; along with a mad flurry of tweaks and minor improvements, I pulled Galactica down to the town car wash and pressure washed the hull really well this evening. The tow beast also got a bath. Now, washed and waxed, we are preparing for a long weekend sail! Galactica's first multi-nighter!

Grandma will be here with my sons who don't want to go and they'll take care of the horses and livestock!

Can't wait!

More improvements & repairs...

I mounted the replacemnt fender and new spare tire.

I also mounted my PowerThruster on the motor today and am working on preparing the boat for a 3 day sail!

New 12 Gallon tank! Extends cruising range!

We got our new 12 Gallon fuel tank. This will extend the range when cruising big water!


The fuel lockers on each side of the MacGregor 26M are low profile.


It takes a special form factor (Tempo) tank. These are hard to find. A fellow Mac Sailor found a site gave me the URL! The tank fits perfectly! Inexpensive to boot! I paid less for tank and shipment than I could find at marinas!

Excellent afternoon sail on storm's edge - MTL, MO

May 1st, Mark Twain Lake
Robert F. Spalding Access ( +39° 33' 4.30", -91° 40' 7.86")

Originally, I planned on going to sail up to some islands on Truman Lake; however, my son talked me into another trip to Mark Twain Lake so that he could spend the day with a friend of his. Her parents picked him up at the access ramp we were using.

It stormed something fierce Friday but all weather reports (even on Saturday Morning) said that Missouri was to be partly sunny and 79 degrees all Saturday until the evening. We stopped in Moberly to pick up Subways. This picture doesn't show how hard it was raining! :)

We used the Spalding recreational access this time. Nice facility. Here is Galactica Rigged and ready to swim. We were waiting a bit for a band of storms to blow past and for my son's friend to pick him up. I forgot the power cable for my iphone and the weather satellite feeds ran my battery down so we switched to my wife's camera on her phone. Sorry about the quality.


Here is a view looking from the vberth out a port at the rigged mast while waiting for the storm to blow by.

With the way that the winds were while rigging, we put the mainsail on with 1 reef (our sail only has 1 reef) but it was the first time Reefing Galactica. Here is Galactica ghosting back into the no wake zone as I'm picking Angie up after she parked the truck and trailer.

The winds were perfect for no reef and running with the Genny too; however, we were sailing the edge of a storm that wasn't supposed to be there.
My last satellite feed showed the lower half of the lake in heavy storms. So we left the reef in and sailed without the Genny. It was a very peaceful afternoon which we spent most of it beating to windward and the main channel.

Here is Admiral Angie checking the wind vane and tail-tells and doing a great job watching the set of her sail. We need to work on communication because she asked which way to go, I kept saying to tack...dang nautical terms. I took over, tacked and she asked why I just didn't say 'turn that way'...sigh.

We were not the only ones on the lake. A few tubers were out, some runabouts, another sailboat and a LOT of fishing boats. We lost all wind while out in the middle of the main channel about 5:30pm or so. We lowered the sail and set up the mast raising rig then motored leisurely over to Blackjack Marina. I decided to take advantage of the still water and lack of summer crowd to practice navigating around the marina...plus, the other sailboats call me.
I wanted to see what's slipped there. There is a Sailing club at the lake. It was nice seeing some boats in person which I normally look at in pictures. We met Tom and Jim from the club and had an interesting conversation with them while drifting around their massive sailboats. Galactica felt small near them! We'll be joing the club. Membership is cheap and the fun/learning/fellowship will be worth it! We also met Commodore Sandy. http://wiki.mtlsa.net/wiki/Main_Page

It was getting late, their suppers were cooking and we needed to beat the storms back to the ramp. I didn't want to be de-rigging in a thunderstorm--which I ended up doing anyway. :) We opened Galactica up and rocketed back to the ramp on the other side of the lake. There were 8 or 9 fishing boats at the ramp. We ghosted around the pool while waiting for them to load in the rain. We had the ramp to ourselves after that. I drove the boat onto the trailer this time instead of walking it on. first time for that with this boat. Worked great but I think I need to add another roller onto the tailer.

At 2:30am, I was changing tires in the rain...

Less than 20 miles from home, we had an EXPLOSIVE blowout on the trailer. Glad I was only going between 55 and 60 mph in the rain. The boat/trailer lurched left as an 18 wheeler was coming up to pass on the hill. I pulled over and the tire was gone. The rim flattened and the fender blown apart. NO DAMAGE TO THE BOAT!!!!!!

Cool new technology for Galactica!!!

1...Two new LED kits.

I followed suggestions from the MacgregorSailors blog. I replaced the two primary light fixtures' incandescent bulbs with LED circuits from superbright's website.

2...The factory incandescent light fixture lit up.


I really like them! They use only a trickle of battery power and are cool to the touch which will help in the dog days of Missouri summers!

3...The LED board and original light bulb.

4...The new LED light without cover.


This was a simple mod. Remove cover, unplug old lightbulb. plug in new LED board. I used two sided tape to center the board in the fixture. Replace cover!

5...the new LED light with cover.

Planning next sailventure! Truman Lake!

Although this weekend would have been perfect sailing, my honey-doo list is long. Having to stay home and work around the farm.

Hopefully, the weather will hold and stay great for next weekend. I want to put in at Sterett Creek Access on Harry S. Truman reservoir and sail up to the Tebo islands to gunkhole there.

Truman lake is one of my favorite Missouri lakes!

Mark Twain Lake, gunkholed in Happy Cove

The weather was great this weekend. Mid to upper 70's and sunny. Damon had ACT testing so I took care of farm chores and took a heifer to auction which should pay for the next round of improvements to Galactica. Friends of the Family came out and their kids fed some of the animals.

While waiting for Angie to be ready, I set up the mast...twice and put the genoa sail onto the furler. Afterwards, I put the new jib sock on! This should make it much faster during rigging time! As it was, we didn't pull away from home until after 4pm with a 100 mile trip to Mark Twain Lake.

We put in at Ramp 107 again. Figure that it's best to have a successful outing from the ramp I failed at the week before. Here is a picture of me taking Galactica across Florida Pool at Mark Twain lake during twilight.

We anchored in a small inlet in Happy Cove. While I shut down the outside, Angie set up house inside and made dinner! Chicken Fajitas, iced tea and a nice dry white Missouri wine from StoneHill Winery.

The next morning, we took our time getting up and taking stock of our setup. We drew up lists of what we need, don't need or wish we had. Here is a view out the starboard windows at Breakfast!

Angie piloted Galactica out of Happy Cove while I removed the Genny sock and rigged the sheets.


We sailed around for a while in extremely light winds. I hadn't put on the main sail yet so we sailed with just the Genoa.

I got a chuckle. I had Angie pull the furler sheet to release the Genoa foresail so that I could pull the Genny sheet to deploy the sail on a port tack.

She looked at the array of sheets and lines around her and said 'Huh!?' I pointed to the furler sheet which was cleated and she told me that I should have just said, "pull the Christmas line"... sigh, it's a white line with green and red stripes. So now, the official name for the furler sheet on Galactica is the "Christmas Line". lol

We needed to get home fairly soon and the winds were very light and fitful so I decided to switch to the motor. I wanted to cruise over to BlackJack Marina. We furled the Genoa and spun up the Etec. We cruised to BlackJack at various speeds as we broke in the motor.

There was a Beniteau attempting to sail in the light winds but they gave up as we were rocketing past. Another sailboat from the MTLSA (Mark Twain Lake Sailing Association) left the marina as we pulled up. We spun around and followed them until we hit the main channel. Then we opened Galactica back up again. We had to get to the ramp ASAP in order to get home for Sunday Family Dinner. All in all, we probably motored 3 1/2 to 4 hours! :)

Here is our camp stove we used. Worked great. I do not think that I'll waste money on a built in stove now. It was really neat on this trip. Heading up the highway from our place, a farm truck passed us and the driver gave us two thumbs up. Either he liked the Macgregor or just the huge pretty blue and white beast behind our old silverado. Later, while driving up highway 63, a car passed us with two younger men who honked, waved and gave us a thumbs up! That was cool!

Bimini on the horizon

I still have the old bimini top from my old Marquis Freeport. I ordered the genny track trucks today!

"Engine problem" fixed

Okay, I was hoping that it was something embarrassingly simple. Folks on the macgregorsailors.com blog said to check the linkage. I called Super Sport where I bought the boat and they also said to check the linkage to ensure it did not come off of one end or the other.

Putting the throttle in forward or reverse with the engine off yielded a free spin on the prop. This meant to me that either the linkage was off, the cable broke or something hideous internal to the lower unit.

I pulled the hood off the engine and quickly located two linkages. My son moved the throttle from neutral to forward to reverse. Only the throttle linkage moved (red arrow) This was encouraging. I pulled the pedestal apart.

The first thing I found was that the tilt switch wires had slipped off again. This must have happened on the trip back from the lake. I located the linkage inside the pedestal and moved it from forward to reverse. no change on the motor side of the linkage.


That meant to me that perhaps the issue was with the trottle lever. I started messing around with it and my wife said that both linkages were moving!!!

Turns out that it was idiotic user error. My old (1979) power boat had a very different throttle. With the old one, you pulled the throttle out from the housing and then moved it forward and reverse. If you wanted a neutral bypass to rev the engine out of gear, there was a small lever to flip.

It didn't dawn on me that the new fangled throttle was different. I had been pulling it out and moving it forward/reverse. This effectively is a neutral bypass.

Had I looked that the throttle handle, it shows an arrow to pull up. Do that and the engine goes into gear as it should! lol I'd rather be embarrassed by idiocy than have to have my new motor serviced! I hooked up my water muffs and started the motor to ensure I was right. The red circle shows water splashing from the spinning prop! Hard to believe I have many years experience with power boats!

So all is well that ends well. A learning experience for me. My wife decided that she will indeed continue to make payments... WHEW!!!

Now I've put Galactica to bed in her barn and am waiting for the next trip to a lake!