Incredible "Secrets of Yacht Design" website located...

[mighetto]

Originally Posted by Skippy

Frank that's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen you or anyone else post. For you to compare a responsible notification of the authorities, to the tragic deaths of thousands of people, whose lives were cut short by coldblooded killers. What a shameful, heartless, unpatriotic thing for you to say. Your comparing a simple complaint of your abuse to the inhuman crimes of 9/11, is a form of intimidation. sb is right Frank, you are the one lying, and now even intimidating people who consider reporting your slanders. Your reference to death threats in response to a proper, lawful action, is itself closer to anything even resembling terrorism, than anything sb or anyone else in this forum has ever posted. Your threatening post is just sickening, and I can't imagine why this or any other forum would ever tolerate it.

You are messing with another fellow's livelihood. Are you not? A livelyhood that involves government business and because of that falls under the special rules involving terrorist activity over the Internet. Let me suggest a proper channel for your distress. Contact the Better Business Bureau. I value the membership I have in the BBB and they have a mechanism to address whatever issues you have. I don't even think you have to be identified to me. Otherwise flame will be on until you flame out. My appologies in advance to forum readers. Perhaps they can just add anything skippy to their skip lists.

Oh, good news. I can now be reached by boat design.net email. My complements to the forum operators.

[Skippy]

Originally Posted by Spaghetto

You are messing with another fellow's livelihood. Are you not?
Perhaps they can just add anything skippy to their skip lists.

If you really do have a livelihood, you're messing with it yourself by slandering and threatening other parties.
And people can skip me all they want. That's their business Frank, not yours.

Originally Posted by Spaghetto

My complements to the forum operators.

That's right Frank, suck up to them and see if that helps.

The BBB LIVES on the money business people pay it as members. Do you think we are all so stupid! You do sell a, Chief Witch Doctor Course for the mentally challanged, as a way of making a living. See! I am talking to the CD. Could we get Mighetto to talk with the Terrorists?

[mighetto]

Mighetto states that the boat should have ballast when boarding with 11 persons.

Well not really. I stated that my boat has a plackard stating that it is a good idea to have the tanks full when there are 4 adults or more on board.

Why? - The boat was matter of factly not sailing at the time of the unfortunate accident. You do not add waterballast to an already overloaded boat do you?

Perhaps. However, it was never established that the boat was overloaded. You do put 11 adults on other 26 foot sailboats. These usually have solid ballast in an amount exceeding the water ballast of the Mac26x. It is not the weight but weight distribution tht most likely maters. A sober skipper would likely have put the weight in its place and not allowed rockets to be fired from the bow hatch.

If i'll find a boat here in Holland with warning stickers/plaquards beyond the no smoking sign, such as is apparently the case with the Mc26 alfabet, I will redirect that particular boat to the scrapyard being unsafe at any operation.

I think the placards are the result of our US legal system. Actually it is such a problem on power boats that there has been an attempt to consolodate the plackards into one because you find them everyplace. But the same material is also in the owners manual.

With it's 50 Hp outboard it is a sportscruiser, outboard propelled blown up dinghy, no more than that. With such parameters you might capsize your overloaded boat in a sharp turn - as happened in this fatal accident.

Experienced and sober ski boat operators will slow in a turn, regardless of loading. Marten owned a powerboat. He probably should be considered experienced. He was not sober. This is a legal fact. It is also not disputable that an NA has given the Mac26x an endorsement with the statement that the boat can be operated safely.

You can dispute if Teeters impeached himself in testimony. What was written down in his disposition, that alcohol could have been a contributing factor and what he testified in court - that it was not a contributing factor - are damning nonetheless. The man was desparate to get into court to testify for reasons I think were related to arguments he wanted to have presented later to the GP RWP in support of TP52s. His expert witness testimony would probably not even have been allowed if he had stuck with his deposition testimony. The judge had structured the trial to first address drunkeness and then unless the jury had cleared Marten of that would issues involving Teeters Testimony likely have been allowed. It was only by varying from his deposition statement (changing his mind) that he could be sure he could testify.

Fatal accidents happen when a cumulation of small accidents - events - are piling up in a matter of seconds. A rickety boat to start with, questionable design, unable operator, overloaded boat, drunk people on board, children trapped in the cabin and more to add.

The design was questionable in the minds of many. I will give you that. But rickety - no way. These vessels are fit for all waters. I do wonder how the kids drowned but the dog came through fine. Panic is an explanation. The children were sporting life jackets. This confirms the notion that the captain - at one time - was sober and experienced, at least in powerboat operation.

Grace to its empty ballast-tank, the boat was still floating, however - the cause of the death of the two children is buried in the fact that the remaining persons on board failed to rescue the trapped children, save for one.

The empty tank is in-effect a water tight compartment. If it had been filled the boat would have motored slower and handled like a docile power cruiser. The operator wasn't interested in docile boat behavior, IMO. This is based on the rockets being shot from the bow hatch. The boat was in war boat mode. Agility was valued by the drunken operator. We must assume he did not know about filling the water ballast. I really doubt that but there is no proof otherwise. The owners are related to Martin BTW, adding additional tragedy to the story. The other adults likely were told to say nothing by their advisors for feer they might be blamed for the disaster. There was another boat that the Mac26x was tied up to. What happened to it. The event was right after casting off from her. None on board viewed the capsize? Well that is what we must assume. Very hard to however. Was her wake involved?

And, the clumsy move of the operator, to put the boat in a sharp turn, threw the people overboard and did capsize the boat or at least did it turn over, throwing or jettonising the crew overboard. In spite of all this, the act of putting this boat in a sharp turn did capsize it.

Thats the story. It doesn't fit with my own experiences after a 4th of July fire works display however. In my experience there is a mass dash to the boat launches and public docks and lots of wakes. I remain unconvinced that the seas were calm. A large wake was likely involved and the response to it, the exact oposite of how a sober person would have handled it.

If the guy was not drunk and he had to make the same movement in order to avoid a collission with a floating object what then? The result is nevertheless the same. Because the boat could not sustain a sudden change of direction wthout capsizing. Not at the operation speed anyway.

Almost can agree with that. The important point however is missed. The loading of the boat is also important. I undersand that Teeters could not duplicate the capsize except by removing the mast. The mast dampens the effects of rocking. Teeters had a video prepared where sand bags were placed in spots that the ocupants had been reported at and at their approximate weight. But again, it took mast removal to flip the boat. I also find it hard to understand how the occupants failed to compensate for the sharp turn with their own weight, which would have been natural.

Is it therefore questionable to give such a vehicle the red flag?

It is questionable because of the number of them and the combined hours of opeation. This happened on July 4 of 2002. By that time there must have been 3,500,000 to 5,000,000 hours of experience (3,500 boats times 1000 hours of operation each.) The truth is that with such a popular model of boat it was only a mater of time before something like this involving a drunk and the vessel was going to happen. Do you really disagree?

[mighetto]

Originally Posted by Richard Petersen

The BBB LIVES on the money business people pay it as members. Do you think we are all so stupid! You do sell a, Chief Witch Doctor Course for the mentally challanged, as a way of making a living. See! I am talking to the CD. Could we get Mighetto to talk with the Terrorists?

Well thats a distressing notion. The Seattle BBB did have a scandle 25 years or more ago. Not-for-profits can have bad folks running them. Your point is a good one. But many if not most clients do check the BBB as well as Dunn and Bradstreet when hiring consultants. So do many advertisors on web sites. If the complaint is against a non BBB member you still as a prospect for that buisiness are told if there are outstanding complaints against the company. I would be obliged to hastle with it. I am a member in good standing and still am hoping Skippy can find his way to just dropping his threats. Seriously threats on the Internet can fall under the definition of terrorism, recently established by the Bush Administration. You are best off just filing the complaint and saying nothing about it. We aim to tame the wild west mentality on the Internet. Got to run. Sorry.

[Skippy]

Originally Posted by Spaghetto

I ... still am hoping Skippy can find his way to just dropping his threats. Seriously threats on the Internet can fall under the definition of terrorism, recently established by the Bush Administration. ... We aim to tame the wild west mentality on the Internet.

I didn't threaten you Frank, I just stated my opinion about your post. You vaguely threatened skinny boy with terrorism charges, just like you're doing with me in the quote above. There you go lying and slandering and intimidating people again. And you're promoting the Wild West mentality, not taming it. Speaking of which, you shouldn't even be mentioning the Bush administration.

ALL of you are getting TOO SENSITIVE. Drop the legal crap talk. It goes nowhere

[mighetto]

Originally Posted by Richard Petersen

ALL of you are getting TOO SENSITIVE. Drop the legal crap talk. It goes nowhere

enough said. I share a conversation regarding engine sizes in wraping up the day. Then I have a slug of work tonight to get to. I was asked how large an engine I thought it took to push the Schock 40 to hull speed.

Of course the maximum supported 15HP motor is enough for that; but possibly not in chop or in heavy weather.

The work around to this is to just make certain that crew are competent in sailing the boat. Unfortunately it is often the case that only one person on a sailboat is really competent at sailing the vessel. If that person is hirt, the remaning crew are most likely to rely on motor power to get to emergency facilities. So a larger motor, capable of speeding through chop or heavy weather is warrented. The other problem with a 15 HP motor is perception.

It is hard to explain to a lubber or a power boater that your 180,000 purchase isn't a rip off after they view your kicker. You have to be trained to see otherwise.

The $110,000 J-100 has a 17HP Volvo two banger. Volvo is the name in boat motors today owing to a set of twins they developed for powerboats meant to cruise over 35 MPH. These motors actually pull the boat throught the water rather than pushing them.

So what do you do? Purchase the Schock 40 with a canting keel and forward rudder system that few know how to operate yet with its percieved as cheep 15 HP outboard-mounted-in-well motor or the J-100 that probably all J boat crews want to try at least once with its status-inboard Volvo-brand motor that even power boaters and a few lubbers may find attactive. Heck you even save $70,000.

[frankofile]

Originally Posted by Richard Petersen

ALL of you are getting TOO SENSITIVE. Drop the legal crap talk. It goes nowhere

On the contrary. Frank was back-pedalling quite nicely and you could sense the fear through his typing. I thought Skippy and skinny boy were making excellent progress.

[mighetto]

Originally Posted by frankofile

On the contrary. Frank was back-pedalling quite nicely and you could sense the fear through his typing. I thought Skippy and skinny boy were making excellent progress.

Yea, show a little weakness and the sharks are all around you. It shouldn't be that way. Hoping tomorrow will go better. There is lots of good coming from all this dirty laundry airing.

For example, Lets predict the removal of the restriction on centerboard retraction during PHRF races. That is the kind of result I am hoping for from this discussion on the design of the Mac26x. That and a few more of them racing.

Retraction of foils is but another kind of movable ballast. The rule restricting retraction really has no place in a modern racing fleet. It is the kind of rule that turns off younger sailors from the sport because it means the boat can not be sailed as designed.

I understand that safety was used as an arguement for the rule. But after the Bayliner Buckaneer 18 court ruling in 1998, that argument can no longer be used. Legally it has been determined that centerboards are no more or less safe than fixed keels.

So the only argument for fully extended centerboards at all times in a race now is that a centerboarded vessel may sail the shallows, giving her an unfair advantage. The same can be said of the canters however and this can be addressed by course design. Faster Olympic style courses like our dad's dads raced, not these slow boring windward-leeward beginner ones.

Frank

[sharpii2]

Hi everybody

(Watch as Sharpii2 mounts his soapbox and puffs out his chest. He takes a deep breath, then speaks.)

It seems that everybody here is in love with contention. I did go to the Mc Gregor web sight and watched their video. I found it very intersting and imformative. It seems that they have designed and built a very useful boat for much of the potential sailing public. They have worked hard to make getting it on and off the trailer as easy as possible. Not only that, but they have also tried to make it a useful boat for family members who may not like sailing. Imagine a family where Ma likes sailing but Pa likes powerboating and they can afford only one cruising size boat.
That being said, I would not be surprised if a pure sailing boat, even a centerboarder of the same size, could outsail the boat to windward by a considerable margin, even enough to win a race on a equillateral triangular course.
Has one of these ever raced against a J24 for example.
The high sailing speed quoted was only down wind with an asymetrical chute in blowing conditions. Those would be precisely the conditions most favorable for that boats full hull lines, straight, shallow, level (or nearly so) runs aft, and imersed transom.
The transverse stability quoted was only with the water ballast tanks full, as far as I can tell.
As far as seaworthiness is concerned, the quoted stability range is well in keeping with the old (if my memory serves me right) IOR reqirements. And I would much rather be on one of these, running for my life in breaking seas, than on a typical IOR boat of the same size. One of these is likely to sail to Catalina Island one of these days and then, with the skipper saying, "what the heck", sail on to Hawii. Obviously, not the ideal boat for the job, but, if properly handled, she'd do. I've heard of far less suitable boats making long, offshore passages.

(everybody is agasp at Sharpii2' wise comentary and astute observations.)

How this has to do with TP52's (I went to that web site too to find out what the hell a TP52 was), I can only begin to speculate. My guess is that it has something to do with the class not allowing movable ballast. I can understand their reasoning. They want reliable and reasonably expensive (in multimillionare terms) boats. Canting keels littering the race course ocean bed
does not fit thier public image ambitions.
That being said, let me put in a kind word for movable ballast. I think the old BOC committee made a mistake, here, way back. Instead of limiting the heeling effect of movable ballast, they should have limited it to a percentage of the boats fixed ballast. The number that comes to my mind is somewhere in the area of 50% or less. That would give a significant agvantage to boats with it without allowing it to become a major ultimate stability factor. Such a rule would have pretty much eliminated canting keels for example.
In my own design musings, I have considered movable ballast. I have considered it, surpisingly, to tip the boat to leeward. This is so, in near calm conditions, the sails won't slat so much.
So that's my two cents worth.

(Everybody sighs as Sharpii2 saunters down from his soapbox looking relieved that he has finally said his words of earth shaking importance. "At last", they all sigh, "he finally shuts up.")

Bob

[Skippy]

Originally Posted by Richard Petersen

ALL of you are getting TOO SENSITIVE. Drop the legal crap talk. It goes nowhere

Originally Posted by frankofile

On the contrary. Frank was back-pedalling quite nicely and you could sense the fear through his typing. I thought Skippy and skinny boy were making excellent progress.

Originally Posted by Spaghetto

Yea, show a little weakness and the sharks are all around you.

O Frank, you poor darling. How hard it must be on your tender, sensitive soul. Merely bringing joy and inspiration to our lives, with your Ballerina Science of sailing, conspiracy theories of prominent yacht designers, and accusations of terrorism against other posters. All the Gospel of your own private little nautical-design religion. How inconsiderate of us to defend ourselves and each other against your accusations.

Richard, I don't want to tell you what to say or anything like that. I'd just like to express my perception that your comment treats me, skinny boy, and Spaghetto equally. As though what skinny boy and I posted was equivalent to Spaghetto's claims. I thought there was a big difference. Just my opinion. And by the way, this entire thread goes nowhere.

Originally Posted by Spaghetto

Retraction of foils is but another kind of movable ballast.

"Foils are ballast." That's an interesting theory. Frank, didn't you say the hull is ballast too?

Originally Posted by sharpii2

1. It seems that everybody here is in love with contention.
2. It seems that [McYachts] have designed and built a very useful boat for much of the potential sailing public.
3. That being said, let me put in a kind word for movable ballast.

Thanks for your comments Bob. It's nice to see someone being fair and considerate in their posts, and presenting reasonable thoughts. I have a couple comments in response.

1. Bob, I don't think all the posters on this thread enjoy contention. I would say a lot of us find contention very unpleasant and painful. They also find slander and Ballerina Science unpleasant. Would you say a person enjoys fighting because they defend themselves when a mugger attacks them? Or that a person is litigious because they defend themselves against an unwarranted lawsuit? I believe a lot of posters express their feelings due to a sense of justice poorly served, and a concern that any beginning novices reading this thread are being misinformed.

2. I would say the Mac 26M may be a tolerably good boat for the uses that you suggest. One note on the X without ballast: In that case, you don't have just an unballasted boat. What you have is a boat with flotation (the empty tank) directly UNDERNEATH the passengers in the cabin, which doesn't help stability at all. And remember, McYachts is trying to do not just two, but THREE things in the same boat: (1) sail, (2) motor, and (3) trailer. Not to mention making it cheap. That's a lot to do with the same vessel, and it may just not be possible to do it very well. In any case, there are of course alway compromises in any design. And any claims (and they have been made in this thread) of the average sailor being able to safely cross oceans in the 26X, I would just have to disagree with. I just don't see how it could reliably avoid capsizing, as does a multihull or a heavy-keel monohull cruiser, or have a decent chance of being knocked back upright again in a storm even after turtling, as does the heavy-keel cruiser.

3. And finally, just a reminder that Macs don't have movable ballast. They have variable inboard centerline ballast.

Thanks again for your post Bob. And please feel free to speak up on the soapbox again any time you want.

[terhohalme]

Isn't this issue of ocean/offshore/coastal use of MacGregor 26X simple? What is the design category of MacGregor 26X on the EC plate? Or just calculate the stability index of the boat (STIX by ISO 12217-2 standard) and you'll find it out.

[woodboat]

Does the 26X have any fixed ballast? The new 26M seems to http://www.macgregorsailboats.com/water_ballast.html

Of course simply not having a weighted keel doesn't make a boat inherently unstable without a sail as the boat was when the tragedy happened. The boat was operated as a power boat. There are many 8 Ft beam power boats on the water. Do we call all of them rickety? In an attempt to "win" the argument ridiclous claims are being made on both sides. Gleaning out the crap, Sharpii2 did a nice job. The MAC26 is a nice boat for it's intended use. Resale value is very high and the waiting list is about a year around here. With that said I wouldn't head out across the ocen with the thing either, no matter what Maghetto says. I don't think it is winning any races anytime soon either unless of course you run the 50HP outboard and the other guy is using his sail

[Skippy]

Originally Posted by woodboat

Does the 26X have any fixed ballast?

No. And remember, it's not just an absence of ballast at the bottom of the hull. The empty tank is positive flotation at the lowest point in the vessel, which moves the passengers and other ballast up higher. So no, it's not the same as an unballasted boat. And of course, a motorboat doesn't have the mast way up in the air either. I would definately recommend the M and not the X, and I agree, the M could be a nice boat for anyone who is aware of its limitations and doesn't exceed them. By the way, that gleaning is awfully difficult in this thread.