Rag Bagger

Preview Rag Bagger
At this time, I am almost a 81 year old Rag Bagger that owns a MacGregor 26M 2007 Sail Boat. However, I am thinking of selling her and getting a Trawler in the 28 to 30 foot range. I am now looking at a 1979 30' Californian 30 Flybridge Trawler. They are asking 27,500. Not sure if this is in ball park or not. Will need survey, bottom paint, and fiberglass work to add swinging door enterance in transom. Will add stainless steel rails on swim platform to make it easier to get on board. To hard for my wife to grawl over side. Any input would be appriceated. I live in the Portland, OR area.

Thanks,
Chuck

Welcome to the forum! Never to late to cross to the dark side.

Ted

Chuck, you're finally seeing "the light." Had a couple decades of sailboating myself and ended up with a slow motorboat in my mid-sixties. No more "open cockpit" days for me.

Welcome to TF...and hopefully to the world of comfortable boating.

We've had some discussions recently about the 30 Californian, maybe even the one you're considering. The owner may be here on TF.

http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/s9/30-californian-trawler-25517.html

http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/s24/30-californian-sedan-16986.html

http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/s24/californian-30-a-5346.html

Best of luck and keep us posted.

cscott said:

At this time, I am almost a 81 year old Rag Bagger that owns a MacGregor 26M 2007 Sail Boat. However, I am thinking of saling her and getting a Trawler in the 28 to 30 foot range.

Click to expand...

Almost 81, eh? Well, yeah, perhaps time to hang up the spurs and come over to the comfortable side. You will find that there are lots and lots and lots of us on this Forum who did the same, as we got older, and going up the mast in a gale to free a stuck halyard became more difficult. Welcome aboard.

Greetings,
Welcome aboard.

Welcome aboard

We made the change from sail to power four years ago, and won't turn back. One "must" for us is "trailerability", so we have an old Albin-25 built in Sweden in 1976.

Our former 28' light displacement Yawl was towed to all three coasts from Illinois and we plan to do the same in the Albin. Equipped with a boarding "stairway" instead of a ladder (our dog loves it) , the boat makes a fine RV in campgrounds across the USA.

Ahhh, another who gave up stuffing sails in bags and is crossing over to the stink potter side of the world. Welcome.

Might want to look at the Mainship line, they have transom doors and lower helm stations along with walk around on some models. All the best!

Marlinmike said:

Might want to look at the Mainship line, they have transom doors and lower helm stations along with walk around on some models. All the best!

Click to expand...

We love our MS 34 HT and are hopeful it will allow us to keep boating longer as we age geacefully.
See pics & some of our improvement projects via the link in the signature.

Yes, welcome Chuck, many of us have been, what we downunder call yachties, in my own case 2 trailer yachts, a Tasman 20, then a maxi T/Y called a Gazelle 26. However, when those MacGregor 26s came out I almost regretted we had moved on to trawler style cruisers, as the water ballasting and much higher speed potential of the MacGregor 26 struck me as the perfect trailer yacht construction technique. Up to when we left the sailboat scene, the only water ballasted trailer yachts were made of marine ply with a West System epoxy coating, (called in NZ the Young 670, and Young 780), but even though I didn't fancy the idea of water inside a wooden boat a lot of the time, I still had a 780 costed to build, and it was just too much back then. It was an idea just waiting for a mass manufacturer to take up and run with, and MacGregor did that. I especially liked the way you could drop the ballast for towing, or even out at sea, if you wanted to make a quick trip home, and the larger 50hp outboard then allowed for about 20kn performance instead of the 5kn flat out that was all we could do with our 8hp Yamaha.

However, now we have enjoyed the extra comfort, mod cons, and simplicity of just stowing the food, turning the key, tossing off the lines, and going out, (well, more or less), we would not go back to a sailboat now, and neither will you.

PS. I hope you don't mind my wee edit in your post, but I think you meant selling, not saling. Maybe you just couldn't bring yourself to actually put 'sell', so I did that painful thing for you as a friendly site team favour...