MG Spring 25

My Spring 25 was regularly dried on soft gooey gloopy east coast mud and it never got stuck.. I think Boguing summed the boyancy thing up (& he should know).

I can understand people thinking it might get stuck by looking at the wing, but in my experience it never did.

Again I agree with most of the points in Boguing's post apart from the thing about broaching... They will broach if you are surfing with the spinnaker up in a force 5-6 and the spinnaker boom downhaul snaps.. You then tend to sail sideways with your spreaders in the water trying to climb up a near vertical deck and collapse the spinnaker at the same time, whilst all the other yachts on the starting line try desperatly to get out of your way to avoid being impaled on your mast, whilst hurling obscenities at you.
 
James, Hi.

It was me that took you on your demo sail. I do recall that you enjoyed the sailing, but we were (reluctantly on my part) agreed on the internal fit out. You were also ambivalent on the twin mainsheet. Our MD eventually went for a bridgedeck track and traveller on 'Spring of Tarrant' but I stuck with the twins system, and beat him as often as he beat me. At the time it was a £10,500 boat (ex-engine). So, costs were cut, but we were sailors and would never have skimped on sailing ability or integrity. It was a tough boat.

If you had wanted a 'dried out' photo session I would gladly have done it for you. The then owner of Beth's Restaurant in Hamble would have sorted us with a luvverly al fresco lunch while drying on the hard. (If it was of an evening he used to give us the rest of the Armagnac bottle as a keepsake - I did say I slept soundly).

Given a known (checked at a previous low water) bottom of firm mud, sand etc.. I would not hesitate to dry one out and sleep on it.

I've just done a rough calculation on weight. A 2,000 Kg Spring presses it's keel into mud, until an equilibrium is reached, and the rest of the water goes away for a while.

When the water comes back and reaches the waterline, 2,000Kg is now lifting the boat. Assuming that the mud has thickened in the meantime, the water may need to rise further up the hull to break the keel out. Over the next few hours (during which the mud is getting nice and wet again) the water will rise to the freeboard of the Spring. At this point there is roughly 13,500 Kgs lifting about 0.8 sq. metres of 0.6 metre thick mud. What's going to win?

I can't remember, the Armagnac did me in and I slept through the whole thing.
 
We looked at a couple of MG Springs before we bought our last boat. Although we didn't buy one, we would have if we had found a good one. (At the time our son was 2 years old)
Both had some scarey stuff going on around the chain plates. I beleive this is a common problem with a known fix?

I also remember an article in PBO about MG Spring 'Jasper' having osmosis treatment. Were they all built using 'Isopthallic gelcoat' ..... or was Northshore buying their materials from the same supplier as Hunter in the 1990's :-)
 
Can't tell you anything about the Northshore boats after 1989, but all the Jaguar ones were isopthallic.

Yep, chainplates were a bit of a problem, but after my time there. I heard about it here I think. The rods tend to straighten out. Who thought it was a good idea to use bent rods in tension eh TC?

Result is that deck plate tends to lift and needs pulling back down, with the nuts behind the settee backs, onto fresh sealant with the shrouds slackened. There may be a bit of cracking, of the grp locally, but it's trivial.

I left (pushed) in '89, and we had no problems reported by then. Perhaps somebody who has had this problem could tell us what the Northshore response was?

Unfortunately, I had a bit of a clear out recently, and threw away all the boat number / sail no. / name / owner records that I had. Jasper is a name that rings a bell, but only vaguely. It might be a Jaguar boat that I didn't sell, or a later Northshore boat, from after my time. It may also be that bell is ringing for some other reason and that Jasper was not it's original name.
 
I've never owned a Spring 25, but have always liked the looks of them. I have done quite a lot of research on them, and have seen that it is not recommended to keep them on a drying mooring, especially in mud. The problem is not that they might not come up again (they do), but doing it twice a day puts strain on the keel bolts in the long term.
 
No. The strain on the keel bolts would be applied relatively gently, when compared with the enormous strain placed on 'em when heeled and pitching, it's nothing.

However, it's not a bilge keeler, and as I said, I'd only beach it on ground that I had previously surveyed. If you can be sure that all inside your swinging circle is flat and firm, then maybe.

Just wouldn't want to recommend it.
 
I was in the same race at Burnham Week as the poor old MG 25 that got T Boned by the bigger boat. IIRC the MG was on starboard tack and very unlucky to get walloped. It was lucky that no-one was hurt and I was very impressed that the boat wasn't cut in half and they sailed back to their mooring with very little fuss.

She does look a lovely boat and boguing is probably right about the super performance but in the races I have been in they don't seem that fast. Just checked the Burnham Week results for last year and the MG 25 in our class finished 27 minutes behind East Coast Bernie's boat and my boat. Both our boats are the same sizes.
 
Hey Ho Crazy Cats....................I have read all the entries and have this to say.......

I do not know all the correct terminolagy, I just sail. I own a 1986 Spring called "Salto" which is kept on the River Crouch in Essex.

When I purchased the boat it was sitting on a mud mooring and there are no issues with the keel bolts or the keel. Both were closely inspected during the survey, inside and out. There were no issues with moisture in the hull and no history of work to correct any previous osmosis.

The boat does sit upright when it dries out........BUT.......as the twin rudders are not the same depth as the keel, it sits slanting stern downwards. If you were sleeping in the stern cabin, you would undoubtedly end up in a heap at one end of the cabin. I would not go for a walk up foread either, you could tip the whole boat on its nose and end up in the mud !!!!!

I'm no round the world sailor but I can sail this boat single handed on a day off work. All control lines come back to the cockpit (which is big enough for cocktails for four) and as long as you do not try to break speed limits, you will stay safe and dry if it gets a bit lumpy.

I am a 6ft 3 inch 18.5 stone rugby player and this boat has enough room for me to sit on the toilet and shut the door (this is not a feature on many boats in this price bracket where the heads is a chemical toilet within a bench seat) not only that, I can also stand up in the main cabin and lie flat in the rear cabin and have a good nights sleep.

I have cruised with three rather large rugby friends and we had fun, cooked and ate meals, went to the loo and slept on the boat for 5 days with no issues at all. I know guys who have taken the wife and two kids away for two weeks on these boats and had a great time.

Now, as to sailing in lumpy water and strong winds.......If you are silly enough to go out without checking the forecast and not reduce sail "on the fly" when the wind picks up, you really should stay at home. On the other hand, this boat has a lot of cloth and I have been caught out in gusts when not reefed enough the first time around. If you are short handed or just not sure of your abilities, sail it with lots of reefs and the headsail well furled in. I have found that Salto tends to "slap" through lumpy water as the bow is not very deep and flattens out very quickly underneath. This I have found causes the ride to be bumpy and noisy when pointing into the wind and lump. This does not make it dangerous, just takes a little getting used to.

I have found the boat a little hard to handle under power in a high wind. It is a very high sided boat and unless you have a lot of revs on and give it some good bouts of power, you can have the head turned away from your course very quicky. High revs in this boat are good !

I love my Spring, it can be sailed simply on a cruise or raced hard as it has lots of controls to play with if you want to. Show me a boat that can do everything explained and give you change from £14500.

Cheers all
 
Hi Moondancer......

Yes that was me that got a crack at Burnham week and yes the boat is now fixed and going back into the water in the next few days and yes (again) I will be back at Burham week this year.

As for the results......please do not judge the boat brand by my results at Burnham Week, I am not a great racer ! I am still learning how to start and how to judge the tide. Both these things I am not very good at.

My friend has a GK29 and during the Round the Island Race, he could not shake two Springs that were just behind him. He was very impressed and he races a lot.

The boat is a good racer, Its the skipper that is not up to the speed of the boat.

Cheers again
 
Hi Flounder,

I hope you got the other guy to pay for it!! It must have been quite a shock to see that thing bearing down on you. We had a similar experience, in the same race I think, with one of the bigger classes tacking through us as they were coming back up the river and forcing us to tack - just missing - despite us being on starboard. I think that they ight have thought that because they were in a more important class... either that or they didn't see us.

Anyway good to hear that Salto is sorted now.
 
I walk past one every time I come to the marina, and know exactly what boat I would be writing the cheque for if I was in the OP's shoes. Maybe it's just personal choice, but being used to a boat that needs early and sensible reefing yet pays great dividends for doing so, I would far rather the speed and enjoyment of a Spring than any other.
 
I didn't claim super performance, I hope.

It has a (roughly) 23 foot waterline length. Upwind 1.4 times the square root of that is your best possible speed. Add in waves of an unsuitable length and you're going to crawl.

Given a fixed amount of ballast and total displacement, one needs to balance heel and sail area. 25 degrees average heel is too much. And uncomfortable. Keep it upright until the windward mark. It's a short ordinary boat. The wing may be damping heave, but is mainly drag.

Round the mark, get the sails out. Full main and relevant foresail should break the transom wake free and you'll see about 10 Knots. Spinnaker and 25 Kts True will give you 12+ from about 120 True.

When up above 12, it behaves like a planing Laser. Rolls upright and just goes faster. Dynamics of the toed in rudders come into play.

If you want to go into the detailed hydrodynamics of this, send me a pm!
 
While were on the subject of springs and rudder alignment, we have been having the same discussion on the owners forum. I would like to invite anyone who either owns a spring or are interested in this fantastic design to tvisit the site and get involved at the address below
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top