MG Spring 25

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Witchwood

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Does anyone know whether these boats are designed to cope with a drying mooring? I have a mooring on the Exe which dries completely at low water (smooth, pretty flat sand, no rocks/mud/gravel etc) which was fine for the bilge keeler I've just sold, but......

The obvious concerns are whether an MG Spring 25 would either topple over or damage its rudders.

Thanks for any opinions/observations from those who know from experience!
 
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Witchwood,

when one considers the narrow footprint of the wing keel and the horrible loads on the splayed rudders, surely regular drying out is a no hoper, unless one can guarantee a billiard table like seabed, flat calms and no wind or tide !

I seem to recall the original marketing for the Spring mentioned drying out, which I always thought optimistic to the point of downright misleading; it might be oK with proper drying legs, but I'd still worry a lot about the rudders.
 
Seajet said:
Witchwood,

when one considers the narrow footprint of the wing keel and the horrible loads on the splayed rudders, surely regular drying out is a no hoper, unless one can guarantee a billiard table like seabed, flat calms and no wind or tide !

I seem to recall the original marketing for the Spring mentioned drying out, which I always thought optimistic to the point of downright misleading; it might be oK with proper drying legs, but I'd still worry a lot about the rudders.
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Ah, the wit and wisdom of seajet.

Yes. We did market it as able to dry out. I did dry mine out four or five times (on purpose). Tony Castro is not an idiot. The rudders were strong enough.

It absolutely was not advisable to leave it on a mooring in all weathers. One owner, however got us to knock up some SS shoes for the rudder tips, which he fitted on a thick layer of mastic. His was on an East Coast mooring, and he reports no problems in the three years I was there after he bought it.
 
Well if you can't leave it on a mooring in all weathers, what are you supposed to do, drag it onto a trailer if there's a bad forecast or put to sea like the US Navy facing a Hurricane ?! :rolleyes:
 
Would you retract your assertion that it was 'optimistic if not downright misleading'?

Our intention was that it would very safely dry out without needing legs, on an as and when basis. And it did just that. We had 'form' though. The C27 could be had with a swinging, unballasted keel. Again, perfectly strong enough to be dried, with legs, but not in all conditions. I know that we had one owner who did on a harbour mooring, again with no problems.

You will notice that I have not chipped in with the Anderson 22 bashing. All boats have good and bad points, and some might believe that they have chosen the perfect boat. But that's only to their specific criteria, and most will grudgingly admit that they were a bit wrong when they sell it.

Please do tell what boat you would recommend to us that you could leave on a drying mooring on hard sand with an F7 onshore breeze?
 
As you haven't even said please, no I won't unless you'd care to reproduce your original advertising.

As for ' it would very safely dry out ', when is this then ?! One only has to look at the footprint of the keel and rudder tips to see this is not ' very safe ' as most people understand it, even on the billiard table seabed I alluded to.

As for the rudders being able to take it, any schoolboy engineer would cringe at the thought of those rudders drying out, and damage to them during apparently one-off, attended dryings is reported on the owners association quoted here !

I'd be interested to see the transom reinforcing inside those rudder fittings too.

If you have ever read anything I have ever said about drying moorings for Anderson 22's, 26's or any other boat - twin keelers included - I always say that drying on hard sand is cruel and too much for any boat.

I don't know about you but I have expererienced drying on hard sand and even in tiny waves the jarring is awful; just about tolerable for a one-off with crew in attendance, but a no-no for a long term mooring.

Witchwood, you have your answer...
 
Reproduce the original advertising? yeah right, of course I still have it! That's all with Northshore Mk1. They bought the company.

In light of the fact that you won't admit that you just might be wrong, I'll say please.

Please.

If you dried it out on a completely flat concrete surface, it would not have been happy laterally, because there was about 3 degrees 'rise' in each side of the underside of the wing. Fore and aft, yes happy. On sand however (and don't forget that it's saturated wet sand as the load begins to be applied) no problem. I dried mine on several sand bottoms sloping at five degrees or so in all directions. Perfectly happy. Although supremely comfy with the rudders uphill.

Now then, rudders and schoolboys. After MG was sold I decided to study Naval Architecture as a mature student, so I aren't a schoolboy one. And I'll restate that Tony C is not an idiot, and that one owner kept his on a drying mooring (but out of 200+ sold), there have probably been others.

And there are others of this Parish who have had rudder failures that don't involve grounding. In all the time that I was in yacht building with Oyster and MG, the standard way to make a rudder was to to get two half blade mouldings, fill one with mush and lay the stock onto it, allow to cure, fill the other with mush and lay the previously made bit onto it. In hindsight, (intended) that's not a recipe for durability when immersed. I am very surprised that grp rudders are not failing far more frequently than they do.

The bearing tubes were bonded into 12mm marine ply and braced against the transom skin and the bulkhead supporting the aft end of the cockpit floor and seats. All fully encapsulated in grp, obviously. Can't show you one 'cos I sold my own one in '88.

I will reply to one more response from you.

I expect it to contain the retraction.

ps. The prototype had a rudder blade fail in 'that' joint. Never been grounded. About 18 months old.

pps. We broke some masts too, so bring that on.
 
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You haven't counted for the distinct lack of stability diagonally forward, and you still talk about drying in perfect conditions.

What I would like to know is how was your advertising phrased, ' OK to dry out ' which is pretty much as I remember it, or ' Ok to dry out once in a blue moon in conditions you are very unlikely to encounter ' as you are saying now ?

You can have a retraction when I see that you only claimed the latter.
 
Witchwood said:
Does anyone know whether these boats are designed to cope with a drying mooring? I have a mooring on the Exe which dries completely at low water (smooth, pretty flat sand, no rocks/mud/gravel etc) which was fine for the bilge keeler I've just sold, but......

The obvious concerns are whether an MG Spring 25 would either topple over or damage its rudders.

Thanks for any opinions/observations from those who know from experience!
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Are you any the wiser? :D
 
Seajet said:
If you have ever read anything I have ever said about drying moorings for Anderson 22's, 26's or any other boat - twin keelers included - I always say that drying on hard sand is cruel and too much for any boat.

I don't know about you but I have expererienced drying on hard sand and even in tiny waves the jarring is awful; just about tolerable for a one-off with crew in attendance, but a no-no for a long term mooring.
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So jarring that I've slept through many.
 
Thank you all for these helpful observations. Although Seajet and boguing seem to disagree on certain details, there does seem to be consensus that a full time drying mooring is not really appropriate for this particular boat, which is the point I really needed to establish. If I am sufficiently impressed with the one I'm seeing in a couple of days (which I hope I am, as the reviews I've read are overwhelmingly positive) I would look for an alternative mooring.
 
I chartered a Spring and was well impressed. Though I seem to remember that reefing early was the right approach and we weren't used to that so it got a bit exciting for a while. But fast and fun and pretty spacious too
 
boguing said:
I've already sent a pm to Witchwood with my landline number, for a chat.

He will have enough factual information to make an educated choice. As were the customers that bought them from us originally.
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Boguing,

well I hope you can be more convincing in private than on here.

A lot of the original sales were a spin-off from being featured in Howards' Way, with publicity like that I'm surprised only 200 were sold.

I'm genuinely intrigued, if you were as close to the Spring 25 project as you make out, and owned one, I'd have thought you'd still have the advertising bumph, most people would.

For example when I got together with the ex-M.D. of Anderson Rigden & Perkins years ago with a view to making more boats, he gave me a pile of brochures as I run the owners association, and most people keep info on their old boats, I still have the write-ups on the Carter 30 I had for a few years.

Witchwood I think you are doing the right thing, if you like the boat get a mooring to suit it as a drying one doesn't.
 
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