John, Based on your HIN - MMP170380674; your boat was built in June of '74 and was boat #38. Here's the breakdown......... MMP - Montgomery Marine Products 17 - Boat Model - M-15; M-17; M-23 and various dinks 038 - Sequence number for that year 06 - Month of manufacture 74 - Year of manufacture Happy Sailing!!! Skip C. -----Original Message----- From: John Schinnerer <john@eco-living.net> To: For and about Montgomery Sailboats <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Thu, Sep 24, 2015 1:51 pm Subject: Re: M_Boats: Rudders, and boat vintage Thanks for this...fact is, my rudder is a plain fixed rudder. Pintles bolted onto the LE of the rudder, period. No sign of any previous sliding or other movable installation. Size and shape seem to be correct and it sure turns her well and swiftly. Just need to do something to protect it in shallow water. Thanks Bill T for the tip re JO Woodworks. Were some M17's sold with a plain fixed rudder? I think mine may be the first one built in '74. I got two mains - a newer North Sails which was on the boom, and an older main (original?) which has a crude "M" on it (but no "17") and the number "8" - from Jerry's post a while back about production notes he found, there were 7 built in '73 and then 40-some in '74 so #8 would be the first in '74. My HIN is MMP170380674 if that enables anyone to tell me any more about the exact vintage. cheers, John S. On 09/24/2015 08:08 AM, swwheatley@comcast.net wrote:
John:
One-piece rudder is not supposed to be fixed. The gudgeons (fittings attached to rudder) are supposed to slide up and down on the pintle rod (rod held in fittings attached to transom). To be frank, it is a kludgy set-up, but I am too cheap to buy a new rudder. After 2 years of fine tuning and a new pintle rod, I still cannot get mine to slide smoothly. Next step will be drilling the gudgeon holes a smidge larger. Hopefully that will do it.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Tosh" <billt@eastex.net> To: "For and about Montgomery Sailboats" <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2015 9:49:56 AM Subject: Re: M_Boats: Splashed Pajarita today!
John,,,, For your rudder fix, try JOWoodworks.com and talk to John Owens..... does excellent work and price is right, and while he does other stuff as handrails, hatch covers, etc etc, Rudders and daggers are his main forte.
Bill Tosh www.tcboats.com
-----Original Message----- From: montgomery_boats [mailto:montgomery_boats-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Conbert Benneck Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2015 8:19 AM To: For and about Montgomery Sailboats Subject: Re: M_Boats: Splashed Pajarita today!
On 9/24/2015 1:35 AM, John Schinnerer wrote:
Congratulations John on your first sail with your new M17.
Half the fun of owning a boat is fixing things, or making improvement in its intended use.
Your description of what you found in your first sail, sound mostly minor, and a quick fix for someone with your know-how and capabilities.
"What a sweet boat" is a great description.
Have fun; go sailing; and don't forget to take your tool box along....!
Connie
Took my inaugural sail on Pajarita, my recently purchased '74 M17, today. My sailing pal Keith (Ranger 20 "Stoke" - yep, he's also a surfer) was along to help rig and test her out. What a sweet boat! Was at Lake of the Woods, in the highlands/mountains a bit east of Medford/Ashland area in southern Oregon. A mild and sunny late summer day with light to medium winds and an occasional fresh
breeze, the latter pushing us up to near hull speed with the small
jib and full main.
Some interesting discoveries and other comments:
Boat came with extra mainsheet type line and block rig for solo mast raising, and with mainsail and sheet/blocks already on boom with sail cover on. So I rigged it up as it was. Then I was wondering why in only a moderate breeze the main sheet took so much muscle to sheet in, didn't seem right compared to any other boat I've sailed. Took a closer look and noticed the block setup was only 3 turns. Took a second look at the alleged mast raising
block/line and it is 4 turns, and less bulky to boot. I can only
assume the former owner was sailing with the mast raising tackle, and had the mainsheet tackle in the mast raising gear bucket...!
The main and jib halyards are nice color coded line - green halyard for main/stbd, red for jib/port - but they're in the opposite sheaves they should be at masthead! Not tangled...just need to be pulled and swapped port/stbd (they are even color coded, ). Worked around it by just cleating the halyards on the "wrong"
sides for now.
The boat sat with the CB line apparently wrapped quite
tight
around the CB winch for quite a while (boat was stored for ~1.5
years before I bought it). The line against the winch appears to
have gotten compacted and smoothed and slips quite a bit while trying to raise the CB, even with 4 turns on the winch. This is exacerbated by use of a poorly placed and nearly too small jam cleat with too tight of fairlead to secure the CB line, and a rather flimsy plastic winch handle that is also too long to turn 360 deg. without hitting CB trunk, and a CB winch that doesn't seem to have the function of letting the handle ratchet back and forth
as it turns the winch.
The flex in the transom at the (nice stainless,
adjustable,
spring-loaded) motor mount with the Tohatsu 6hp SailPro is not IMO sustainable. Just sitting still with the motor raised, even, if the boat bounces in a little chop. Flex, flex, flex.... Not to mention actually motoring! There is a backing plate inside the hull, but a poorly done one. The flex/stress on the transom due to motor weight is more a concern for me than trim issues due to the weight.
Also, at something less than half throttle I think we were pretty much at hull speed (with CB down no less). Cranking up the throttle led to stern settling and even more flex/stress on the mount/transom. So that motor seems like significant overkill for an M17. I could mount it direct in cutout but then there's the rudder/motor/prop interference issue. Just read a rave review of the motor as being more than adequate for a 3000 lb. boat sailing in the San Juans' current-laden waters.
The boat came with the mahogany one piece rudder, the original I assume. What a long blade! I couldn't even put the rudder on at the dock, too shallow, even though plenty of depth for the keel with CB up. Anyone know what the draft is on the one-piece rudder?
Anyhow I need to do something about that long fixed rudder, and
whatever I do has to cost way less than the $600+ Ruddercraft and the like. Anyone have plans/diagrams/photos for a DIY kick-up conversion?
All for now. Love the boat so far! She's in a short-term slip at the small marina and will see some more sailing Saturday, maybe Friday also, maybe even Sunday.
cheers, John S.
-- John Schinnerer - M.A., Whole Systems Design -------------------------------------------- - Eco-Living - Whole Systems Design Services People - Place - Learning - Integration john@eco-living.net - 510.982.1334 http://eco-living.net http://sociocracyconsulting.com