Mahe 36: Original FP Mahe 36 Thread

[Cotemar]

Eileen & Larry,

How did you get your custom forward saloon windows on KOKOMO.
Was that done from the factory or did you customize that yourselfs?

Mark

[LarryW]

They were added after delievery. The place I had them done is no longer in business. Here are pictures of them in progress.

[Cotemar]

WOW,

Eileen & Larry, it looks like you guy’s really had a vision.
Great job. I am sure you have “NO” ventilation issues now J

Mark

[DtM]

We have the single small window directly behind the mast.

It is very rare for us to feel like we need more ventilation even when it is 40 degrees.

d

[Cotemar]

Mahe’s

I finally found a distributor that will sell just a few Contura II, 12 volt switches.
I am adding a couple of 12 volt circuits to the switch panel, but wanted the original
Carling technologies, Contura II switches,www.carlingtech.com
Contura II
Part # V1D1AH0B-A9C00-000
20amp 12 volts green LED

Pin 8 is + for Green LED
Pin 7 is - for Green LED

Just use a wooden tongue depressor to remove any switch as shown in the pictures.

Stu's Switch Supply
Contact Jerry
jerry.peplau@carlingtech.com
team2@carlingtech.com
860-793-9281

Ordered 2 switches for $26 which included shipping

Mark

[le mistral]

Hi Chris,

I am the new and happy owner of a Mahé 36 and cannot express enough how pleased I am with it. I used to sail monohulls for more than 25 years, also doing a lot of racing. With the Mahé no racing at all - only having a good time at sea. I live in Norway close to the Swedish border at the West Coast there where I keep the boat in water all year around. Very nice coast-line.

I would appreciate info on how your friends handled the heavy weather in the Bay of Biscay - such info is always of interest. I have been out in 40 knots true wind with no problems - I am both surprised and impressed how she tackles both wind and sea.

Did you experience noices from the interior when sailing? In my boat that was annoying, but I found out how to deal with it. Let me know if you need information on this.

Tor

Originally Posted by Chris Bonnet

Hi My name is Chris Bonnet,
I have been the Fountaine Pajot Dealer in Southern Africa for the last 14 years, and have sold quite a few yachts over this period.
At present - we have a Mahe 36 which left La Rochelle, France for Cape Town, and will be at the Cape Town International Boat Show. I have made some interesting modifications to it.

1) To increase the ventilation up forward, I have placed an additional small hatch over the head and third cabin.

2) I have opened up the collision bulkhead so access can be made through the collision bulkhead for stowage -plus increase ventilation from the forward hatch.

3) You may be interested to know - the yacht was caught in a 60Knot gale on the Bay of Biscay - just short of La Caruna, with 12meter high waves. The tactic the skipper and crew adopted (they are sailing instructors of mine) worked very well indeed. - So if anyone would like any information on suvival on this sort of storm - please let me know.

The longest run so far - just North of the Equator was 190miles in 24 hrs. The boat - from Cape Town - after the Cape Boat Show will proceed to Durban and from there - to Mauritius where the owner lives, so we have quite an interesting long distance voyage - and possibly very rough sea conditions to complete.

I have been very impressed with this vessel - and hope to sell alot more to South African clients.

If there is anything I can do to help, or assist - or give any further information to, or photos of the alterations I have made, please`let me know.
Regards
Chris.

[jean1146]

Hello Tor.
Welcome to the Mahe very select club.....We are in Tampa Florida. Our boat is still noisy but much less than when it was new. You will find a lot of information in this thread.
JC.

[le mistral]

Hello Jean,

Thank's for responding. I am not familiar with this forum - what do you mean by ..."information in this thread"?

What I did with the noice was to take off the lists down at the floor in the cabins to get access to where the panels go into the inner-lining through a slot. The boat builder only filled some flexible sealing in a superficial way that made it look like they attended to the connection between the wooden panels and the plastic inner-lining. I enwidened the slot by means of a wedge-shaped wooden thing and put a flexible rubber sealing down into it which made the trick. My boat is pretty silent under sail and it is also a relief not to hear the squeaking noice when walking up and down the stairs.

By the way, did you ever hear about problems with the steering system?
Somebody told me it could be a problem, although I never experienced anything like that.

I used to work in the US and visited Tampa on several occasions. I really liked to be in your country and still misses it.

Tor

Originally Posted by jean1146

Hello Tor.
Welcome to the Mahe very select club.....We are in Tampa Florida. Our boat is still noisy but much less than when it was new. You will find a lot of information in this thread.
JC.

[MKB53]

Hi Tor
Welcome to the thread. There is a whole collection of useful information if you go back through the old discussion.

If you have managed to cure the irritating noise you will be very popular!

Can you provide a bit more information on exactly where you put the sealant and how you managed to get access?

We had a red wine spillage which went into some of the unsealed gaps and even drying that out was not easy!

Regards
Martin

[le mistral]

Hi Martin,

How is Australia these days? Wish I could have been there - here we have cold cold weather with snow and ice. Not much for sailing, but we have installed a good heater so it's nice to be at sea also this time of the year, although we don't do it that often. But New Years Day we definetaly take her out for an afternoon time of celebration as a kind of a vor-spiel. Great fun and a kind of tradition for us.

The noice came from where the wooden panel is mounted on the floor in the cabins. As an example we'll take the dobbel one aft on the starboard side. To the right side of the door when entering the cabin, down at the floor, there is a short wooden list that you remove (it's glued on, but use carefully a knife or something). You will then see the sealer that the builder put along the connection between the wooden vertical panel and the plastic. Remove the sealer. The wooden panel goes into a narrow slot in the plastic and as long as there is no flexible material
injected between the wood and the plastic, you will have squeeking between these two types of material. I envidened the slot using wedges that allowed me to press down a rubber type of list as an isolation between wood and plastic.

I was able this way to reduce practically all noice, anyway when walking around the boat in the harbour. Also during sailing this problem was dramatically reduced, but there will always be a little something from noice when going in rough sea with a catamaran. And by the way, I also glued on rubber listing on the underside along the edge of the hatches on the floor everywhere.

I hope you understand what I mean and that it will help you getting rid of the problem. My experience is that this kind of trouble-shooting often inspires to go after other places where there might be noice, but I did not do that kind of effort yet as I experience the problem to be more or less gone.

But I did press a 20 mm hamp rope in the slot between the stairs and the wall before I found out about the real problem. It looks nice as well and stops dust and dirt to fall down there. And by the way, your accident with the red wine calls for a sealing around the floor in the saloon (if that was where you did it). It could as well have been e.g. milk, and I guess the smell would eventually force you to take out the whole thing.

Good luck anyway.

Regards,
Tor

Originally Posted by MKB53

Hi Tor
Welcome to the thread. There is a whole collection of useful information if you go back through the old discussion.

If you have managed to cure the irritating noise you will be very popular!

Can you provide a bit more information on exactly where you put the sealant and how you managed to get access?

We had a red wine spillage which went into some of the unsealed gaps and even drying that out was not easy!

Regards
Martin

[MKB53]

Hi Tor

Sydney is pretty warm at the moment and very nice for sailing.

Thanks for the information I will try it and see how I go.

Regards
Martin

[Jef & Marin, Netherlands]

Hi all,
I guess the source of the noise is different in all Mahe's. Reason for my guess is that we experience completely different sources of noise.
In Miss Poes, we had a very irritating noise from movement of the kitchen block.

The noise was initially caused by rubbing between the vertical sides of the hanging locker in the starboard bedroom and a vertical white piece of panel at the back of the locker which is glued to the hull with sikaflex.
Later, due to the movement, the vertical white panel detached from the sikaflex, so this noise stopped. But nearby a new and even more irritating noise occurred between the round curve of the kitchen block and the gelcoat above the starboard stairs.
The solution was to stick a many-times-folded piece of baking paper between wood and gelcoat. You first need a big screwdriver to increase the gap so it will fit between.
After a few months of sailing the baking paper has worn through, and we replace it. If all problems were so cheap to solve!

This summer a new noise appeared caused by rubbing between the panel between starboard bed and the engine room, and the sidepanel of the bed next to the diesel tank.
The cause is that the yellow/orange kit between these panels has come loose.
This noise is so bad it is nearly impossible to sleep during a night sail. (says someone who has slept close to running diesel engines)
Solving this is one of my winter jobs. I guess I will mount an aluminium 90 degrees corner strip out of sight, behind the panels, with many small screws. If this can not be reached I will mount a square wooden batten on the inside (this is uglier).

The Mahe is a creaking boat. Basically Fountaine Pajot should take better measures to prevent this in design and workmanhip of new ships. And should give more support to dealers to solve this in existing mahe's. But probably accepting and solving it with your own creativity is the best approach.
And keep posting so that all can benefit.
Jef

[Lucky]

or, good to see a fellow Halden chap on the Mahe thread! I have been reading up on the various noises emitted from all strange areas of the Mahe. My first experience was crewing on a friends boat when we sailed her from La Rochelle to Sarpsborg, Norway. I too could not sleep in the starbord aft cabin from all the noise in the galley and other parts of the boat.

The strange thing is that I did not experience this in my previous Athena 38 or in my current Belize 43. That said there is a small wooden piece above the freezer that skeaks when there is a bit of motion. The problem is that the Admiral deny me to fix it! She claims there must be a small feeiling of the tall ships even in a cat.

I guess the only thing to do is to carry on with supporting all wooden parts with a comination of adding Sikaflex and screws.

Merry Christmas and Happy New sailing Year to you all from Lucky

Happy lead free sailin

[lstyles]

Hi,
I have an ever so slightly used folding prop from our D-30 engine. I was going to replace mine but then decided to go back to the standard 2 blade prop. This prop was on the boat in the water for about a day and the boat never left the dock! I would guess it saw about 30 minutes run time max. It is essentially brand new (and worked fine) but the Volvo people wouldn't take it back.
If you are interested in saving a few bucks to have a replacement prop please let me know. I can be reached at loristyles@me.com.
thanks and happy new year!
Lori

[Jef & Marin, Netherlands]

Happy new year to all Mahe sailors, with lots of sail fun, many nautical miles and little maintenance! (but some improvements.....)
Jef and Marin