Our first boat was a
1970 Venture 21 (an early MacGregor) we bought used in 1994.  It was trailerable as well and had a swing cast iron keel.

I'd always wanted a sailboat and, one afternoon a friend of ours called up Dawn and told her he had found the perfect boat in the little nickel want ads.  She took a couple days to decide to tell me, and when she finally did we agreed to take a look as it happened to be on the way to our weekend destination.  We checked it out, the boat looked good, the price was right, only $1200, why not?  We agreed to purchase it the following Monday and because we didn't even own a tow vehicle the owner was nice enough to deliver it to our house.  He even took it by the DMV for us to get the trailer inspected and registered.  A couple months later we bought an old Suburban and we were on our way to becoming a sailing family.

It served us well for many years of fun.  In the spring of 2001 we were getting it ready for the season, trying to figure out where all our growing family would sleep this year, and Dawn said "Honey, we need a bigger boat."  Two hours later we were at the dealer picking out which used 26X we were going to buy.

Windsong is still in the family, I sold her to my sister.

'70 Venture 21 'Windsong' Log Book

Logbook Totals: 
         37 Days Aboard, 143.34 Nautical Miles

2000:  2 Days, 7.00 Miles
1999:  7 Days, 20.36 Miles
1998:  1 Days, 3.94 Miles
1997:  6 Days, 24.47 Miles
1996:  8 Days, 29.2 Miles
1995:  9 Days, 35.24 Miles
1994:  4 Days, 23.13 Miles

Modifications

Over the course of the years we made major changes to Windsong. 

On the outside I installed lifelines with netting to keep our small children on board.  I refinished the hand holds and the step at the companionway that supported the keel winch.  The flip up rudder was upgraded and I added a tiller lock as well as new mainsheet blocks.  We also bought a 26X jib which served well as a genoa on the V-21.  I also installed a backstay mounted topping lift.  The boat came with a Sears 2hp motor which I upgraded to a Yamaha 6hp mounted on a bracket that could be raised and lowered.  This is the motor we still use on our current dinghy.  A magma marine kettle BBQ that could double as a stove was mounted in the aft cockpit.  Also a Standard Horizon depth sounder was installed with the puck transducer shooting through the hull.  A Walrus camping rain fly was adapted to cover the cockpit at anchor.  I added a new steel danforth anchor and rode.  The anchor was carried on a bracket on the bow pulpit and a deck hatch allowed the rode to be stored in a bucket way up in the vee berth.  We had a second danforth stored below and a second rode in the bucket.  We started with a small vinyl raft as the dinghy but moved up to a 8' inflatable with a wood slat floor.  We used this with our new boat until we went to the larger air floor dinghy in 2004.

Below deck the boat was given a complete facelift.  I installed new carpeting on the walls and completely recovered the gold vinyl on the cushions with a grey corduroy.  We added curtains and matching pillows.  I extended the vee berth area adding a custom mini galley complete with cooler niche, and sink. (It had no drain, you just dumped it overboard.  It was just a dishpan that fit in a cutout. Worked great.)  The faucet was plumbed to a 10 gallon water tank tucked up under the vee berth  A butane stove fit over the top of the sink for cooking below.  Beside this I built a storage rack for galley items and a place for the electrical panel.  This extension also added greatly to the internal storage capacity.  I installed two 12v batteries with a two bank shore charger and 120v outlet as well as a radio/tape player with speakers.  Additional light fixtures were also installed.  The whole electrical system was monitored by a link 10 amp hour meter which later was moved to our current boat.  When I put that in I switched to a single bank with the batteries in parallel which is the system I still use on the 26X today.  Simple and sweet. I built a new step box at the companionway which covered and hid the porta-potty.  At night these were moved into the cockpit and boards dropped into place to bridge between the two seats allowing Dawn and I to sleep crosswise below while the kids slept up in the vee berth.

As you can see above, I completely de-rusted and painted the old trailer. 

Overall this turned Windsong from a fixer-upper day sailor into a comfortable pocket cruiser and I had many hours of pleasure out in the backyard working on my boat.