Nah - it's just an opinion. If I don't want to hear yours, I won't read it. But I do, so I did.BOAT wrote:First off, let me start by pi$$ing off half of the people here right off the bat:
No derelicts in my marina, or any others around here, perhaps because they all come out of the water for the winter, whether you do it yourself or not (the marina will haul it if you don't, and send you a bill).BOAT wrote:1. If your using a slip, then your losing the purpose of the boat:
I have never understood people who buy a flimsy lightweight thin skinned boat like a MAC and then leave it in the water. If your going to leave the boat in a slip it's far cheaper to buy a bigger keel boat. I see a lot of those complaining about the size of the 26 are in a slip - well, yeah - I would feel lame in a 26 foot boat on a slip too: Now I'm trying to protect the bottom, I have hardware designed for the highway that I am trying to protect from salt air, I have old ballast water and stuff growing in my boat where I should have a lead keel, and with 22 thousand dollars I could have bought a pretty big keel boat used instead of a new tiny one.
Sorry to make you slip guys mad but that's just the way I see the whole slip community - it's a place that always has a lot of derelict old keel boats that are always sitting around waiting to be sold cheap. If I were going to sail to Hawaii the cheap way to do it is to buy an old Cat or Hunter in a slip for about 7 grand (slip included) sail the boat to Hawaii, sell it there for salvage (3000 bucks) and then fly home and rent out the slip or sell it out right at a profit (because slips are so hard to get over here). The whole project would cost me about 3 grand plus air fare. Some guys have done it for less. Slipping a boat that can be parked for free does not make sense to me. (emphasis added in blue)
As to being out of place, I guess that's true in a sense - I'm the only sailboat in my marina.
It used to be very shallow, and was dredged and expanded a couple of years ago, but it's still marginal for keel boats. A Newport 33 stayed there for a few weeks two years ago, and I'm told had a hard time getting out, as the lake drops as the season progresses, and they waited too long. But my Mac takes a puddle of depth, so never any probs. I sometimes check the depth at the slip by just dropping the centerboard to see where it touches bottom.
Must be a different market out there. I drove a hard bargain when I bought my keel boat, and when I sold it many years later, I sold it for more than I paid for it. But it could have something to do with being in fresh water rather than ocean, I suppose. Or a tighter market up here. I don't know.BOAT wrote:As for all the obvious advantages of the Trailer Boats, there is one that is overlooked, particularly in regards to the M boat:
2. RESALE VALUE - I have a friend with a 38 foot Catalina in a slip - he pays 600 a month for a slip for a boat that is worth about 5000 dollars over here. Used sailboats are really cheap - the older they are the cheaper. When you buy a brand new keel boat it depreciates like 30% the first time you take it out. After 5 years most sailboats are not worth 50% of their price new. The X boat and the M boat in particular has an incredible resale value. People are getting near what they paid for the boats new.
That's why I gave up the keel boat, in fact. I didn't have time to spend 3 days traveling to the Thousand Islands (one way) and another 3 days back, which leaves no time to knock around once there when I can only spare a week at a time. And to get to the Finger Lakes, a keel boat requires sailing/motoring all the way to the Oswego Canal at the south-eastern end of Lake Ontario, paying a marina to unstep the mast and store it on deck, then travel the canal all the way down to the Erie Canal, travel west on that to the Cayuga-Seneca Canal, and drop south to Cayuga Lake, or even further west to Seneca Lake. That would take a week. I trailer the Mac there in half a day.BOAT wrote:You guys could list all the other stuff yourself. I think a more salient post would be to try to find all the DISADVANTAGES of the MAC. The main thing to consider is : "What have I given up to be in the MAC?" Most sailors would cite the long distance travel crossing oceans and so forth - but the people who have the TIME to do such things that are still young are usually pretty rich and they can afford anything they want. A MAC owner usually still has a job and a mortgage and has not the time to spend 6 weeks on the ocean anyway, so why bother paying for that feature?
I also enjoy, and really look forward to, the Mac rendezvous (MMOR) most summers, which would take two days (or a very long day) to sail to Toronto, but Lake Simcoe would be out of the question.
All of the above, except for the prestige part. And launching - a keel boat takes a Travelift, or your own set of rails into the water, so nothing given up in that department. For every Hunter out there, there's a Morgan, or a Tartan, or a Hinckley, or a Cheoy-Lee, or a Kady-Krogan, or a . . . no matter what plastic production boat you have, there's always a 'better' plastic production boat. Like cars. And airplanes. Anybody can write a check.BOAT wrote:I would ask any of you, what have you GIVEN UP going from a regular boat to a MAC? That's the real question, especially when you consider people that were so unwilling to give up having a slip they put their MAC in one! For some people, a slip is a non negotiable feature. What is it that YOU "must have" or "want" that you lost using a MAC? Room? Storage? Speed? Status? Ease of Launching? Distance limitations? Sailing Comfort? The list against the MAC can be very long indeed depending on the person. 2 cents to make your brain hurt and pi$$ you off.
I tried dry-sailing with my Aquarius, but it was 40 minutes away, plus launch time with waiting for the ramp, and I was spending two hours out of my sailing time in commuting and launch/haul. I rented a slip there for the second half of the first summer, and it was sooo much better, I kept the slip for another season or two before moving closer by half. Much better again. I really like being able to start the engine, toss away the dock lines, and head out. Ten minute drive to my marina now, on a bad day. Best of all worlds. And I'm taking her to Cape Cod this summer, which would have been out of the question with a keel boat.BOAT wrote:In my opinion, I think the guys that have their MAC's in mast up storage right at the launch ramp are getting the better set up than a slip rental - that is probably the best situation to be in if you just hate the rigging set up. Only thing better would be a condo at the harbor or a house right down the street from the ramp so you can store mast up at home and tow to the ramp without rigging the boat. That would be really nice. The very very best set up I ever saw was the guy that has his own personal dock to the harbor in his back yard and he has a lift that keeps his MAC out of the water when he's not using it - add a boat house to that and you have the perfect set up - but if your that rich, why own a MAC?? It's all a conundrum.
Like a certain anatomical feature, that's my opinion, though many don't want to hear about it.
in a berth. And I don't think at all that I have lost the purpose of the boat.
My buddy just got a free ericson 27, we have been having a blast on it.