What boat should I look at BESIDES the "X"?

[Rolf]

Moe, this is your last chance to give their money back. You'll be kicking yourself when you have to cough up an extra 3 grand to buy her back. That's of course after you buy another house to store her.

Rolf

[Moe]

The darn nicest thing about the Macgregor powersailors is the ability to raise/lower the motor with power trim. It is excellent to just press the power trim button to lower the motor, turn the ignition key and go. This motor functionality beats lowering a little kicker mower by hand and then pull starting it.

Mark, any number of the small kickers are available with power tilt/trim. The Honda BF15 is one of them, and it has about twice the power required to push the X to hull speed. Although it has a high ratio (2.09:1) lower unit, it gets its horsepower through torque at a relatively lower rpm and is available with a 7" pitch 4-blade Thruster prop from Solas.

Kevin picked-up on the past tense.

MOE!!

Moe, this is your last chance to give their money back. You'll be kicking yourself when you have to cough up an extra 3 grand to buy her back. That's of course after you buy another house to store her.

One of these days we may get rid of some of the other toys and make the time and money commitment to sailing. I already have a replacement picked out. It's a lot shorter than the Mac and a 15-20 year old one will cost about twice what I sold the X for. I'll get the diesel inboard version though.

[ronacarme]

can you recall some examples of boat/ motor combos that had trouble pushing into the wind/waves?

[Scott]

We also looked at all comers, (this thread has been done before)(archives) and settled on the X would be the wrong phrase. We "decided" the X fit our needs and wants best.

We are primarily lake sailors, wanted trailerability and ease of launch. In these aspects nothing even compares with the mac. I can have my boat on the water about 40- 50 mins after arriving with no help and no mast crane. The boat can be easily launched and retrieved by one person if there is not significant crosswind. If there is too much wind at a busy landing you can usually find someone to hold the boat center to the trailer when you pull it.

My only regret is that almost any comparable boat with a competent captain will outsail her on near all points. The creature comforts, ie: space, enclosed head, motor and ease of maintainence more than make up for lack of speed to us.

On edit
You could prob dump 3-5 k in a suite of sails and performance mods to cure this but IMHO this defeats the original intent.

Love my boat but a Telstar 28 or Corsair 31 may be in the works one day.

[James V]

You did not specify if you wanted a boat for inland or coastal or offshore. A swing keel does not last too well in salt water, fresh water with a little maintenance is good. I looked for a long time and have sailed several different boats, read a lot and talked to people and had to make a realistic decision on what was real for my income and future needs. A Mac is priced right and if I want or need to upgrade to a larger or smaller boat it can be sold eaisly. In Florida alone there is over 1,000,000 boats. The Mac is not for everybody. Take good honest look. Do you want a home on the water for under $ 40,000 that you can take on the road?

[captronr]

Thanks for all the great words! I should have clarified: 99% inland sailing and yes, it will be a house on the water for us. Wife has seen too many "tragedy at sea" stories to ever get out of sight of land. If I get confident, I might try coastal sailing, but I have a lot to learn before trying that. I have enough trouble reading the wind; no need to add tides, currents, navigation, and BIG SHIP traffic into the mix!

My reason for posting this was to see if I was overlooking a close second boat in my zeal to buy a Mac X. From all these responses, I think I'm on the right track to buy the X and get on with it.

Thanks for the confirmation.
ron

[deacm]

Well, I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but the Odin 820 has been ideal for me for all the reasons I listed on my web page.

http://mysite.verizon.net/res0ocfh/

email me if you have any questions.

[baldbaby2000]

deacm,
I don't see a lot on your web site about how the Mast 28 sails in different conditions. Just wondering how it does in strong winds. When do you have to reef? Does it round up in the big gusts? Do you know the Portsmouth or PHRF numbers?

BB