for the first time I wished I had a displacement hull

[enufsed]

Enfused,

Please do not despair! Your X will perform well with more experience. When I first got my X I had similar problems, In fact, one time I was approaching a sea wall and the X would not tack or jibe and I was confused and frantic.

The problem you are experiencing is solved by learning how centerboard, swing keel, sailboats behave. These boat are different in the way they handle vs. keel sailboats, and many books are only about keel boats. At different angles of the CB and at different sizes and angles of the jib and main, the boat will behave differently. Many good how-to-sail books have CB sections describing the way to use your boat's talents. (Try finding one about sailing or racing 'dingies".)

I have read your replies to my frustrated post -- I was not in a great mood when I wrote that. It in fact occurred to me that very night that maybe the centreboard being down all the way was a problem and that I should play with combinations of having it half-way down and various things. I DID have a much better sail the other night and was able to jobe several times and complete one tack. None of it was very artful, but I feel now I was jumping to conclusions and that, as you suggest, reading and practice will help a lot.

I'm going to contact another Mac owner in the area and see if I can get out with him and learn some of his insights. This boat has very different performance characteristics than the fixed keel boats I have sailed in the past.

[Kelly Hanson East]

I got beat up in 8 footers in Westport Harbor in July - the good thing is I can report the boat can take it, although I probably hit only 3-4 waves hard - most of the time my helming was decent and I kept the boat from getting pounded too bad...

That being said the crew (2 kids, 2 dogs, and me) were at their limits - we ran for about 60 minutes before we got behind the lee of the Elizabeths and things settled down.

Scariest part was offshore fog took the visibility down to 1/8 mile, and I realised if my GPS failed I couldnt take my eyes off the seas long enough to do a plot a chart course....something I should have done beforehand of course..... ,,,lesson learned cheaply, ptl. If I missed the Islands it sure is a long way to Jersey.

[Andy26M]

The first time I sailed on a Mac I came to the exact realization that Opie mentions above - after a few minutes of treating it like a "big boat" I said to myself "OH, this thing sails like a dinghy". The owners of that particular boat did not know how to sail a dinghy, and when I kind of took over and got things working like they ought to, they thought I was some kind of minor sailing god, and decided not to sell the boat after all...

That first time was on an X, but I've found the same thing on my M. When I have her heeled over at 35 degrees and I'm sitting on the windward seat steering from the side with the spray blowing in my face, I'm feeling like I'm sailing a 420 or 470 much more than I'm feeling like I'm sailing any of the 30 to 72 foot keel boats I've been on over the years.

- Andy