MacGregorSailors.com

The things I wouldn't give up about the big boat: Warm water, inside shower, flush toilet, roller-furling mainsail, and of course the dual hasps on the companionway door.

Yup, I am defiantly putting in hot water and a stand up shower - If your going to be on the water for days at a time it's greatly needed. I spent too many mornings as a youngster sleeping out in the cockpit waking up all salty and crusty in the morning because I was on the water and could not get to a shower. I will put the same stand up shower in 'boat' that I have in the van (matt, you have seen it - I will post picture when I start that project).

A flush toilet is okay but why a bun? but you still need to clean the bowl. Latest technology is superior I think to a water flushing potty: I like the dry flush toilet because you get a fresh clean new bowl after every flush. (And the bowl on the dry flush is MUCH deeper making a standing up pee pee position less geometrically hazardous.) Of course, only the X boat can accommodate a standing position when saluting the wind and although this may not be so important to some people I think a captain with a peg leg would really appreciate it.

A roller furling mainsail continues to be the ultimate goal - I have already attempted and failed once on that - but I have not given up yet. At night it keeps me up trying to engineer such a thing that works well. I'll get it.

Time is money - that's a big deal for a lot of people too - some just don't have the time to spend an extra day getting to a mooring all the time. And with a trailer a 6 month trip around the horn is only three days by car. Time is money - I wish I had the time and money to spend 6 months on the water in a big boat. That would be nice.

Double doors are for giants like mastreb.

I don't know if he still reads this forum, because he has also gone the "larger boat route", but Declan had a roller mainsail in his 26X...

They make a roller mainsail for both the X boat and the M boat. The Inmon Furling Main boom is available for 400 dollars or so. You just pull a line in the cockpit and the main rolls up - pull another rope and it rolls out. It works very well if you always slip your boat but for us folks who trailer 100% of the time it's a bit hard on the set up. The Inmon furler is way better than a mac stack too because the Inmon machine will actually REEF the MAIN! That's something that even my rolling boom will not do (if I ever figure out how to make one that is).

Yes, the furling main on the MAC boats do exist - in fact I'm pretty sure mastreb had one when he bought Luna Sea one. Not sure what he did with it, but I am looking for something a bit different than that.

I have not quite figured it out yet, but I think mastreb was on the right "track" when I noticed him installing bearing cars on his mast (I broke one of them playing with it and lost the ball bearings), mastreb was gonna have a main sail that was on a track with cars instead of slugs- I think I might like that idea - but the cars will need to be something I can't break. I break stuff too much.

I have the inmon main furler. I leave the sail on it and just unpin and remove the boom to drop the rig. I ratchet strap it to the starboard stanchions for transport. Probably about the same trouble as removing a sail and stowing it although a sail weighs a lot less than a sail on a furler. I like the ease of raising/dousing, but I haven't been totally pleased with the sail shape. Still having too much fun to worry about it now, but maybe after the new wears off I can square it away.