MacGregorSailors.com

Chip sorry to bring up old thoughts, And frankly nothing is perfect. But there are some things that cant be changed like the beam or lenght.
And frankly I thought the board was well how do I say this a little boaring
and dry. Thought I would spice it up a bit. You can play too.

I would like to see a 28 footer come out, with a 9 foot beam and 2 stage water ballast. The first stage would be 1400 pounds and for real fun windy days add another 1000 pounds of ballast in a second tank. Or to shoot over to your fav. Island in calm water no ballast and a 120 horse motor.
And while Im talking about the motor have it go through the bottom hull like the old ranger boats had. something like a sail drive. And then add a
dolfin type fin to the dagger board that will point down at about 10 degr. when the board is down and when the board is up its flush with the bottom of the boat. a six thousand pound galv. trailer with two axles. Now id want this to sell, (boat show discount) for 22,000 dollars with the motor and trailer. They could call it the mxer

Don B wrote:I got thinking what will be the next 26, we have had the X and the M so maybe the next 26 should be the 26L. This will track with the internet app which is "XML" which is quoted as:

"XML shall support a wide variety of applications. XML should be beneficial to a wide variety of diverse applications: authoring, browsing, content analysis, etc. Although the initial focus is on serving structured documents over the web, it is not meant to narrowly define XML. "

And isn't that what we all want out of our 26's ? A boat that will fit a wide variety of applications ??

Sorry !! I have had too much Java this morning !!!

-Don B

Well what do ya know. A computer geek. I'm bonding. I'm bonding.

The Mac does what it was designed to do. When I wanted something else last year I sold the Mac (hooray for the Mac's high resale value!) and bought a Freedom 32 (32'8"LOA, 12'4"beam).

I now spend more time working on my sailboat than sailing it. I knew that would happen; but it was still a bit of a shock. Mac owners should figure the ease of work and the work time required when judging the Mac.

I so enjoyed my Mac and this board that I still lurk occasionally and could not resist responding to this thread.

You have the good life in your grasp....enjoy it!

Merrick White wrote: ... I now spend more time working on my sailboat than sailing it. I knew that would happen; but it was still a bit of a shock. Mac owners should figure the ease of work and the work time required when judging the Mac ... You have the good life in your grasp....enjoy it!

How 'bout that ... thanks Merrick, for a voice from other side of the fence!
Is the grass greener? ... not usually. And whenever it IS greener, the water bill's higher!

Back when I was shopping my boat in 1999, a close friend also debated buying a Macgregor X (for cash) or getting a Hunter keelboat. He chose the big payments for a Hunter 38, but it's been sitting on jacks for the last 3 years. He can't afford those Gulf coast slip costs, the water's too shallow for the 6-foot keel, and he can't afford to sell it. Tis' a pity ... caught betw a rock and "the hard"!

They use a ladder to climb aboard once a year (maybe Thsgv weekend) and overnight in that luxurious aft cabin with Queen centerberth. Ahhh - the water-life!

Ditto Moe's comments. I have a M but would prefer the X's interior layout. The X seems much smarter in its interior design.

Plus, I like the rear opening on the X. It is wider. Chubby-butt me has a hard time getting past the motor when climbing up the ladder in the rear of my M. Of course, I have a big motor too. Whine whine.

But all in all, I would not trade my boat for any other brand. Well, maybe a 35 Catalina. But the guy with a 35 Catalina who parks down from my boat seems to spend more time futzing with it and less time sailing.

Less slop in the steering. I've put teflon spacers on either side of the rudders and tightened the bolts going through the rudder stems inside the boat. These things helped but I'd like to tighten it up even more.

I'd rather see improvement effort and money go into the boat rather than the trailer. My 1985 Mac trailer did fine for the past 20 years and is still going strong.

Bald wrote:I'd rather see improvement effort and money go into the boat rather than the trailer. My 1985 Mac trailer did fine for the past 20 years and is still going strong.

I guess this is my point. For every guy that wants a gold plated three axle trailer, there's somebody who is perfectly happy with the existing cheapster.

For every guy who wants a bigger cockpit, there's somebody else who wants better sleeping accomodations. For every guy who wants a bigger motor, there's a guy who says 50HP is more than enough on a sailboat, for gosh sake. For every one who wants a bigger head, there's one who says heck, I only spend about ten minutes per day in there, the rest of the time it's wasted space.

Etcetera.

A quick note on the trailer. My 1976 Venture/Mac has it's original trailer, yes, I stripped it down to bare metal and redid it fully. A 20+ man hour job....my labor of course! But all-in-all it holds up just fine! 30 Bucks for several cans of primer and paint, and brushed on, still looks good 3 years later! Prime and paint when you see rust, paint that puppy ASAP, and all is well!!!

If you let it get ahead of you, as they say, rust never sleeps, and it will go quickly in salt water for sure! Mine is never perfect, but I try and keep it as black as I can. Wire brush the bad spots etc. Buy a few can per year of that cheap 99 cent rattle can spray paint, or just brush it on!

ALSO...I reitterate, drill a 1/2" hole in the aft portion of the tongue, 4" X 4" beam, and let that water that gets in there drain out! That really is the achilles heel of this trailer!!!

I love my Mac overall, yes I feel a hybrid of X and M would be absolutely perfect, and hopefully Macs will be improving and pleasing us even more. Personally they have always fit my budget, and quality has improved with evolution of his boats. There really is NO other boat for my buck!

Regarding the M:

1) Swim step or platform of some sort. I'm pondering a step that folds up flat right where the ladder is, with the ladder on the end of the step. All you need is about 8" x 10" - enough space to put one foot down solidly. (I also did a cardboard cutout and you could make a horse-shoe-shaped swim platform that would fold up against the rear seat, clearing the top of the Honda BF50, and attach at both sides of the transom - but I fear that the distance of the center section from the hull when it was folded down (about 3 feet) would mean you could not support any weight without making it of extremely heavy construction to the point it is impractical.

- I bet some innovative designer at BWY or IdaSailor could figure this out if the demand is clear enough.

2) A little wider cockpit, though not longer - for singlehanding I like the closeness of everything, and I would not give up cabin space for a longer cockpit.

3) With the wider cockpit, you could then make the pedestal a little more friendly for instruments and such.

- AndyS

Andy,

Maybe you could use cable struts to hold the center of your horseshoe platform? I thought the swim platform on this Hunter 25 was fairly clever. If the cable struts had variable lengths, the platform could have an optional, lower position that was 12 or 18 inches below the surface. Guess you'd need an open mesh platform though, like one side from a milk-crate.

(Anyone know of some open-stock milk crate style material? It's the sort of material that I'd prefer for creating the swim deck to cover steering struts of my X.)



Or maybe an optional higher position, too?
BTW, this Hunter-guy sure knows how to live!

Anyone know of some open-stock milk crate style material?

I think Scott built his boat out of old milk crates - he protesteth too much about my purloining them....(and I requisitioned them semi-permanently in defence...)

Catigale wrote:

Anyone know of some open-stock milk crate style material?

I think Scott built his boat out of old milk crates - he protesteth too much about my purloining them....(and I requisitioned them semi-permanently in defence...)

I have had similar thoughts on that design actually. I was able to come upon some UV stabilized fiber reinforced plastic grating that is green in color and sitting in my backyard. It's been back there for nearly 2 years, and shows no degradation at all. A company was disposing of it, and I snagged it up!

I was thinking of doing a rear deck to make it a tad easier for SCUBA diving, when reboarding. The piece I have is 3' X 10' X 2" thick. This is used for Mezzanine decking, so it is tough stuff! Of course I would cut it down considerably!

I tried a google search, but couldn't find what I am trying to describe, but this material is excellent simply because it will allow water to pass through it and won't lift up when a wave smacks it! It is like a milk crate, in that it is grating. The problem is simply storage. I might have to take a sizable deck and lash her broadside like the old Navy LST's did for their add on portable docks/ extended forward cargo ramps that they could put on the brow.

Well, it's a thought anyway, but that is a good idea about putting the generator back there also. It would keep any deck surface clear when operating it! I may make it a smaller pad area also, but somehow I'd like a full width deck as wide as the transom, with standoff struts to clear the rudders and motor with about half of the area notched out to form fit.

Just a thought anyway.....always thinking how to adapt and overcome obstacles....'o course I may just be creating one, huh?

Thanks for posting that pic Frank, I had not seen that before. That is a very cool idea - using the existing ladder as the attachment point.

Here is another thought that might allow for a bigger platform for something like SCUBA - what if, instead of hanging on or being fully supported by the transom, the platform simply floated behind and was attached to the transom on each side of the motor with a hinge or universal joint?? Kind of like a miniature floating dock. You could build a folding topside that fit on top of an innertube, so the whole thing could be taken down and stored inside for travel, or left floating at your mooring, on the beach, whatever... Maybe a way to make double-duty out of the tube you use to pull the kids around on. I guess the real question is, how much bouyancy does one of those tubes really have - if you put a lightweight, rigid deck on top of the tube and stood on it, would it sink? If it would hold enough weight, then attaching it to the transom would steady it, without putting any big loads on the transom.

Where does one buy a big innertube to experiment on? Without paying for one of the fancy towables?

- AndyS

I was going to start a new thread, but this one is already addressing my questions somewhat. On June 18, we will be going to the annual BWY rendezvous and I was excited to see an agenda item called, "Discussion of a Concept Boat". If you look at this market from the dealer's point of view, the Mac dealers get mostly new sailors, motorers (is that a word?) and those that haven't decided yet. After a few years when they decide they really want a 38 ft. Hunter or that Bayliner the dealer loses the tradeup market to someone else. So, my questions to the board concerns two separate markets:

1. What changes should MacGregor make to the current 26M to improve it, but keep it simple and relatively cheap?

2. What boat should MacGregor make for those current owners that would tempt them to trade up sometime in the future?

I plan to take a summary of your responses (anonymous of course) to the rendezvous.

Thanks,
Tom

I had actually been thinking about this for a back deck/dog recovery/SCUBA recovery system...