MacGregor 26?

[NewSailor]

hi! I am based in Stuart Florida. Just wanted to say hello!
I have some questions for anyone familiar with the MacGregor 26...

[NewSailor]

I live in South Florida. I am interested in getting a MacGregor 26M. Is there anyone out there who knows if that is a good boat for a beginner? I also am looking at the Cat 30. But I am leaning towards the MacGregor 26.
Does anyone have any feedback, advice, opinions or experience with the MacGregor? I will be crusing the Indian River area and offshore close to the beach (within a mile). I might also take the Okeechobee Waterway through the lake to the West Coast and back. I want an inexpensive boat to be able to sleep on for a few nights or a few weeks max and one in which I can go sailing/boating with my sons. Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

[SkiprJohn]

Aloha New,
Were you comparing Mac 26 and a Catalina 30? Of is Cat 30 an abbreviation for something else?
Regards,
JohnL

[s/v 'Faith']

The MAC 26 is a boat that seems to inspire a 'love it or hate it' attitude.

Some Sailors hate it for it's ability to power, and some powerboats hate it for it's ability to sail.

I know that there are a couple out there being used and enjoyed, and while I have not had first hand experience with them I will say that there is a boat out there for every Sailor.

Best of luck to you whatever you choose...

[Wahoo Sails]

Saw this thing once, was supposed to be a "combo" spinning/fly rod ... put the spinning reel here/flip it over put the fly reel here .... one of the worst pieces of crap I have ever seen ... uh ... now about that Mac Gregor ....
Bob

[NewSailor]

i meant a Catalina 30

[jackiepitts]

I believe there is some confusion here. From what I understand the 26X is a totally different boat than the 26M. The 26M is definately a sailboat while the new 26X is MacGregor's attempt at a cross between a motor boat and a sailing boat. Maybe someone else can confirm this.
I have no experience with the 26M but did own a MacGregor Venture years ago. It was a very light trailer boat. They are fun for what they were meant for.
Best,
Jackie

[jackiepitts]

oppps....I googled the 26M/26X and it seems that the 26M is their new production boat.
Sorry for confusing things.
I know that MacGregor did make a 26 prior to this new design but not sure what it was called.
Jackie

[bru]

We've looked closely at the Mac 26. It certainly has its plus points. It's one of the biggest (if not the biggest) trailer sailers on the market and the pricing (even here in the UK) is very competetive.

The styling is either love it or hate it. Not my cup of tea but SWMBO rather likes it (drat!). I'm not totally sold on the interior either but again, SWMBO .... ! For me it's much too modern looking (but then if I had my way I'd have an old gaffer, all wood, string and tar!)

The biggest criticism the 26 seems to come in for is stability. They have a reputation for turning turtle rather too readily. However, those in the know usually suggest that this is due to people trying to sail the things without filling the water ballast tanks.

I suspect the biggest prob with owning a Mac 26 is that every time someone asks you what boat you've got you'll be involved in an extended heated discussion about whether they're the best thing since sliced bread or the spawn of Satan!

[SkiprJohn]

New Sailor,
If the Catalina 30 will go where you want (because of draft) then get the Catalina. Better quality. More space. Can do more coastal cruising. But is not a trailer sailer.
Regards,
JohnL

[Tom Spohn]

I have owned both the Mac 26X and the 26M. These are great boats for beginning sailors. If you truely need the ability to trailor-sail the Mac wins every time since it is the easiest boat to launch due to the low height on the trailor. If you get into trouble while sailing or the weather changes, just turn on that 50 or 70 hp motor. The boats have lots of room inside and have a head and galley. We have taken both boats on extended trips into the San Juans and Gulf Islands in BC. The X and M are different boats but are more alike than different. The X has a bit more initial stability, but the square hull shape creates more turbulence when sailing. The deeper V of the M makes rough water a bit easier. Another factor for beginners is the high resale of these boats. I've gotten pretty much what I paid for them when trading. This means a newbie can sail one for a few years and when they really decide what boat they want they can sell it for not a loss. As to stability--The boats have internal water balast systems. They will not turn turtle unless they are operated dry which should not be done when sailing. Also they have foam flotation throughout and will not sink if the hull is breached. Another advantage for someone just learning. Disadvantages? Yes, they sail, but not as fast as a similar keelboat. They have an initial heeling motion due to the rounded hull in the rear (the M) I could do without, but they harden up quickly. Also they motor, but not as fast as a dedicated motorboat. We pretty consistently cruised under motor at 12-14 knots with up to 20 knots when pressed.

How to choose? If trailoring is important and you like the bigger motor, get the Mac. If you will never trailor and like the feel of a traditional keel boat and don't need to go fast the Catalina 30 is an excellent choice.

[Sailormann]

Well - I don't know if everyone is just dancing around the issue, or really isn't aware, but the quality (or lack thereof) of the MacGregor is the reason that a lot of sailors are not fond of them - it has nothing to do with the motor.

Don't want to offend any MacGregor owners (probably too late for that) but you get what you pay for. If you look around, you'll notice that there aren't any other new 26 foot boats on the market that sell at the same price. You know why ??? Trust me that it isn't because the builders refuse to make them. It's because you can't do it properly.

If you buy a used sailboat and take care of it, regardless of what boat it is, you will be able to recoup your purchase price when you sell it.

Get the Catalina.

[Entlie]

Well MacGregors do get out there. Last season in the Bahamas there were two MacGregors, traveling together, as far as Georgetown. Each boat had two people on board, one with a good sized dog. One had a hand built dinghy from a kit that folded into a parcel "about the size of an ironing board" the skipper told me. They were living the Bahamas cruising dream on a small boat. Attached is a photo of three boats at Staniel Cay, Exumas, Bahamas. The front boat is a MacGregor, the middle is a Prout Quest, the last is our Sunspot Baby.

Friends of ours had adventures on their MacGregor, sailed it in the Sea of Cortez and on lakes in the southwest.

This is not intended as a recommendation to buy a MacGregor and sail it offshore. But they can be an enjoyable boat for the right sailors.

Entlie
Sailing Catamaran Sunspot Baby

[nedmiller]

I have a Mac 26X. A Mac 26M is similar. We also have a RL24 with an iron keel. The RL is more stable, easier to sail, and sails better and faster. BUT, we never hardly ever take the RL even though it sails better. WHY? The RL has less room for the weight and size and is less comfortable, is harder to launch, rig, and retrieve.
Sailing: The Mac has a lot of weather helm and doesn't point as well as the RL. It leans over as soon as the wind hits the sails but then gets very stable. It goes slower upwind. Any decent keelboat with a good captain could beat us going upwind. (But heck, a really good captain in a Mac could beat me sailing a keelboat!) Downwind it goes as fast as the RL. There are advantages to the Mac and there are disadvantages. The boat is very light for it's size and we pull it with a 6 cylinder Dodge van with no issues. What is so wonderful about that is that we can go to a local lake and spend several days and then empty the water ballast and pull it out and go somewhere else for a different experience and see different things. For Spring Break we are thinking we will go to Kentucky Lake and sail for a week there. We will sail Lake Michigan this summer. We could take it to Florida and do some coastal sailing if we wanted to. There are a lot of Mac owners that live along the coast and sail it near shore. Some check the weather and go a bit further.
The interior is large for a light trailerable boat too. We have a large, comfortable bed, an alcohol stove for cooking, a nice table if we want to eat inside and a cockpit table outside in a nice size cockpit. We have a Magma Grill in the cockpit. We modified the boat and have a pressure water system and a tiny inside shower in the head--along with a porta-potty so we can stay out for several days. We have a good electrical system with good night lighting for reading, etc. We have a solar panel that keeps batteries charged on extended trips--but we don't have a fridge or microwave. A great boat for a weekend or even a week for a couple of people. I wouldn't want to live on this boat though. I wouldn't want to spend a couple of weeks on the boat with 4 kids either--although some do!
I don't see issues with quality in my boat. Brand new the bare bones boat can be bought for less than $20,000 so you aren't going to get a Teak Interior and stainless steel oven. If you compare the fiberglass on keel boat with the fiberglass on a Mac, you get the impression the Mac is low quality because it is so much thinner. IMHO that is not the case. The long-stranded fiberglass they use along with the careful laying of fiberglass makes the boat much stronger than you would expect when looking at the wall thickness and the boat's weight without the water ballast. We impacted the sharp metal corner of a dock once with a speed that would have totalled my car and only had a scratch on the gel coat. The rigging is also appears light to someone who has a big keelboat, but it doesn't need to be as heavy as the stuff on a boat that weighs thousands of pounds more. Lighter rigging means you can put the mast up and down easily. It also means that you want to stay away from hurricanes in this boat! Since the boat doesn't have the huge iron keel to take it to the bottom and has floatation, if something goes terribly wrong it won't sink and leave you wishing you had bought that expensive lifeboat. Since it isn't possible to remove the iron keel on a keel boat...they are unlikely to turtle. Since it is possible that someone would be stupid and not fill the water ballast in a Mac and then try and sail in strong winds, it is possible for the boat to turtle since the tank on the bottom of the boat that is suppose to have hundreds of pounds of water in it is full of air instead. It would float like a cork in this case though--better than going to the bottom. Fill the water ballast. On one level, I'd like a big stable keelboat, but then I wouldn't get to do some of the stuff we do with this boat. One great thing about the boat is that you can pull up the board, motor and rudders and pull up on the beach (on lakes or coves with no big wave actions). We also use the boat to explore and have traveled in smaller rivers. We have a depth finder that tells us when it's getting too shallow for the motor. The boat needs less than a foot of water with the board, motor and rudders up and we have pulled the boat through shallow water to get to deeper areas. Another advantage is that there is speed when you need it. More than once we have seen approaching storms and dropped the sails and cranked up the engine (60 hp Bigfoot on mine) to scoot along at 17mph--back to the safety of a cove or trailer. One other use; We can pull the grandkids on kneeboards and innertubes (up to about 15mph) when they visit and that makes them more likely to want to go to the lake with us than if we were just sailing. There is also plenty of room for them to sleep for an overnight (The rear berth, under the cockpit is as big as a kingsize bed so calculate how many kids you can sleep back there). We sleep in the forward berth--but modified it so we get more room.
This boat is light. Medium and larger waves move it a lot more than they move a heavy keel boat--not a boat for heavy seas and sensitive stomach. Don't buy this boat to cross oceans. Don't buy this boat if you are going to be so far from shore that you will need to be in really heavy weather. Don't buy this boat if you are going to rent a slip and always stay in deeper water. It's lightness is an advantage only if you trailer it to see different places. It's easy to put in and out but it does take about an hour to rig and launch. We pull it out of the lake and don't have to pay dock rental. Where we sail the most, that is $2000 per year that we save, (but, yes, it's a pain if you are only going for a day trip). If you use it as a trailerable, you can sleep in it like a travel trailer while on your way to a new lake or beach. It launches like a power boat and we launch in areas where most of the boats are just fishing boats.
I hope this gives you some insights into the Mac. If you need more, there is a fantastic discussion board that has over 50,000 posts on the Mac at MacGregorSailors.com :: Index
Fair Winds,
Ned

[David_Old_Jersey]

Ned

Excellent post.

Their is a boat for every one and every purpose.