You Might Be A MacGregor Sailor If...

[TheFarSide]

You might be a MacGregor Sailor if...

• You bought a new model complete with jib, genoa, cruising spinnaker, mainsail, alcohol stove, portable toilet, trailer, 50HP four-stroke or DFI outboard for under $30,000, or a very well-equipped 3-6 year old model for about 2/3 that.
  
• Your boat can take a 110° mast in the water knockdown and pop back up, with the water ballast in.
  
• Your boat won't take on water in open hatches, in light waves, when knocked down. In heavier seas, you prudently close them.
  
• Your boat will probably float level at the surface if it is holed or swamped, and the sails are down. This might have been a major selling point to you or your spouse.
  
• Your boat might capsize and two children get caught in the rigging and drown, if you loan it to a powerboating friend with a blood alcohol content of 0.27%, who puts 11 people aboard without water ballast, many of them on the cabin top, and then who makes a hard full-throttle turn to avoid another boat he almost doesn't see at night through his impaired vision.
  
• Your boat is one of now nearly 7,000 other MacGregor powersailors that haven't "killed" anyone, or had a structural failure.
  
• You have full-time 5'10" to 5'11" standing headroom in the cabin with having to use a pop-top.
  
• You can sleep 4 adults, or more typically, a family of 5 aboard.
  
• You have a side dinette that doesn't have to be folded to pass by it.
  
• You have a galley with sink, alcohol stove, and extra countertop for food preparation.
  
• You have a fully enclosed head, with a sink in the X.
  
• You can tow it, without permits, anywhere in the US, well within the tow rating of a common mid-sized SUV.
  
• You can rig and launch the boat by yourself in less than an hour, with experience.
  
• You can launch at the same shallow, short ramps as a typical aluminum fishing skiff.
  
• You don't need to disconnect the trailer or use a tongue extension to launch.
  
• You can drive the boat on and off the trailer like that aluminum fishing skiff.
  
• You can transit over the same less than 2' deep shoals as that fishing skiff.
  
• You can pull keelboats off a soft grounding if they try to follow you.
  
• You can beach your boat in pretty much the same places as that skiff.
  
• You can power at up to 17-18 knots unballasted and 14 knots ballasted with a reliable four-stroke or DFI 50HP outboard.
  
• You can cruise at hull speed at only 2,000 - 2,500 rpm instead of twice that with a screamin' kicker.
  
• You can pull up a 200 lb adult skier or pull a couple of your kids on a large tube.
  
• You can think of your outboard as a backup to your sails OR vice versa.
  
• You can take the attitude, "it's the journey, not the destination," and sail as much as you want to.
  
• You can take the attitude, "it's the destination," and power at nearly 3X hull speed when you want or need to be there quickly.
  
• Sailing exists to serve you and your family. You don't exist to serve sailing.
  
• You don't care if other boats sail faster and typically have no interest in racing under sail.
  
• You may have joined the Conch Cruisers on one of their trips to Bimini or Dry Tortugas, AND maybe even the Trailer Sailors in the North Channel the following week or two.
  
• Your (true) friends with keelboats are Corinthian sailors who don't care what you sail, just that you do.
  
• Your friends with keelboats appreciate it that you can scout beautiful coves to anchor in, for depth.
  
• You're too busy having fun to give a rat's ass about what "sailboat snobs" think about your boat, especially those who don't even own a boat.
  
• You probably take your boat out many times more often than most "sailboat snobs" who do own one.
  
• If you've ever even heard of him, you probably think Mighetto is a Don Quixote troll, with an unshakable misunderstanding of the laws of physics, who totally misses the point of the powersailor design, and tries to pretend it's something it isn't.
  
• If you HAVE heard of him, you're probably a member of the MacGregorSailors Forum.

[Shife]

Nice try with the alias Frank. Too bad it didn't work. Letting you out of your cage known as the TP52 thread was a big mistake for this site.

[Mark 42]

http://www.sailinganarchy.com/forums...howtopic=13529

[mighetto]

Originally Posted by Shife

Nice try with the alias Frank. Too bad it didn't work. Letting you out of your cage known as the TP52 thread was a big mistake for this site.

Wasn't me. Posting under a second handle is just not appropriate. Of course it happens. The son of a US Sailing board member confessed his sins to me as if I was that fellow on air america confessing libral sins. He had had a long thread on Sailing anarchy where the three posters were all him, himself and his. Of course I don't know if it was really him.

[TheFarSide]

Shife's one of your groupies, Frank. Check him out. All his posts on this forum are about you. He's so obsessed with you that now he's seeing you where you aren't.

I, OTOH, am not. If MacGregor Sailors worried about their "image," they'd find you an embarrassment to the name. I just worry about the foolhardy advice you give MacGregor newbies.

[Shife]

Originally Posted by TheFarSide

Shife's one of your groupies, Frank. Check him out. All his posts on this forum are about you. He's so obsessed with you that now he's seeing you where you aren't.

Strong words coming from someone who joined just to defend his floating Yugo.

I am someone who sail's on a real sailboat, not a pile of crap that has been touted by the manufacturer as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Macgregor's boats are about as useful as spray on hair. They don't fool the general public.

[TheFarSide]

Originally Posted by Shife

I am someone who sail's on a real sailboat

ROTFL. A REAL sailboat! ROTFLMAO Was it hard to pound your chest while typing that?

See my post above about sailboat snobs and advice to young mackid in the blammin thread.

BTW, here's a clue. Mac owners know they're cheaply made and most make fun of MacGregor's marketing and exaggeration as much as you do.

[Shife]

Originally Posted by TheFarSide

ROTFL. A REAL sailboat! ROTFLMAO Was it hard to pound your chest while typing that?

See my post above about sailboat snobs and advice to young mackid in the blammin thread.

BTW, here's a clue. Mac owners know they're cheaply made and most make fun of MacGregor's marketing and exaggeration as much as you do.

No, the chest pounding came after hitting the submit button.

BTW...
"You can pull keelboats off a soft grounding if they try to follow you."

Yeah, rigghhht. Ever hear of a chart? Besides the last boat I'm going to follow is a Mac26. When it comes to gaining "local knowledge" of a habor or inlet, Mac owners are not the people I try to contact.

[TheFarSide]

Originally Posted by Shife

Besides the last boat I'm going to follow is a Mac26.

Aw, man.... you really missed a good shot! You're supposed to say, "Real sailboats wouldn't be following those slow-@ss MacGregors in the first place." C'mon now, I expect better from a Frank follower!

Originally Posted by Shife

When it comes to gaining "local knowledge" of a habor or inlet, Mac owners are not the people I try to contact.

I understand. How could you face other "real" sailors after doing so.

[mikelinmon]

Before passing any judgment on the value of a boat take a look at the photos of folk like me just enjoying their boat. Check out the macgregor26X.com web sight (the factory sight) and look up "photos". They are all having fun in those photos doing a lot of different things. Try to subsitute some other boat in all of these photos and see what you get. No boat designed for crossing the North Atlantic will be much fun as a coastal cruiser/daysailor/racer/lake sailor/motorboat/Catalina Island cruiser. No boat designed for the Americas Cup (nowadays anyway) could ever cross the North Atlantic. See where I'm going with this point. You must get the boat to suit your use. If you can zero in on your needs, then select your boat, and note that someone else might select something else. I'd love a .............. so many boats, so little time.................need more money, need more time.
MIke Inmon