Jeff Morris wrote:
"Jim Cate" wrote in message
...
...

Obviously, it would be
foolhardy to permit multiple passengers to ride on top of the cabin and
foredeck in the Mac, or any small boat, under those conditions.


What? Are you saying its unsafe to sit forward in a normal power boat?

What

about all of those "bowriders" outs there?

The Mac is clearly unsafe without its water ballast. The admonishments

include:

no more than 4 people. Keep crew aft, low and centered. The kids can't

even

stay in the forward bunk! They actually tell you not to use the forward

bunks

when underway! They say it is unsafe in seas higher than one foot! So

much

for coming in from offshore. You can't stand on the deck because someone

might

grab the mast to hold on! What? They're afraid someone might pull the boat
over trying to hold on??? No, this is not typical of a 26 foot sailboat,

nor

is it typical of a 26 foot powerboat.

Jeff, have you had many dealings with corporate attorneys? Or tort
lawyers? If you had, you would recognize that these warnings, if taken
literally, are something like the warnings posted in our health center
warning us to be sure to wear our seat belt when using the Nautilus
weight training equipment. Or, like the long list of warnings you get
when you purchase any electrical appliance, audio equipment, etc.
Actually, the new 26M has 300 pounds of additional permanent ballast, in
addition to the water ballast, for providing added stability when
motoring without the water ballast. (The previous model, the 26X, didn't
have this feature, yet I haven't heard of hundreds of Mac 26X owners
being lost at sea because they didn't stay below deck when motoring the
boat without the ballast. In essence, when under power without the water
ballast, the boat is a small, lightweight power boat, and you have to
take reasonable precautions to keep the com low. (On the other hand, if
you can provide statistics regarding hundreds of Mac sailors being lost
at sea because they didn't stay in the cabin when motoring without the
water ballast, I would like to see those statistics.)


Total nonsense. First you extol all the "virtues," asserting everything claimed
by the factory must be true;

Actually, this is not true. What I cited from the "factory" (whatever
that is) are the objective specifications of the boat. - Dimensions,
design changes (dagger board vs. swing keel, deep V-hull vs rounded
hull, additional fiberglass in hull, use of permantent ballast in
addition to water ballast. I DID NOT cite unobjective marketing verbage
relating to the sailing or motoring characteristics of the boat.



now you're saying all their warnings and
disclaimers are meaningless because a lawyer told them add this in.

Nope. I merely suggested that you take them with a grain of salt.

Frankly,
I've never warnings like this from any other sailboat manufacturer. Why is it
that this one feels the need?

- - Because MacGregor cares about it's customers and their passengers,
and is willing to warn them about potential hazards even if it means
that such warinings might be interpreted as a criticism of the boat itself.

If you did look at the statistics, you'd realize that death from sinking in
medium size sailboats in coastal waters is rather uncommon. The vast majority
of deaths is from capsizing or falling off of unstable boats; followed closely
by hitting something at speed. All of these are much greater risks in a boat
like a mac. I'm not talking about 2 or 3 times more common - there's only a
handful of deaths from traditional cruising boats sinking, but hundreds from
falling overboard, or capsizing. Think about it, Jim. 99% of drownings
involved boats with foam floation.

And, with some 30,000 boats sold, how many people drowned last year from
falling off one of the the Mac 26? Was it around 1,000? Or, perhaps,
about 500?? Or, even around 100??? Or about 50????? No? How about
20????? (No? Then how many. Put up or shut the hell up.)



If you really care about safety you should do some real hard thinking here. Do
you really think your grandkids are safer on a lightly built, overpowered,
unstable hybrid design, or on a traditional, proven design? For the same
money you could have a 10 year old Catalina 30 - a vastly superior boat, far
safer in the long run. And 5 years from now you could probably get 90% of what
you paid for it. The Mac, on the other hand, will be down to 50%.

The catalina is a nice boat (I've saild on several 30s), and we did
consider several of them, but it's boring, boring, boring.


Jim