"Jim Cate" wrote in message
...

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.)


How how many drowned from all the keel boats that you think are unsafe? The
point is you've been making a big claim that safety, compared to keel boats, is
one of the prime virtues of the mac, but you forgot to notice that keel boats
aren't particularly dangerous, especially in inland sailing. The safety factor
that impresses you so much solves a problem that doesn't really exist!




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.

And bobbing around in a clorox bottle is exciting? Its hard to imaginge a
sailboat more boring than a mac! I only mention the Cat 30 because there are
so many of them that its easy to determine the price and depreciation. There
are easily 100 models in the same range that would be vastly superior.

The Mac only has two advantages over a traditional boat. First, its trailorable.
If you lived in Minnesota and wanted to sail a different lake each weekend, this
would be very handy. Second is the increased speed. However, if you travel
with a crew, and any amount of gear, you won't really see speeds over 12 knots.
Clearly this is enough to pass other boats, but it won't really get you places
that much faster. And, if you have a head wind and any chop, the speed is
greatly reduced, and its very wet and uncomfortable.

And, its a horrible sailor. I haven't seen a PHRF number for the 26M, but on
the mac boards you'll see comments of rating the 26X at somewhere between 280
and 300. And this is for lake racing - imagine how slow it is "75 miles
offshore." You're thinking its safe to venture that far out because you can
scoot in at 20 knots. However, if you get a nasty chop you could end up
spending all night trying to get back.