Capt. JG wrote:

Never intended to claim that.

You said "great majority of reports from Mac owners are that they are happy
with their boats and would buy another one." Then, you went on to say how
many were sold, quoting a figure of 30K with some part of 15% saying they
were dissatisfied. I'm pointing out that some percentage of McD burger
eaters would say they didn't like the food, but the vast majority are
probably satisfied.

You claim that it's a good quality boat, right. So, citing a satisfaction
percentage of 85% isn't saying much.


Actually, I was being a little conservative regarding the 15% figure. As
explained to Jeff, the 85% applied only to those who liked the boat and
definitely thought they would buy it again given the chance to chose
again. The survey related to owners of the new 26M, released around
2003, and some of the owners hadn't had their boats long enough to make
conclusive judgments about buying it again.

So, although the majority of the responses were highly positive, the 15%
figure included several who said they couldn't predict at this time
whether or not they would buy a Mac again (undecided); several who
hadn't made up their mind yet because they hadn't had the boat long
enough to make a valid judgment; one who said he now realized that he
needed a larger boat; and a very small minority who didn't like the boat
and would look for something else. So, it would seem that the actual
number of positive responses is probably greater than 85%, unless one
assumes that all the 15% will in time decide that they don't like the boat.

But to put it in perspective, how many of the participants on ASA end up
buying the same boat, or boats from the same manufacturer, two times in
a row? From the various discussions on this ng, it seems more common
that they want something else. - So their satisfaction rate may
ultimately be somewhat lower than that of the Mac owners. Hard to say
for certain, of course, but there are certainly lots and lots of
satisfied Mac owners, judging from the discussions on the Mac boards as
compared with the discussions on ASA and other sailing forums.

Jim