* Ed Gordon wrote, On 6/12/2007 11:53 AM:
Jeff wrote in
:

And yet, just yesterday, you bragged about how fast it would go with
an empty ballast tank with the Honda engine.


Hey, man, I can do it because I'm not stupid or drunk. I was smart
enough not to have bowriders etc. Keep the people inside or in the
cockpit for stability with an empty tank. It does go faster without the
ballast under power. It's just plain physics.

So what is it? First you say fill the tanks, now you say run empty?


So please explain to us which boats it sails faster than. You've said
many times that its a "fast sailer" but when I look at the ratings, I
have trouble finding a boat remotely comparable to a Mac that isn't
10% faster, or more. In fact, its real hard to find a boat that's
slower than a Mac. So please, give us an example of a boat that sails
slower than a Mac.

Any boat that has less length waterline will be slower than a Mac under
sail.

Only an idiot or a simpleton would make that claim. There are many
more factors than waterline length.

But since the Mac is a plaining hull it can go faster than heavy
ballast keel boats in winds strong enough to plain it off.

The Mac can plane only in certain limited situations.

You want an
example, just look up boats that have less than a 23 feet. Here's one
much slower Alerion Express 20.

Oh, so you pick a boat 6 feet shorter - one that's designed for simple
daysailing. It shouldn't be too hard to beat a boat like that. OK,
lets look at the USSailing Portsmouth Yardstick for these two boats.
The Mac 26X is 99.5, but the Alerion 20 is only 93.1. So that means
the Alerion is more than 6% faster than the Mac.

Sorry, maybe you're faster than a Rhodes 19. Nope, that's 96.9.
Wait! I found one! You're faster than a Typhoon, the 18 foot Alberg
design. It only rates 106.9. Congratulations, the mac is not the
slowest boat on the water!

Yes, that's the perfect boat for a family cruiser. Even in perfect
weather, if you get complacent it will roll over and kill you.

Catamarans roll over and kill people too. People still buy them too.
It's because they know the risks. Every boat has it's own risks. You're
too uptight, man.

The difference is that a cat has a small chance of rolling in extreme
weather, hurricanes and the like. The Mac has a chance of rolling if
a few people are standing up and you goose the throttle by mistake.