Quality has more to do with how something is designed and put together
than with the materials per se. It tries to ensure the weak link results
by design and not from the construction process. Superlative material
can be sabotaged through inappropriate usage or cheap/careless work, so
while the Mac26 may be a fine appropriate vessel for some, saying it is
made from wunderstuff doesn't say much - design talent and criteria and
production practice count for much more.

Since one of the Mac26 features is price, I would expect that it's
carefully designed to be slightly more than adequet to the long weekend
picnic crowd. This is really the most demanding _significant_ part of
its market; half of the boats sold never get much past the gas docks and
so a large bath tub would be seaworthy enough for them while the
"performance" crowd (like the guy that swamped himself pulling a water
skier) don't buy enough for Mac to design or build for them. Even
wunderstuff gets pricey real fast and we all know about labor costs, so
"good" design in this case balances warrantee and liability costs
against the savings of a cheaper process and the favor of the chosen
market. Mr MacGregor was first and last a business man.

There are likely a dozen or so points of common failure that should be
addressed before cruising the boat hard in water where you might not get
rescued in a timely fashion. The usual suspect come to mind: Hull/deck
join, cockpit drainage, deck fitting stength, port light strength,
steering gear stength etc. But that is true of most "cheap" boats
including Catalinas, Columbias, Contessas, etc.

I didn't read all of "Mullet's" site, but it looked like he had some
good sensible things to say, along with all his hand waving and smoke
and mirrors. He's a believer and he's doing good by his chosen faith and
it's probably doing good by him. He's the kind that gets others
involved, and with a little luck everyone survives the experience. g

Rufus

.....
When i first saw Hunters years ago, i was apalled at the poor quality
compared to my older S2 but when I look at newer ones, it is evident
that good engineering and material advances have probably made them
more than equal to my S2 in quality. I believe the same is true of
the Mac26. Its newer types of materials and construction is probably
better than the older materials and construction methods that went
into high quality boats of yore. By analogy, my fibreglas middle of
the road S2 is a far better boat than a very high quality boat built
in the 1940s and a middle of the road boat built now is better than a
high quality boat built in the late 70s. A lower cost boat built
today may be equal to a middle of the road boat built in the 70s.
From what i can tell, most mac26 owners recognize the limits of their
vessels and many discuss upgrading the equipment. Should a Mac26 be
sailed out of sight of land? I dunno, but I have seen even an Island
Packet that I refused to sail on that was regularly sailed across the
Gulf of Mexico.