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Rethinking the Mac 26
On 20 May 2004 06:29:40 -0700, (Parallax)
wrote:
The 8.5M S2 is supposed to be a fast boat but not being a racer I am
unappreciative of this. Being a cruiser who is impatient, if I have
to tack all over the chart to get where I want to go, the engine gets
turned on.
OK, not uncommon, but the S2 *is* pretty fast, but pretty fast for
that size is six knots unless you plane or surf in big air. I race one
in our club and it does better than the quarter tonners and runs even
with the Viking 28 and usually burns the Catalina 30.
I like the Mac26 concept but wish she were better made.
One word: Custom!
I am leaning toward a trailerable tri of some kind but a planing
monohull (if it really worked) would be so much easier.
F28, if you can stand the narrow hull. Everything's a compromise,
recall, but they can sustain more speed than a Macgregor.
As planing
monohulls do exist (Mike Plants boat was such), I expect some bright
person to develop such a thing for cruising eventually, not sure how.
Many cruisers will plane given the right conditions, but they tend to
be racer cruisers with the flatter bottoms condusive to planing.
J-Boats come to mind, and yes, many people cruise them "racing style",
although their basic Spartan layout bugs some people (me, I like the
idea of cleaning the entire cabin with half a bottle of Windex G).
You have to figure that Open 50s and 60s, etc. plane nicely, but make
****-poor cruisers for obvious reasons. They are also touchy and
difficult to sail. So rather than make a Shetland pony into a Triple
Crown winner, I would suggest you get a small powerboat and/or get the
most out of your S2, a perfectly good under 30 foot cruiser racer that
allow some scope for tweaking for performance. After all, if it's
speed you're after, take a plane G
R.
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