Alan Gomes wrote:

And *my* point was simply to question whether one could conclude from a
*lack* of capsize reports the number of actual capsizes. (Though a large
number of reported capsizes would suggest a problem, it would not
necessarily follow that a lack of such reports suggests an infrequent number
of capsizes.)

--AG


And *my* response is that you can always postulate about why those
reports aren't turning up (It's POSSIBLE, of course, that there is a
conspiracy among Mac owners and the MacGregor company under which any
owner who capsizes is immediately paid a large sum of hush money to
prevent him or her from reporting it.) As can be easily seen from the
discussions of the Mac 26 on this ng, there is a fairly extensive group
of boat owners on this ng who take pleasure in discussing perceived
deficiencies of the Macs. If they could possibly find information
suggesting that the Mac design was causing excessive numbers of capsizes
or other failures, they would hop on those reports with great pleasure.
Also, if the Macs were inherently unsafe or prone to capsize, don't you
think that there would be some report of such a major problem in at
least one of the news media, sailing journals, internet sites, etc.?

The fact remains that no one on this board has yet provided any evidence
that the Macs suffer a disproportionate number of capsizes or structural
failures, despite my repeated suggestions that if they have such
evidence, they should put it on the table. The reports seen on this
ng are, for the most part, mere anecdotes and opinions from posters who,
for the most part, have never sailed the boats they are talking about.

Jim




"Jim Cate" wrote in message
...


Alan Gomes wrote:


snip (Jeff, if the


Macs have a fundamentally unsafe design, where are the hundreds of
reports of capsizes and drownings that would be expected with all the
other 30,000 boats? With that many boats, if the boat was inherently
unsafe, and with that many boats out there, we would see hundreds of
such reports every year.)


I'm curious about something here. The implication of this statement

seems to

be that a capsize typically will result in a fatality and hence would be
reported. Is that a fair assumption to make? Could it not be that these
boats *do* capsize with some regularity, that no fatality or other
significant harm results, and that the capsize remains unreported? I'm

not

saying that is actually the case. I'm just questioning the force of the
argument from silence that is being used here to prove the contrary

(i.e.,

few *reported* capsizes = few capsizes).

--Alan Gomes

Unless someone has the transcript of the trial, we don't have all the
facts. My point was that I don't see lots of reports about macs
capsizing,or lots of reports of drownings as a result of a supposed
faulty Mac design. My note was intended as a response to those on this
newsgroup who seem to think that posting one or two anectdotes about
problems with the Macs (or any other boat, for that matter) is "proof"
of a faulty design, etc. It isn't of course, and in the case of the
Macs, we have a much larger group of owners that must be taken into
account.

Jim

Jim