Quick introduction, I've placed only a couple posts here before but, I have owned a few Macgregors, including a 25, 26C and X, and am a fan. Right now I have a deposit down on a Venture Newport. I heard that Macgregor Yachts is closing their doors, and Roger Macgregor, who has been making sailboats for almost 50 years, is retiring. I had been to the Macgregor factory in Costa Mesa before to buy a mast, and Bill there was very kind to me, and being a Mac owner and Socal native-I felt like I had kind of a personal attachment (plus it is only a couple blocks from where my Grandma used to live).
Well fate found me in Irvine today shortly before lunch, and it was easy to talk myself into stopping by the old Macgregor factory again (And Minny’s to look at old boat parts). As an excuse I wanted to find out if they still had the old Venture Newport Molds, but I also was thinking I might get Roger’s autograph, and I had heard that Mike Inmon, and old Macgregor Dealer (and friend of Roger’s), was running the place now. I had spoken to Mike at a boat show, for nearly an hour, years ago, about the sailing performance of the Macgregor 26s, and he was determined at that time to try and setup a Venture Newport for racing. Thus he seemed like a good guy to talk to now that I'm getting one.
Mike was there at the factory yesterday, and seemed happy to take a break from his office duties and talk shop. He has followed through on his word years ago, and showed me pictures and the trophies he won racing his slightly modified Venture Newport (the main sail had a huge roach).
He refuted the fact that Macgregor was closing its doors, it is simply getting out of the trailer sailor market (well not completely, more on this later). He said the market for new trailer sailors has dried up (maybe because there are 20,000 used Macs out there now). He sadly showed me the last of the Macgregor 26Ms on the assembly line. This was on the way to show me their redesigned NEW 70 FOOT YACHT. I took a brief imprompto video but the camera ran out of memory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap8u56Q_Uh4&list=HL1363725680&feature=mh_lolz
The new boat is ONE THIRD LIGHTER than their previous 70, weighing in at only around 22,000 pounds. It uses two (port and starboard) water ballast tanks utilizing the turbo diesel motor to quickly transfer ballast from one side to the other when tacking. All of the parts are very lightweight, (made out of epoxy fiberglass instead of polyester) and despite being lighter the boat will be more rigid and stronger than the last one.
The 8,000 pound lead bulb keel is the sleekest thing I’ve ever seen! As we walked back by the line of 26Ms Mike told me that they will be manufacturing replacement masts for the trailer sailors they have manufactured, but there is a twist (literally). The new masts will weigh only HALF of what the old masts weigh. Instead of aluminum, they will be made out of carbon fiber. Even though the old masts only weighed 44 pounds, they were so far off the center of buoyancy that it took a huge weight to counter balance that weight (up to forty feet away). The new masts, weighing in at 22 pounds, will be saving so much weight far from the center of buoyancy that a Macgregor 26X could sail with the ballast tank empty and have the same stiffness in the wind as one sailing with the tank full and the old mast! I doubt he recommends sailing like this but he said it’s like you need 300 pounds less ballast or keel for the same sailing stiffness.
As they say in the old infomercials: BUT WAIT! There’s more! Not only will the new masts weigh half as much, but they will come with all the hardware to rotate! Macgregor has already proven the performance advantages of a rotating mast (about a knot in sailing speed), but the carbon fiber one, with a shape designed from scratch to rotate will have a perfect teardrop cross section, which will probably be much larger than the old aluminum stock they have been using. Can you say “Wing”?
Seems to me this could be a great performance upgrade to all those used sailboats that Roger has gotten out there over the last several decades (although Mike hesitated to call it that and called them “replacement” masts).
This was by far the most fun and memorable lunch I have had in a long time.
I swung by Minny’s after that and had fun browsing through all of their nautical paraphernalia and boat parts. The smell in there alone (salty) was enough to make it worth the trip.
Well fate found me in Irvine today shortly before lunch, and it was easy to talk myself into stopping by the old Macgregor factory again (And Minny’s to look at old boat parts). As an excuse I wanted to find out if they still had the old Venture Newport Molds, but I also was thinking I might get Roger’s autograph, and I had heard that Mike Inmon, and old Macgregor Dealer (and friend of Roger’s), was running the place now. I had spoken to Mike at a boat show, for nearly an hour, years ago, about the sailing performance of the Macgregor 26s, and he was determined at that time to try and setup a Venture Newport for racing. Thus he seemed like a good guy to talk to now that I'm getting one.
Mike was there at the factory yesterday, and seemed happy to take a break from his office duties and talk shop. He has followed through on his word years ago, and showed me pictures and the trophies he won racing his slightly modified Venture Newport (the main sail had a huge roach).
He refuted the fact that Macgregor was closing its doors, it is simply getting out of the trailer sailor market (well not completely, more on this later). He said the market for new trailer sailors has dried up (maybe because there are 20,000 used Macs out there now). He sadly showed me the last of the Macgregor 26Ms on the assembly line. This was on the way to show me their redesigned NEW 70 FOOT YACHT. I took a brief imprompto video but the camera ran out of memory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap8u56Q_Uh4&list=HL1363725680&feature=mh_lolz
The new boat is ONE THIRD LIGHTER than their previous 70, weighing in at only around 22,000 pounds. It uses two (port and starboard) water ballast tanks utilizing the turbo diesel motor to quickly transfer ballast from one side to the other when tacking. All of the parts are very lightweight, (made out of epoxy fiberglass instead of polyester) and despite being lighter the boat will be more rigid and stronger than the last one.
The 8,000 pound lead bulb keel is the sleekest thing I’ve ever seen! As we walked back by the line of 26Ms Mike told me that they will be manufacturing replacement masts for the trailer sailors they have manufactured, but there is a twist (literally). The new masts will weigh only HALF of what the old masts weigh. Instead of aluminum, they will be made out of carbon fiber. Even though the old masts only weighed 44 pounds, they were so far off the center of buoyancy that it took a huge weight to counter balance that weight (up to forty feet away). The new masts, weighing in at 22 pounds, will be saving so much weight far from the center of buoyancy that a Macgregor 26X could sail with the ballast tank empty and have the same stiffness in the wind as one sailing with the tank full and the old mast! I doubt he recommends sailing like this but he said it’s like you need 300 pounds less ballast or keel for the same sailing stiffness.
As they say in the old infomercials: BUT WAIT! There’s more! Not only will the new masts weigh half as much, but they will come with all the hardware to rotate! Macgregor has already proven the performance advantages of a rotating mast (about a knot in sailing speed), but the carbon fiber one, with a shape designed from scratch to rotate will have a perfect teardrop cross section, which will probably be much larger than the old aluminum stock they have been using. Can you say “Wing”?
Seems to me this could be a great performance upgrade to all those used sailboats that Roger has gotten out there over the last several decades (although Mike hesitated to call it that and called them “replacement” masts).
This was by far the most fun and memorable lunch I have had in a long time.
I swung by Minny’s after that and had fun browsing through all of their nautical paraphernalia and boat parts. The smell in there alone (salty) was enough to make it worth the trip.
