Bill, you might have the southern part of the
country covered, BUT, my 95 H26 is so much more fantastic, that the drive is worth the extra $50,000 asking price. Now to Lee. We looked almost a year for the best "reasonably towable sailboat" under $25,000. Any brand, fixed keel preferable, good sailing if not somewhat fast and able to bear 3 to 6 day onboard trips without undo hardship was OK with us. The Hunter 26 came up so many times that after 5 months of searching the entire NW and southern BC Canada we finally located one in Denver Co. Thats 1100 miles from our home. We only found 2 H26's for sale in this entire area!! (I know probably 215 people will say they had this exact model for sale in this area at this time, but they sure hid them well!) We were very lucky to find the boat we finnaly bought. It was at the Anchorage Boat Sales, Lyons Co., about 20 miles north of Denver. We had talked to these folks 3 times over this 5 months about 3 different brands of boats. Time and time again the boat that showed, sailed and accommadated these requirements was the Hunter 26. The couple we bought from always said they liked this boat best in this catagory of sailing boats. They would have probably made more money by selling us one of the other boats we talked about during this search, but were very honest about what would serve us best for what we were doing. After having sailed both water ballast and standard ballast boats in this size group I prefer the water ballast. You can have a longer, better equiped boat that can be towed very easly as you leave the ballast in the lake. I also strongly feel that a water ballast boat, with a good aggressive sail plan, will sail equally as well, if not faster, than a weighted keel boat. If that last statement is questioned, be sure that the respondant has truly sailed both boats. It's like the early battle about cars with auto vs. stick transmissions. Good Luck on finding a Hunter 26. Ray S/V Speedy
