Another owner's review of the MacGregor 26x

Posted By: Bruce Whitmore
Date: 5/16/01 7:08p.m.

Report: outside forum guidelines

Ok, I keep being tempted to respond to the 26x threads that pop up, and so I finally put my thoughts on my hard drive so I can just copy and paste them when needed. So, here goes... Todd, feel free to put this in the reviews section, but please check my grammer! I constantly see questions about the 26x out there, and having owned one for three years, having had a great time on it, but also having had a number of frustrations with the boat, I have mixed feelings towards it overall. That being said, I intend this to be a comprehensive discussion of my thoughts about the boat. Positives About The 26X: 1. Dual motor and sailing capability 2. Roomy 3. Lightweight for trailering without a mega-vehicle 4. Water ballast which works well, and allows easy trailering 5. Light rig makes stepping the mast relatively easy 6. Acceptable, but by no means great sailing performance 7. Lack of wood means low maintenance 8. Nice looking interior 9. Fully retracting centerboard makes the boat easy to launch and easy to get through shallow areas. Negatives About The 26X 1. The boat is neither a great powerboat nor a great sailboat. It is truly a compromise that if you are focused on either the sailing or the powering, you will be disappointed by the performance. The flat bottom of the boat which allows planing also results in pounding over chop. Plan on this boat for nice water sailing, not rough water sailing (which admittedly we mostly sailed on the nice days). 2. The roominess is offset by the fact that the storage is laid out in such a way that you’ll need lots of plastic boxes to store stuff. The storage is just big open areas in the usually dry bilge where stuff can roll into corners and become inaccessible. The bare fiberglass can result in fiberglass splinters in your hands. In addition, the roominess means high freeboard, which when combined with the light weight can mean the boat being difficult to control well when docking or pulling up to the ramp. 3. Light weight also means having the boat “stop and go” in the chop – it can really diminish your overall speed and comfort which a larger, heavier boat will avoid. 4. The water ballast works well, being tender for the first 10-15 degrees, then firming up well. However, it is also relatively easy to overpower, and the hull design results in significant weather helm developing quickly. 5. Yes, the light rig makes it relatively easy to rig. But it also means that the mast has a tendency to “pump” over chop, and to be honest, I doubted the integrity of the rig if I got in really snotty conditions. That being said, the rigging DID withstand 67 mph gusts WITH THE SAILS UP one evening – that is a long story about my stupidity, but the boat did withstand the stress. Also, I have not heard of anyone losing a mast on a 26x. The lack of turnbuckles makes the rig difficult to tune well. Once you get it tuned its fine, but the initial tune will take quite a bit of effort, and to be honest, the MacGregor manual does a very poor job of describing how to properly tune the boat. 6. Sailing performance is good off the wind, but is not very good as you get close to the wind. In addition, the high freeboard means that the boat will slide off from the wind as you try to fight to weather. I found that slipping to be particularly frustrating as I was beating to weather toward the harbor, thinking I was going to make it just fine, but then having to tack (again!) to make the harbor mouth. 7. The lack of wood means low maintenance, but it also means waking up to a very, very bright morning sun in the cabin, even with the tinted Plexiglas. It also means that in general it will take a lot of modifications to make the boat into what you want. Running wires is difficult behind those thin fiberglass panels, and every time you want a switch or you want to run some wires, you’re usually talking about cutting holes and spending a lot of time. It wasn’t so much the money that I put into the modifications which I did not recover when I sold the boat, it was the time and energy I spent. Looking back, I would not have done as much to the 26x, and instead would have lived with more simplicity and less modifications. Also, while some people look at the 26x as a “blank canvas” that you can do what you want with, it was disconcerting to me to see that so much had to be done to make it the way most people would want it. Finally, the foam in the cushions is downright crap. $300 later I had nice cushions, but the foam shouldn’t have had to be replaced so quickly. 8. The fully retracting centerboard means that it is quite skinny for its length. This meant that the boat was less forgiving about proper sail trim than other boats I had sailed. Now I’ll have to admit, I had no experience sailing a boat this size, but I easily spent the first half of my first season learning to make tiny adjustments to sail trim and steering, otherwise I would either end up luffing or turning way off the wind. Once I got used to it, however, the boat was good at finding its “groove” and settling in on a nice, steady course. 9. The build quality was poor, though adequate for a protected-water sailboat. The lack of proper through-hulls is disturbing now that I have a boat that has through-hulls. At the same time, however, the through-hulls do not penetrate below the water line (unless heeled, which is a good part of the time), and the hull will float even if flooded. So, I do not place that into the “dangerous” category, just something that makes me question the overall commitment of MacGregor to quality vs. profit. The poor steering components of the earlier 26x’s again, is not an issue for inland lake sailors, but is an issue for those doing coastal cruising or Great Lakes sailing. If it fails at the wrong time, it could really be a bad thing. MacGregor fixed it on the new ones, but hasn’t offered a repair for the owners of older Macs. If it were a car, it would have been recalled, but I guess boat builders either don’t do that sort of thing, or MacGregor just doesn’t want to do it. In closing, if you want the speed, or the size for the trailerability, or the light weight, or the shallow draft, or the ease of launching, and you will be staying in relatively protected waters, the 26x is a fine boat. If you have visions of true coastal sailing or more than 1 day trips on the Great Lakes, the 26x is not the boat, unless you really need one of those other benefits noted above. Finally, I cannot stress this enough – buy the 26x used, not new. I am very happy I did, as the boat came with some of the modifications already done, and I took much less depreciation on the boat as a result when I sold it. I think the 26x will be a 3-4 year boat for most people, as those who love the sailing will move to a true sailboat, and those who power will lose interest in sailing. Probably only a remaining 35% of the owners will keep the boat long term. That means a lot of turnover, and relatively high numbers of the boats being available. That spells lots of depreciation. If it sounds like I am being tough on the boat, perhaps I am, but I am still glad I had the boat while I did – it just didn’t fit my needs, but then my needs were not what I thought they were when I bought the boat. That’s a common dilemma boat owners face when they buy especially their first boat.