MacGregorSailors.com

There is also the Farrier F33-http://www.f-boat.com/f-33.html

Had an F31 at one stage- great sailing boat.

Peter HK

Peter HK

Nice Boats, I wish I could afford one! Scott will have one soon!

Chip Hindes wrote:Only four posts, one of them completely irrelevant, until the original question, "What is the largest trailerable?" is so badly hijacked that the consensus answer apears to be "What a great boat the Mac26 is."

The idea of the largest trailable boat is the fact that I would like to have a boat that I can live in ( no land property tax) and also be able to cruise around the world with it. But, I also want to be able to save money in launching, and be able to trailer it across the continent if it's cheaper to do so. It seemed that the Seaward Eagle 32 RK is the only one that fit this criteria, but it's kind of too small to live in. Something like a 42 ft trailable will be nice. How possible is it to launch / retrieve it by yourself, even with the permit, is a big question mark. Anybody has an idea ? So what if the price is $ 150,000, or even $200,000. It's replacing your home, without property tax, no heat / air conditioning bill, no gas bill, it's a good idea to spend your retirement time. IF you don't use it at sea, you can use it to replace a trailable home ( camper), that's why the trailable feature is so important.

wiehan

The idea of the largest trailable boat is the fact that I would like to have a boat that I can live in ( no land property tax) and also be able to cruise around the world with it.

Adventures of "Jean-du-Sud"



Repowering Jean du Sud
FROM THE MAILMANS BAG TO JEAN-DU-SUD
aboard Jean-du-Sud
Meet the Sailing Inventor who Circumnavigated in an Alberg 30

They Theirs wrote:Adventures of "Jean-du-Sud"

Sheesh! There's no way you'd get that boat into Lake Mead!

jackie m

jackie m

Certainly not for those who have the convenience of the MacGregor in their sights,
but for the explorer looking to sail afar into the horizon in the oceans of adventure, its reasonable.

wiehan wrote:

The idea of the largest trailable boat is the fact that I would like to have a boat that I can live in ( no land property tax) and also
be able to cruise around the world with it.

They Theirs wrote: Certainly not for those who have the convenience of the MacGregor in their sights,
but for the explorer looking to sail afar into the horizon in the oceans of adventure, its reasonable.

Agreed. But I think for that, I'd rather have a fixed mast.

I just have a different purpose for a trailerable.

jackie m

jackie m

Chip about nailed the Trailerable part.

Chip Hindes wrote:

The term "trailerability" has quite a range of definitions.

I have owned a Keel-Stepped Trailerable and the MacGregor. Both on opposite ends of the Trailerable Boat List.
Each with their own benefits and deficiencies.

Trailerable Powersailors and sailboats

wiehan - Good thinking about the liveaboard. Put together the numbers sometime. Dockage, Cost of the truck, Storage for the trailer and truck. Cost of the bigger boat. Daily cost of the bigger boat. Insurance. All of this adds up. And then You have to tow the boat or have somebody else tow it. There is also the problem with splashing it. Anything more than 3 feet from the bottom of the wheels to the waterline is a problem with a ramp, you are going to have to find a lift and there is the problem with stepping the mast. And you need to be able to move it around in the water. More living space = more weight, bigger boat, more windage. BIGGER everything.

If all of these problems are solved - Then the question remains is how wide do you want to tow. 8 feet will not require a permit. In most states 8 1/2 feet wide you will not. In most states, anything over 8 1/2 feet you will need a permit and you may also need car in front and in back.

I do realize that people are living on a Flicka, 20 feet on deck. How much do you really need? I started with a 112 foot catamaran and worked my way down.

This is a Mac site. I looked at all of these things, including my bank account and made the choice of the . Liveaboard - no. I can rent and have a truck and splash the boat cheeper than living at a livaboard marina. Long term cruising, yes. A bit tight for 1 or 2 people, but inorder to do this in the next 2 years, the Mac 26M '06 was the best choice for me.

Living Aboard is the magazine dedicated to people who dream of the life and live the dream of living aboard watercraft.

Here is there link - http://www.livingaboard.com/

wiehan wrote:The idea of the largest trailable boat is the fact that I would like to have a boat that I can live in ( no land property tax) and also be able to cruise around the world with it. But, I also want to be able to save money in launching, and be able to trailer it across the continent if it's cheaper to do so....

I assumed from the beginning when you asked about the largest trailerable you really werent interested in a rehash of what a great boat the Mac is, thus my comment about hijacking the thread. It's obvious that a Mac won't do.

That being said, your expectations seem unrealisitic.

You want a world cruiser, but you want to be able to trailer and launch it yourself. If youre world cruising, exactly how many times per year, or even in the entire lifetime of the boat (or your own lifetime) will you be trailering and launching it from a fixed location? How frequently would you propose trailering "across the continent"? If you've got the time and money to be world cruising, saving money by trailering your world cruiser across the country is a concept that hurts my head.

The 32RK has a 106 beam and weighs 8K lbs empty, 10-12K lbs equipped for world cruising. Special permits, and somethng approaching $35K plus maintenance and operating expenses in a trailer and dedicated tow vehicle. But this is too small, so scale the RK to 42. That gives a boat with a beam of nearly 14 and a weight of perhaps 18,000 lbs empty. Bump the above cost of the trailer and tow to $50K, and youll need a lot more than special permits to move this any further than out of the marina parking lot. Anybody have a clue what over the road insurance might be on a $200,000, 42 foot boat, and $50,000 trailer and tow vehicle?

You certainly won't be rigging and launching a 42', 18,000 lb boat from the local municipal ramp.

The logic of lving aboard a boat to save the cost of heating, air conditioning, and taxes escapes me.

Wherever you intend to live, be it boat or house, you either need heating and A/C or you dont based on the climatic conditions. In fact, fuel, power, water, maintenance, everything tends to be considerably more expensive when purchased in a marine environment. There are probably not two or three locations in the world where living on the hard in a boat with no heating or A/C would be something a reasonable person would want to do.

You cant avoid the real cost of property taxes by living on a boat any more than you can avoid them by renting a home. Except when actually on the water or trailering, you will be paying the indirect equivalent of property taxes no matter where you keep your boat.

If you intend to skip the necessity for heating and A/C and paying taxes by staying on the water, go back to question one: why do you need a trailerable?

wiehan:

Sorry to be so hard on you in my previous post. It's just that I've gone through this mental drill myself a bunch of times. My Mac, tow vehicle and home will all be paid off in the next few years, and at that point I hope to be also in a position to consider retirement.

Every time I've gone through the drill, I've reached the same conclusion. I have no illusions that I will be able to live aboard comfortably in a 32 foot boat, trailerable or not, in the water or on the hard. If I can't live aboard and world travel on a 32' boat, something's got to give: either the liveaboard/ world traveling part or the trailerablity part.

World traveling on a boat exceeding 32', and trailerability by any definition, are mutually exclusive.

IMO the only reasonable solution is to live aboard my large world traveler boat, minus the trailerability, but to retain the MAC and tow vehicle for those times when I might want to jaunt across the country to the left coast, or the Great Lakes, or whatever. If I want to launch my world traveler boat from the left coast to go to (say) Hawaii, or take it to the Great Lakes, I'll have to get there the long way: by boat.

AHHH retirement, what to do? buy a big boat and live on it where its at?
or keep the mac and tow it around the country with a motor home? or rent boats where I would like to sail that the Mac or big boat cant reach?

I think with the vast country and canada all with in reach of a tow veh. A few years could be spent hopping around. Now exotic places like the Amazon where bugs are the size of small dogs Ill watch the discovery channel. Here on the west coast I have boated all my life and have yet to cover any thing major, I never really had a boat that could do it till now.
Then I would like to tow down to Florida and check that stuff out. Or Mexico baja would be great. except the firearms thing down there it would be great. For some reason I would feel very much at the mercy of any bad guys with out some protection and being many many miles from help.
I know there would be a good debate about how good a firearm really is in a situation like that, but to me it would be like having a radio 100 miles offshore, it may not work but gives you peace of mind. In Mexico only the bad guys have them and you can go to jail for a long time if you have one.

towing up to Alaska would be great for a summer and seeing the east coast by boat would be great too. Towing a mac through the great planes and up to the great lakes.

Then when Im all done I can sell the mac and put a down payment on a room at an old folks home.

ahhh retirement. Its a shame that the companies we work for get the best years of our lives. It should be the other way around and when we retire from fun then we go to work to pay off what we spent. Thats what my nephew was doing in his 20's and early 30's but I helped finace that. Wish he would get a great job and call me up and say Mike you dont have to work anymore Ill foot the bill for what ever you want from now on......dreaming, wow all that money I spent on him hope he enjoyed it.

There is an interesting trailerable sailboat/cruiser from Poland! No not that one!

Not much info though, just blurb about it two years ago.

http://www.sailmag.com/boatreviews/1204bestboats.pdf

It's the Viva 32, in the upper right hand corner on the 1st page. Interesting way to raise the mast!

Denny
(Still looking for a Mac)

Nor Sea - Yes, looked at for a long time.
Web site - http://www.norseayachts.com/home.php

In their own words -

The Nor'Sea 27 with its 8ft beam 3' 10" ft fixed keel is trailerable (we like to use the word "transportable" because it requires a good size truck. The trailer and boat together are over 10,000 pounds).

Nice boat, just didn't want to do Blue water in a small boat and a few other things.

Nor'Sea 27 - $312,000 US
WOW, did I read that wrong?

Nor'Sea27

Bob T.
"DaBob"
'02X w/ '04 90 TLDI