ABOUT MacGregor Boats
- History
- Drawings
- Specifications
- Interior
- Exterior
MacGregor Yacht Corporation began in the early 60's as a class project at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, while Roger MacGregor was earning an MBA degree. The company has always been the most innovative in the industry. We invented the retracting keel and started the trailerable sailboat market, the fastest growing segment of sailing. After MacGregor built tens of thousands of retracting keel sailboats, cars became smaller and lighter. Weight reduction became essential for safer and easier trailering. We then invented the water ballast system, that provides the safety of a true keelboat, with the light weight needed for trailering and high performance. The MacGregor designed water ballast system has been copied by other major builders, and has become the new standard for the trailerable sailboat industry. The light weight then allowed us to develop a high performance sailboat that can be driven at high speed by relatively low horsepower outboard motors. The culmination of all of this is the MacGregor 26, the best selling boat of this type in the world. We have built over 36,000 sailboats. In this competitive society, we would have been gone along time ago if our boats weren't right.
Sail Magazine recently recognized MacGregor as one of the most innovative of the sailboat builders over the last 3 decades, and as the builder that brought affordable sailing to thousands.
How can it be offered at such a low price?
As you have probably noticed, the price for the MacGregor 26 is considerably less than the price of boats of comparable size. The reasons are many.
The design is simple and straightforward, the hallmark of sound engineering.
By now, MacGregor is one of the largest, highest volume sailboat manufacturers in the world. These boats are built in one of the most modern and efficient plants in the industry. We have specialized in this market for over 25 years, and have built over 35,000 boats.
This volume production has many cost advantages. Overhead and development costs are spread over a large number of boats. We buy the same or better materials than other builders, but we buy for a lot less because of our higher volume. For example, we buy resin by the tank car, whereas most builders purchase by the barrel. Our prices can be 30% to 40% less for the same material. We, like most successful companies in aircraft, cars and virtually everything else, do our own design work.
Most of our competitors build many types of boats of varying sizes, and their skills are spread too widely, preventing them from really optimizing the design and production of any one model. We do no custom work. We build only the configuration shown in this brochure. Basically, we do just one thing, and we do it well.
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