- MacGregor Yacht Corporation began in the early 1960's as a class project at the Stanford Graduate School of Business while company president Roger MacGregor was earning an MBA degree.
MacGregor Yachts has always been the most innovative in the industry. They invented the retracting keel and started the trailerable sailboat market. After MacGregor built tens of thousands of retracting keel sailboats, cars became smaller and lighter. Weight reduction became essential for safer and easier trailering. They then invented the water ballast system, which combines the safety of a keelboat with the light weight needed for trailering and high performance. The water ballast system has been copied by other major builders and has become the standard for the trailerable sailboat industry. The light weight allowed the company to develop a high performance sailboat that can also be driven at high speed by relatively low horsepower outboard motors. The culmination of all of this is the MacGregor 26.
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- Most major sailboat companies have had a try at making trailerables, including such well known names as Islander, Columbia, Cal, O'Day, Clipper, Coastal Recreation, Newport Boats, San Juan, Ericson, Bayliner, Reinell, Laguna, Olson, Schock and dozens of others. They are either gone completely, no longer attempt to compete in this market or are building so few of this type of boat that they are no longer a significant factor. The trailerable cruiser is a small boat with the amenities of a big boat. To pack these amenities into a boat which is light enough to haul around and take the abuse of trailering, you really have to optimize. They were unable to do this, control costs, provide performance or give customers what they wanted. Acquisition by large conglomerates sank several companies under layers of management. Many suffered from warranty problems and others died off because they had so many types of boats in their line that they couldn't concentrate on building detailed, foolproof, low cost tooling and production systems for any one boat.
The result is that MacGregor Yachts builds the best selling boat of this type in the world. They have constructed over 36,000 sailboats which is truly an astonishing feat.