Macgregor Owner Reviews

Serving sailors online since 1997

Review of the Macgregor 36 by Dean Oakes

Year built	1981
Location of boat	currently unknown
The boat is sailed on	Open ocean
How the boat is used	Weekends and longer
Normal wind strength	10-15 knots
Average size of crew	2-4
Liveaboard?	No
Owner bought the boat in	1993
If the clock could be turned back, would owner buy again?	No daubt yes. Wish I still had it. I had a partnerand he bought me out and moved it far away. He recently sold it(2000).
Gear that's been added	marine head, spinaker, solar panel, batterycharger manager, sterio, gps, tri light on topof mast. The girls liked the head. The spinakerwas fun but we didn't use it much. It had dualdaggers so we could point it up a bit and slip down wind without the daggers under casual usage(instead of dealing with a spinaker). Thesolar panel was super. We could cruise almostendlessly running the gps, sterio, autopilot,depthsound, and the tri light at night too.
Structural or complex improvements	only casual maintenance and improvements, added a head, rewired it, added a solar panel, did some bottom and ding patching
The boat's best features	Fast, good storage, unsinkable, rightable, goodfuel economy, good manuverability.
Problem areas in terms of design, materials, maintenance, etc.	Wish we would have had electric start outboards.It was scarry sometimes hanging off the back in open ocean with a green crew and the auto piloton, pull starting the engines and having to chokethe carb with a toe or what ever you could muster.The solid daggers and rudders were a worry. Luckily the most damage we did was bend a rudder post and we were able to bend it back with the jibsheat wench in 20 minutes. Mast was very heavy. Tear down to trailer took many strong friendsto handle the mast.
Sailing characterisitcs	Wonderful but wet ride. Always planned on pessimistic 10 knots no matter what the weather. When we made 13-17 it was an added bonus. Plenty of room for two couples to stashstores for a week trip to the Bahamas or keys.
Motoring characterisitcs	We had two yamaha 10hp 4 stroke engines. They selfdestructed a little too often but with them spred17ft apart you could make that thing do anythingwhile docking. We constanly got comments from people how thay had never seen any one pull of the type of manuvers we did. We could rebuild the power heads our selves but the tranny was not servicable(not even a dealer would touch them). We went through about 1 a year. Good fuel economy and 10knots cruising speed.
Liveability	Serious camper, but plenty of storage. It was hellcruising around with the sterio on, auto pilot on, napping on the tarp(sarcasom). Fresh water wasshort supply so salt water lemon joy baths a must. No refrigoration but a bimetal platecooler cold keep fish safe until ice cold be found. Not much of a gally but running a propanestove on the deck was easy enough. A little cramped for a couple to sleep together but it worked fine.
The owner's experience in dealing with Hunter (if any)	Never did
The owner's experience with the boat dealer or broker, if any	NA - bought from private party
Other comments	Sorry I sold it. I'm simplifying and getting a 26x.

Contact
About
Terms of Use