Good Old Boat Issue 142: Jan/Feb 2022

Design Comparison

Hunter 260 …And Two More Water-Ballasted Trailer-Sailers STORY AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY ROBMAZZA

T he Hunter 260 is an evolution of the Hunter 26, which was developed during my tenure at Hunter Design. As Allen Penticoff mentions in his review, it incorporates a number of deck modifications introduced after my departure, including a revised transom more suited for wheel steering, relocation of the forward hatch from the middle of the “windscreen” to the foredeck, and the addition of the B&R (Bergstrom and Ridder) rig so beloved by Warren Luhrs. (Warren and Lars Bergstrom were close friends and sailed many miles together aboard Thursday’s Child. ) The 260’s sail plan also underwent a fewmodifications to produce a slightly larger sail area, but the interior layout and details remain essentially unchanged. In the early ’90s, the sailboat industry was exploring the concept of water ballast as pioneered by Roger MacGregor. The goal was to reduce the all-up weight of a trailered boat so it could be more easily towed by a smaller vehicle and more easily launched and retrieved from a ramp. Why lug around a fixed weight of lead ballast that could amount to 40 percent of the boat’s total weight if you could avoid it? In this period, the three big players were MacGregor with the 26S, Hunter with the 26 and later the 260, and Catalina with the 250. The MacGregor 26S is a centerboard development of

the original MacGregor 26D, which had a vertically lifting daggerboard.

In “Water Ballast for Trailer-Sailers” (July/August 2019), I explored the inherent

compromise of water as ballast, specifically its volume being 10 times greater than

Hunter 260

Catalina 250

MacGregor 26S

LOA

26'3"

25'0"

25'10"

LWL

23'3"

21'3"

23'6"

Beam

8'11"

8'6"

7'10"

Draft

1'9"/6'0"

1'8"/5'9"

1'3"/6'4"

Displ.

5,000

3,250

2,850

Ballast

2,000

1,200

1,200

LOA/LWL

1.13

1.18

1.10

Beam/LWL

.39

.34

.33

Displ./LWL

178

151

98

Bal./Displ.

40%

37%

42%

Sail Area (100%)

298

262

235

SA/Displ.

16.28

19.08

18.68

Capsize No.

2.1

2.3

2.2

Comfort Ratio

17.2

12.2

12

Year Introduced

1997

1995

1990

Designer

Rob Mazza/Hunter Design Team

Gerry Douglas

Roger MacGregor

Builder

Hunter Marine

Catalina Yachts

MacGregor Yachts

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