MacGregorSailors.com

Jes Guy's stop complaining !

I think the boat looks good with or with out the wood trim you get what you paid for ! and can do alot of wood trim by your self for a hull of alot less money ! and it will be what you like not what some guy in the factory throws at you !
this way you can mod the boat up to the way you want for your own specific uses , I will at some time start to add some wood trim to my boat once all my rigging & electrical mods are done do have plans for a nice wooden cabinet to go on top of the galley , and I would like some wooden trim around my windows but I am looking for something a little nicer than what the factory was installing have a few things in mind for that , like what some have done by adding drawers or cabinets into the companion way ladder aft side with acess from the front I also like the nice wooden floors that some have added but would have concern for safety when they get wet & slippery in 12ft swells bad enough trying to step over all the junk that ends up on the floor when tacking & heeling over 45deg. that reminds me thats what I bought all these nice little net hammock container hangers for but will have to re-enforce the liner first at the installation points
So what you end up with is basicaly a speciality custom made boat that only You own "Just like them their rich folks" only diff. is your blood , sweat , tears went into it ! plus your own design have you any Idea what a Hunter would cost customized like my Mac 26M ,
People say to me all the time when did Macgregor start building custom boats they dont have that design on their net site my reply is Yes I know some ask me what boat yard did your custom work & designed your rigging , I tell them thats confidential info & this is a test boat from the Mac factory that I designed I get this look & reply "really"
J

Well said John

Have you been going to night school
Ray

RussMT wrote:Roger may one day choose to move to Florida (like Hunter did) and make more boats and money.

C'mon you guys - - I wish him well; but just how many one days do you think Roger has left (probably more than me at least) - - - I worry about what happens to the Mac after Roger kicks the bucket -- is there someone I don't know about waiting "in the wings"? - - -who has the knowledge, stamina, motivation, desire and money to continue the line? Just wonder'in?

Rick LESS

Rick

Well said

Ray

Night school classes nope I work nights

But the day courses are great because now that I am into my second childhood I'm getting sexual education on a first hand basis because she the Teacher said I'm a slow learner so we have to do every act twice just to make sure I'm doing it right
Any way the teacher said not to worry if I need more classes she's avail for night classes on the wk-ends

Wow never had this in school first time around !!!

J

When I picked my boat up at the Factory I got a tour with Mr. Bill and the temperature was 115 degrees. Last night the temp dropped to 5 degrees. 110 degrees difference. The plastic inserts around the wud windows have shrunk leaving unsightly gaps. Not a big deal to performance, but just to let those of you who didn't get the Wud framed windows not to worry. Maybe the the upgrade should be Brass Port Holes. Just call me Old School.

School House Steve

115 Degrees in Costa Mesa??? Really?? Nah!!!

Rick Less

bwygirl wrote:Ok, I am scared to even ask this but here it goes. What do people think of Blue Water Yachts web site? We really want it to be informative, and a site that people like.

Cheryl, bwyachts.com is okay but very dated looking. It is informative enough that we bought our boat from ya'll. There is nothing flat out wrong with it, but it could use some modernization.
The buttons on the left look very Frontpagish and 90s styling. I find most web sites these days use navigation on the top banner vs. side buttons. The parts page is hard to navigate but that's quite a monster you have with parts. I wouldn't know where to begin on that. I would like to better be able to browse your catalog. I have learned about parts (such as mast bearings) from folks here. I'd rather browse your site and learn about them. I'm guessing you have lots of fun toys (and Christmas gift ideas) if a person could browse them.

Doing the web stuff is extremely time consuming and surely you have better things to do. I'm glad you folks put more effort in rigging our boat properly than the web site. Web design is an art as well as a science. The other end of the spectrum are sites with too much flash and *gasp* music. Never ever put music on your site. I've also seen some of those pre-fab template sites loaded with flash and animation. Not good.
Duane's web site is fantastic. Tap him for some help if you can.
I'm sure there are more creative types than me that can give you some pointers.

Roger's site is information and does that in a dated manner. Look at Hunter, Catalina, they have really nice web sites. Probably changing some colors and buttons can make a big difference in appearance. You have to be careful though not to use too many colors. What really bugs me is consistency or lack of it. If some text has an underline, it should be a link. I find myself clicking and nothing happens. I'm sure Roger has more information on his site than competitors, but it looks old. The fact that the brochure you can download is 3 years old is a problem noted in the comments above.

Also, I can tell you that THIS forum had about a 90% influence on my decision to buy a Mac (and from you). It's a great place for you to advertise and you should pop in more often.

--Russ

Never ever put music on your site

..unless you target market is 9-11 years old...

The repair parts side of BWY web site was an interesting project. The goal from the start was to make it as quick as possible to go from the large list (currently 587 parts dynamically loaded from a database), to a short list of the specific parts you are looking for. We decided doing this via search was far more efficient than creating a structure that could be browsed. To this end the site works quite well. From the big list of 587 parts I can be looking at a short list of 6 sails for my 1996 26x by making three quick entries and hitting enter. This happens very fast because there is no page loading involved, it is all done on the client side. Likewise opening up the details and pictures for any part does not require a page load either.

You can get a browsable list of parts for your specific boat fairly easily by entering the year and model and then pressing enter. For my 1996 26X this reduces the list to 251 parts. You can then easily flip through the categories like a catalog. You might want to up the 'Results per page' option to 50 from the default of 10 to eliminate having to page.

That said, it would probably make sense to create an alternate representation of the same database of repair parts that would be more browsable like a catalog for those who don't have a specific part in mind but instead are just shopping for something to spend money on.

In general the intent of the repair parts catalog was separate from the accessories catalog. Rudder parts don't make the most exiting stocking stuffers.

BWY has a separate accessories catalog that contains items that might be more interesting as gifts for others or yourself.

http://bwyachts.com/web%20catalog%20312 ... sories.htm

Currently this area is a bit static and dated, but we are talking about making it a larger dynamic catalog that could be browsed. In addition to the current accessory listings there are probably many items that belong in both the repair parts catalog and the accessories catalog. Look for all this to improve in the future.

As for the factory site, it is crude in it's execution, really not much better than the old site and it certainly was done by someone with no artistic skills at all, but I have a hard time criticizing a choice to focus on content over artistic beauty. It's always best (and possible) to have both, but I'll still take content over art if a choice has to be made. I always feel fresh, current, ever changing content is more important than beauty. People will keep coming back to your site over and over if they know there is always going to be something new to learn. If they come back twice and find nothing new they won't be back a third time.

However, the factory site has committed the cardinal sin of web sites in my opinion. There is absolutely no excuse these days for out of date content on any web site. Having pictures posted that do not reflect the current product is the worst kind of marketing that exists in any media, and particularly the web where it is so easy to fix these things. You are better off having no pictures than out of date material. Even an old school business person can understand this, it just makes you look stupid and screams that you don't care about your customers.

Thank You to everyone for their good ideas. Gives me a better idea of what to do with the site. I know that Duane and Todd have some ideas, they just need to get time to get together. We do plan to give the site some updating but we have been very busy! A good thing! We currently are busy with 5 new MacGregor deliveries, this month!! That does not give us much time to work the site, but I am not complaining. Remember to come visit us at the Portland and Seattle Boat Shows to see any new MacGregor accessories. We here at Blue Water Yachts strive to help you keep your boat running with parts and updated with accessories, or stop by if you want to start fresh with a new one!

Window trim, yes we call it photo wood. It is wood but is laminated with well something on the outside. Then trimmed with plastic. The plastic can come out due to the wood shrinking in the colder temps. I beleive that the reason the factory discontuned the wood is 1) the trim falling out 2) cost of manufacturing with the wood and the excessive waste in cutting a bunch of donut holes and 3) The new liner with the window trim curving towards the window is tricky to build and they are proud of being able to design and build it, I think...

As soon as I can I will take some interior pictures of our new demo boat and put them on the web site so people know what the 2010 looks like. Right now our new demo boat just hit the water but we are experiancing very cold temps, 18-25 degrees, and the boat is so slippery that I don't want to get on it.

As far as someone looking to take over after Roger. I know that those will be very big shoes to fill, but his daughter is very involved with the company and would be able to do this. But...Roger is healthy and happy with what he does and has no retirement plans. After all it's fun to build boats that make people happy!

Over the past few months of forum membership and ownership I've wondered why nobody from MacGregor ever seems to respond to posts. Surely somebody there must be aware of and visit this site. Not looking for anyone to be our buddy but maybe a response to company specific topics like this thread.

You won't get any closer to the factory than Mike Inmon, at MacGregor Sales at the Factory and Cheryl and Todd at Blue Water Yachts are a close second. Both of them have chimed in.

~Rich

BWY service is second to none, they know the boat, make great suggestions and have the parts you need at competitive prices. I just wish I had listened to thier suggestions the first time. I found the site a bit hard to navigate but did find everything I needed and more.

yeah way. When I left Oregon it was 105. by the time I got to Northern California is was 115. My Cousin in LA said to stay near the ocean, I drove down the coast Hi-way where it was 65 but when I got close to LA the temp went back up to 115. When I picked up the boat it was 115. When I left the next day up I 5 the temp hit 115 until I got back to Southern Oregon. My truck has a really accurate temp sensor. Four days in Calif. at 115 degrees. Even the guys who worked at the Magregor factory said it was unusally warm.

I think that I was sailng out of Santa Cruz then. They went over 100 and set a record. Big fire around Watsonville.

~Rich