marcon sabre

[Wansworth]

which is the better sailer the marcon sabre bilge keeler or the macwester 26 bilge keeler.any thoughts on either of these craft would be appreciated.

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[warrior40]

Most definately the Sabre! The macwester has too shorter keels and the rudder is too short. The mac also exhibits serious weather helm, only slightly cured by the addition of an unsightly bowsprit. Having sailed both, I can assure you that the Macwester is an absolute unbelievable pig to sail, not wishing to offend anyone who owns one, but thats the way it is. In their favour though, the Mac is very heavily constructed and will not give any trouble in this department!
I would go for the Sabre, but watch out fror the some badly completed home built ones, and hull-deck join should be scrutinised. The Sabre is pretty well built aswell though on the whole.
Good Luck

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[Robin]

Totally agree. Some people cured the Macwester weather helm by cutting down the leech of the main about 1' and shortening the boom length, also added faired in feet I think to the keels and faired in the prop aperture in the skeg. These boats were popular in Poole and a guy called Len Small at Lilliput SC had number one and started the mods going, they seemed to work too and PBO at the time I think wrote about it.

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[Johnjo]

There is no way you can compare a Mac 26 to the performance of the Sabre 27,
nice underwater profile with pleasing lines, plenty of room in the large cockpit with full
headroom in the cabin, later boats have a moulded interior fitout, put 6 sabres together and you will struggle to find a matching pair, might look the same from a distance but there will be sultle differences!

Early Mk1 boats also have a shorter mast than later boats, though this does not seem to effect performance.
A very forgiving boat with pretty good performance,

Yeh I know Im biased, but my boat is a fin keeled Sabre!
Good website too > www.sabre27.org.uk < plenty of information on there.
Plus the Sabre will sell easily if you should decide to sell, though a lot of people tend to hold
on to them, hard to better without spending a lot of money! IMHO.

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[Seapepper]

Marcon Sabre by far the best but have a test sail in one before buying. Look out for
1. Cockpit is very shallow and feels i have always felt very insecure in a strong breeze. It feels like you could slode out if not strapped in
2. Cockpit very wide. I am 5'9 and my legs do not reach the other side bench to brace myself when heeling.

I haven't sailed a Saber a lot, but these are my observations after a couple of coastal trips of about 50 miles each.

John

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[Mudhook]

Having bought a Sabre just two months ago, after studying the market and poking over boats for couple of years, I have to say that the Sabre is one damn good boat. Mine is old and needs a fair bit of TLC but has no serious defects. I wouldn’t even agree with comments made here about the cockpit, although being fairly lengthy myself may help. I think also that although the Sabre is clearly a 1970s boat it doesn’t look like one in the way that Macwesters, Snapdragons, Kingfishers and several other ugly-duckling designs do. Lots of room down below, lots of room to get around on deck, and sails pretty good too. I’ll shut up now or everyone will want one!

Regards, Mudhook.

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