Although fibreglass, both these vessels looked stunning lying in their births at Excel. Admittedly, I could possibly fault a little slop in the rudder linkages and water ballast was ambitious, to say the least, for vessels of this size. Myself and my wife Yvonne, agonised, as we talked to the MacGregor salesman. We asked if he were in our position which one he'd go for. "Without hesitation the Clipper!" he said ... but of course he would, that was 55,000 compared to the more reasonable 36,000 for the Cutter. We knew realistically our budget would not really stretch the further 19,000, but we also knew we'd always regret it if it didn't. Could we handle a squire rigger? We had no experience at all of sailing anything more than a sloop! We made our excuses to go to one side to have that private chat, the one where you both know the inevitable outcome. It has to be done, but ultimately your credit card is going to take a un-budgeted 19,000 pound hit! We returned to the smiling MacGregor salesman, whilst feeling hot and tingly at the back of the neck and slightly sick. We smile, shake hands, tie up some of the odds and ends and leave with a mixture of fear and excitement - Our MacGregor adventure is about to start!

Okay, it was a dream, but I still woke this morning excited because we have a MacGregor 26M sat on our drive, and for us our Mac adventure has started!

As new Mac association members we'd like to introduce ourselves. Living in Matlock in Derbyshire, I am Daryl and my wife is Yvonne. We have three children Dominic, Nathanael and Abigail. We also have "Blue Babe" the 26M purchased last year from Mac Association members Robert and June. We'd like to thank the Uk MacGregors association for your welcome in the latest magazine, and look forward to discussing all things Mac.

For many years we have been passionate about sailing - Took Day skipper in 2000, chartered a Sun Odyssey 37, bare boat, in the Ionian Sea for three weeks the following year and had a fabulous time! Then shortage of funds hit our leisure activity, but we recovered a little three years ago and purchased a Catapult Catamaran - an intriguing 5 metre catamaran that will dis-assemble and fit on the roof of your car. In the water however it can easily reach speeds of 23 knots whilst soaking you at the same time! Still we had a dream for something, admittedly not a Cutter, but something that had sails, accommodation, and we could trail ... a bit of a hybrid ... a MacGregor!

Since purchasing Blue Babe we have only managed to get her in the water once, this was for a week on the Norfolk Broads. I have to say it was only a partial success as we hit a week with very high winds and were able to do very little sailing. Some of our motoring also left a lot to be desired - I'm going to have to learn to tame our 50 horses whilst doing delicate manoeuvring! Still, there were no casualties, the ducks have possibly forgiven us, and even Blue Babe still looked pristine when we recovered her from the water. So, our hopes are pinned on this summer. We have purchased a mooring in Dale Bay in Pembrokeshire and are looking forward to spending some quality time there. We have, however, had a recent report that the mooring has sunk, or gone AWOL, but that's another story. I'm confident it will be there and happily bobbing about by the time we need it, thanks to some divers, and maybe a submarine. No, definitely not a submarine, just divers. Do Mac make submarines? ;)

Back to the dream - we did take delivery of the Cutter and began our adventures on the high seas. I haven't a clue, however, how we ever intended to trail it to Derbyshire!