The Venture 21 is an American trailerable sailboat that was designed by Roger MacGregor as a racer-

cruiser A cruiser is a type of warship. Modern cruisers are generally the largest ships in a fleet after aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships, and can usually perform several roles. The term "cruiser", which has been in use for several hu ...

and first built in 1966.Henkel, Steve: ''The Sailor's Book of Small Cruising Sailboats'', page 145.

International Marine S&P Global Inc. (prior to April 2016 McGraw Hill Financial, Inc., and prior to 2013 The McGraw–Hill Companies, Inc.) is an American publicly traded corporation headquartered in Manhattan, New York City. Its primary areas of business are financ ...

/ McGraw-Hill, 2010. Boat reviewer Darrell Nicholson noted, "capitalizing on the fiberglass revolution in boatbuilding, MacGregor’s business-school project sparked a pivotal marketing shift that helped bring recreational sailing to mainstream America". The design was developed into the

MacGregor 21 The MacGregor 21 is an American trailerable sailboat that was designed by Roger MacGregor as a racer-cruiser and first built in 1980.Henkel, Steve: ''The Sailor's Book of Small Cruising Sailboats'', page 145. International Marine/McGraw-Hill ...

in 1980.

Production

The design was built by MacGregor Yacht Corporation in the United States, from 1966 to 1979, but it is now out of production. It was the first monohull boat produced by the company.

Design

The boat was designed by MacGregor as part of his

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

Master of Business Administration degree program, with a prototype built in 1965 and then put into production. The Venture 21 is a recreational keelboat, built predominantly of fiberglass, with wood trim. Early production boats had a

plywood Plywood is a material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one another. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured ...

-cored deck, while later ones were balsa-cored. It has a cutter rig, a spooned raked stem, a slightly angled

transom Transom may refer to: * Transom (architecture), a bar of wood or stone across the top of a door or window, or the window above such a bar * Transom (nautical), that part of the stern of a vessel where the two sides of its hull meet * Operation Tran ...

, a transom-hung rudder controlled by a tiller and a

swing keel The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element on a vessel. On some sailboats, it may have a hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose, as well. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in the construction of a ship, in Br ...

. It displaces and carries of iron ballast. The boat has a draft of with the keel extended and with it retracted, allowing operation in shallow water or ground transportation on a trailer. The boat is normally fitted with a small outboard motor for docking and maneuvering. The design has sleeping accommodation for four people, with a double

"V"-berth A berth is a bed or sleeping accommodation on vehicles. Space accommodations have contributed to certain common design elements of berths. Beds in boats or ships While beds on large ships are little different from those on shore, the lack ...

in the bow cabin and two straight settee berths in the main cabin. Cabin headroom is . For sailing downwind the design may be equipped with a symmetrical

spinnaker A spinnaker is a sail designed specifically for sailing off the wind on courses between a reach (wind at 90° to the course) to downwind (course in the same direction as the wind). Spinnakers are constructed of lightweight fabric, usually n ...

. The design has a PHRF racing average handicap of 252 and a hull speed of .

Operational history

In a 2010 review Steve Henkel wrote, "best features: Price (on the used market, of course, since this design is no longer made) is below her comp

titor John Titor and (TimeTravel_0) are pseudonyms used on the Time Travel Institute and Art Bell's Post-to-Post forums during 2000 and 2001 by a poster claiming to be an American military time traveler from 2036. Titor made numerous vague and specif ...

, reflecting an ultra-low price when she was new—and perhaps some perceptions of the level of construction quality. Worst features: Headroom is lowest of the group of comp

. Motion Index is worst of the group (though all her comp

are so low it doesn't make much difference). Her Space Index is also at the bottom of the list. Her cast iron keel, like that on her comp

, is a maintenance chore, since it eventually begins to need frequent attention to keep rust at bay. Hardware is not as high quality as her comps." In a 2011 used boat review in ''Practical Sailor'', Darrell Nicholson wrote, "with two quarter berths and a V-berth, the Venture 21 technically could sleep four, but this sort of arrangement probably would be brief and acrimonious. Although you could pack a lot of gear under the cockpit, actual locker storage is limited. Some ambitious owners have added sinks, small galleys, 12-volt systems, and port-a-potties below, but the boat’s cramped headroom restricts its suitability for more than a few days of cruising. For the 20-something adventurer with aspirations of camp-cruising on one of America’s many inland lakes, it will do just fine, but more than a couple of days aboard a boat this size will be a sure test of any marriage."

References

{{Trailer sailers and Trailer yachts worldwide Keelboats 1960s sailboat type designs Sailing yachts Trailer sailers Sailboat type designs by Roger MacGregor Sailboat types built by the MacGregor Yacht Corporation

Production

Design

Operational history

See also

References