Boat Builder Takes the Low Road--and the High : Sailing: MacGregor Yacht Corp. makes a model for each end of the market, and nothing in between. Business is booming.

The 26-foot MacGregor is a sailboat that doesn’t get much respect.

It comes in one set of colors--a white hull with black trim. No fancy electronics, custom sails or complicated rigging.

At the other end of the spectrum is its big brother--a 65-foot mega-cruiser with a cockpit crammed with buttons that control everything from a stereo to electronic steering.

MacGregor Yacht Corp. in Costa Mesa has amassed a backlog of orders in an otherwise waterlogged industry. President Roger MacGregor says he expects to reach a record $8 million in sales this year by appealing to opposite ends of the marketing spectrum. MacGregor says the two models attempt to appeal to the price-conscious, first-time sailboat buyer as well as the wealthy yachtsman who can afford the best. Both are made with mass-production techniques.

Other yacht manufacturers, in contrast, typically offer a range of racing and cruising boats in the 25- to 40-foot range. And sales for most of them have been stuck in the doldrums, with expensive, mid-sized boats landlocked in showrooms. With a glut of used boats on the market, new boats are more difficult to sell. Costs and sophistication scare off all but the most affluent, seasoned sailors.

Harry Monahan, a spokesman for the Southern California Marine Assn. in Orange, said sailboat sales are “very flat” and that more buyers may be turning to power boats because they perceive them as easier to launch and simpler to operate.

Sailing “sounds too exotic. It sounds too sophisticated, complicated and expensive,” he said. “Take a look at the sailboat magazines. All you see are big boats.”

MacGregor said he recognized the need for a simple, inexpensive, family-type sailboat that can easily be toted on a trailer.

“Nobody is building entry-level boats,” said MacGregor, who launched his business in 1967 with 21-foot sailboats as an outgrowth of a Stanford University MBA project.

The MacGregor 26-foot boat sells for about $11,000 and comes complete with a trailer. The cost is about $8,000 less than that of a comparably sized but much plusher model made by Catalina Yachts of Woodland Hills, a leading sailboat manufacturer. MacGregor boasts that he can hold down the price because of his mass-production methods.

For instance, he said his workers use patterns and cutouts to measure dimensions on the boats at the Costa Mesa plant, rather than a tape measure. Holes are drilled using jigs, which simplifies the process. In just two days, the 26-foot boat can be molded from fiberglass cloth and resin, fitted with windows and electrical systems and outfitted with a finished interior, making it ready for shipment.

He said the boat has no heavy crank-down keel--a heavy weight at the bottom to keep the boat from tipping over in heavy winds--like a standard sailboat. Instead it has water ballast tanks that drain after use, making the boat lighter for towing than some small power boats. MacGregor said he devised in the system in response to the problem of towing boats with small cars.

The boat also has a simplified system for raising the mast.

MacGregor turns out four 26-footers a day and has an order backlog through September. He has more than a year’s worth of orders for the elaborate $169,000, 65-foot yacht that is designed for worldwide chartering and cruising.

One of the boats, built in a stripped-down racing version, holds a course record for the Los Angeles-to-Puerto Vallerta racing run. Five of the first seven boats in the race were MacGregors.

Although such a big boat requires a huge dock, he says, “the rich guys, they find their docks.”

As a result of the backlogs on both boats, MacGregor buys small classified advertisements, while competitors are touting their boats in full-page ads. And he said he does not enter his boats in boat shows, although dealers may advertise or show off the boats.

Eddie Arnold, a Newport Beach boat dealer who has a MacGregor 26 entered in the in-the-water boat show that starts today at Lido Marina Village, said that the model is his top seller.

“He’s really solved all the problems of when you’re trailering” a boat, Arnold said, adding that more than half the customers for the boat are first-time buyers.

MacGregor said he is perfectly happy holding down the lowest rung of the ladder of cruising sailboat ownership. In a world of high-tech boats and complicated equipment, MacGregor acknowledges he is building the “Chevrolet” of sailboats, but hastily adds: “They’re good Chevrolets.”