The owners of Tattoo Yachts, LLC have been the overseas distributors for MacGregor sailboats since 1990, and have exported thousands of boats.  We owned the UK dealership for almost 20 years, which was one of the highest volume MacGregor dealerships in the world.

Tattoo Yachts, LLC is our new boatbuilding company in Florida. This has been in the works for some time and we have already built tooling for a 22’ power sailer.

This was rather a lucky decision, as Roger and Mary Lou MacGregor’s retirement leaves a void in the trailer sailer market that we now hope to fill.  We will be selling both the Tattoo 26 and Tattoo 22 through many of our existing overseas dealers, as well as major dealers in the US.

We have long appreciated the niche market of affordable trailer sailers. We intend to keep making boating affordable.

We have been building boats together for many years, from International 14 racing skiffs to a 70’ cruising boat. We ran the MacGregor 65 factory, where we built and sold almost a hundred MacGregor 65s. We both have extensive sailboat racing and cruising background, from Lasers to Reichel Pugh 68 sleds and everything in between.

Tattoo Yachts is a nod to our British and Scottish heritage.  The word ‘tattoo’ comes from the closing-time cry in the inns in the Low Countries during the 17th and 18th centuries – ‘Doe den tap toe’ (‘Turn off the taps’).  It evolved into a tradition of evening music (like Taps in the US). Our logo reflects the drums of the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, a world famous event with stirring pipe and drum music.  If you have 6 minutes to spare there is an excellent clip at :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQdsqD9TzpI

We are sure you can appreciate the scope of introducing two new boats in a new location. We will be updating our website as we finalize designs and specifications. If you are interested, follow us on facebook.com/tattooyachts. There isn’t much posted yet but there will be soon.

We’re very excited about this new project, and we will be shipping boats to our dealer network starting in May 2013.

The Tattoo 26 represents the next generation in trailerable, fun and practical power sailers from the team that introduced the ubiquitous Macgregor 26 to the rest of the world.  Years of finishing and exporting the 26 all over the world had lead the husband /wife team of Paul Sharp and Laura Macgregor Sharp to develop a thorough picture of the next model to best suit their market’s needs. The next model would be:

-Lightweight, light enough so that all-up weight with trailer could be towed by passenger vehicles

-Fun and easy to sail with excellent stability to ISO category C requirements

-Overnight accommodations for a family of 4, featuring an enclosed head, workable galley, and standing headroom.

-Easily trailerable with a simply stepped and stowed rig

-Fast and dynamically stable under power, capable of 20kts (remember, the popularity of the Mac 26 is due largely to its flexibility as a fast dual-purpose motor/sailer)

-Intelligently built and designed to reduce both construction and shipping costs to benefit customers, allowing a high quality product at an affordable price point.

And it had to be nice looking too…

The design approach was to focus first on the two toughest requirements- working standing headroom into a 22’ long platform without destroying the aesthetic, and achieving the best performance in a hull form that had to both sail and plane under power efficiently.

From an aesthetic standpoint the decision was made to move away from traditional “sail boat” styling and more towards an automotive look, a stylistic approach not dissimilar to that employed by power boat manufacturers like Chris-Craft in the sixties and seventies, which lead to some memorable and well-loved designs. It was decided that standing headroom would be best achieved with a lifting top to reduce windage (for sailing, powering, and trailering) and visual impact. The Tattoo 22 cabin house top hinges at the forward edge and raises aft on gas struts, making for an easy one-handed operation. The rip –stop nylon enclosure (like that found in high quality tents) is permanently attached and concealed in the gutter around the enclosure, so there’s no need to mess about with snaps, zippers or the like- just pop the top and you’re ready to go. With the top raised there’s standing headroom, and with the top lowered there’s more than ample sitting headroom. A sliding hatch in the top allows the cabin to be accessed with the top either up or down. Another advantage of this approach is that it allows a deep secure cockpit with great visibility over the cabin house, as the top will be generally be in the closed position while operating.