I'm looking to buy a hunter 240 ( center board ) water ballast. What do you think of the water ballast system ( performance, stability, safety ). Is it good as the conventional ballast used by Jeannau, Kelt or O'Day ? Is there any problems with the water ballast ?

Water ballast and center board combined make a very convenient trailer sailor package. With ballast empty, some like the Macgregor 26x can be used as a fast motorboat with a planing hull and a respectable outboard. With full ballast and the centerboard, it becomes an average performance sailboat, with plenty of interior space, despite the fact water ballast are taking space that would otherwise be used for storage.

The Hunter 240 does not have a planing hull, so it is optimized as an easy to trailer but roomy sailboat that is easy to rig by one person in a hour, or less with two. It has very easy access for a dip. With ballast empty, on a trailer, it is only about 3000 lbs total, so just about any standard pickup of V6 4x4 will be sufficient for towing. It is very nice looking too ! I saw mostly positive reviews on the net about performance, stability and overall safety of this sailboat.

In terms of sailing performance, the Hunter 240 is likely better than Mac 26, because it is optimized as a sailboat, not hybrid like the Mac 26x. Compared to a standard fin keel 24 feet, it has smaller storage accomodation (used for water ballast), but the ease of launching out of a very low trailer from the waterballast and centerboard combo) is a tremendous asset if you intend to use it. You can expect stability and performance to be comparable to most 24 feet with a 3600 lbs displacement and 245 sq feet of sails.

Such centerboard sailboats perform very well, but if you ever damage it, the cost of repairs is considerably less than a fin keel, with little or no maintenance compared to a swing keel for instance.

This make it a great costal sailboat in my humble opinion. The only other tpe of trailerable saiboat that offers comparable interior space and is easier to run would be a Catboat such as the ComPac Horizon Cat. In my humble opinion, it is a ugly looking boat compared to the Hunter 240, but it has a lot to offer to make it ready for longer cruises, even a diesel engine option.

Martin, Sandpiper 565 #925