Hello All, I have had two Compac 16's and now at 83 enjoy sailing my M-15. I agree with all the praise being heaped on the Monty, but was always confident that the so seaworthy Compac would weather any wind and weather conditions ,especially reassuring with children on board. Any sail day in any sailboat is a good day. RTH. -----Original Message----- From: swwheatley@comcast.net Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2014 2:07 PM To: For and about Montgomery Sailboats Subject: Re: M_Boats: Singing praises of M15 Some Com-Pac 16s have centerboards. Those probably sail pretty well. But a long, shallow stub-keel is just going to create a lot of drag and not a lot of lift. Too bad because from the waterline up they are good looking boats. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Conbert Benneck" <chbenneck@gmail.com> To: "For and about Montgomery Sailboats" <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2014 1:24:26 PM Subject: Re: M_Boats: Singing praises of M15 On 19-Aug-14 8:31 PM, Kearns, Kevin P wrote: Hi Kevin, After owning a Bolger MICRO for several years, I finally found stepping the free-standing mast becoming too much of a chore for my aging body to accomplish easily and safely. That's when I found a derelict ComPac 16 in Clearwater Florida; located the owner; and bought it. After a total rebuild I sailed it on Lake Champlain. Boy was I ever disappointed. My old Bill Tripp designed boat sailed, and went to windward as required. The ComPac only sailed on a broad reach; hard on the wind it only went sideways. It had no sail lockers / berths were the only place to put things.... and when you needed something, it was always the furthest milk crate on the berth. ... and where did you put all the milk crates when you wanted to use the berths? Well, in the cockpit, of course; ...and then it rained all night.... When I recognized that I had bought in haste (without doing proper homework) I didn't waste a lot of time repenting. I dumped this non-performing sail boat as fast as I could. Then I bought the M-15 and was a happy camper for the remainder of my sailing days. An M-15 is a great design with good stowage for everything you need on a a boat. It sail well; and enjoys going to windward. You write a nice summary of the advantages of an M-15, and I just want to applaud your comments as well. Connie ex M-15 #400 LEPPO
Fellow Montys:
Indulge me a moment while I sing the praises of the M-15 and give a shout out to Jerry Montgomery for a superbly designed boat. I am finishing my second season with #518, a 1993 model that I purchased in near mint condition. Previously I've owned a Flying Scot, C Scow, Capri 22, Oday Daysailer, Coronado 15 ... all performance oriented daysailers. I also had a brief relationship with a Compac 16 which I'll mention later. Anyway, you can see that I like boats that, while not flat out race horses, do have nice performance characteristics. At the age of 60, however, I began to value the stability of a keel boat and the convenience of something that could be towed behind a normal car. But I did not want to totally sacrifice performance (something I encountered with the Compac). I had admired Montys, but living in Pittsburgh very few come up for sale in this area. Amazingly I found one about 90 minutes away in eastern Ohio. I paid top dollar for it (I sometimes cringe when I see sale prices of other M 15s) but I have no regrets. Economics is a function of supply and demand and, believe me, the supply of Montys is low out here and demand is high. The seller could have enjoyed a bidding war for this boat, but kindly and ethically honored our verbal agreement on the price even though he had subsequent offers quite a bit higher.
Anyway, to cut to the chase, the boat performs really beautifully. I sail on Lake Arthur (in Moraine State Park) about 40 miles north of Pittsburgh. Winds are often light and always variable, but I have also had the boat out in real blows. I single hand most of the time, so the security of the keel is valued. I regularly keep pace with Catalina 22s, Tanzer 22s, and I even held my own in a drag race with a Catalina 25 a few weeks ago. To be honest, years of racing have made me pretty attentive to sail trim and balance, things that some of the sailors of these other boats are more casual about. But still, they are always astonished at how well the M15 performs and on nearly every sail one of them will go out of their way to float by and call out "What the heck is that darn boat?"
Every boat is a compromise and I do long for a little more cockpit room to take along more friends and family. If an M17 comes up for sale in the area I might pursue it. But for now I just want to thank Jerry for a superbly designed boat. By the way, no offense to Compac sailors. The 16 is a cute little boat and serves its purpose. But the M15 truly does sail circles around it. The side-by-side review of the two boats in Sail magazine a few years back really did an injustice to the M15 by suggesting that the performance of the two boats is comparable. It is not.
Happy sailing everyone.
Kevin Kearns M15 #518 "Scout"