The Venture 21 is a recreational keelboat built from 1966Henkel, Steve: The Sailor's Book of Small Cruising Sailboats, page 145. International Marine/McGraw-Hill, 2010. to 1979. It was the first monohull boat produced by MacGregor Yacht Corporation.
It was designed by Roger MacGregor as part of his Stanford University Master of Business Administration degree program, with a prototype built in 1965 and then put into production. It was developed into the MacGregor 21 in 1980.
It has a fiberglass hull. Early production boats had a plywood-cored deck, while later ones were balsa-cored. It has a spooned raked stem, a slightly angled transom, a transom-hung rudder controlled by a tiller and a swing keel. The boat has a draft of with the keel extended and with it retracted.
The design has sleeping accommodation for four people, with a double "V"-berth in the bow cabin and two straight settee berths in the main cabin. Cabin headroom is .
It has a cutter rig and may be equipped with a symmetrical spinnaker.
The design has a PHRF racing average handicap of 252 and a hull speed of .
Reception 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".
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[etitor]s, 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[etitor]s. Motion Index is worst of the group (though all her comp[etitor]s 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[etitor]s, 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."
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