Welcome to the wonderful sport of sailing. Taking courses is one of several very good ways to get started. Reading can also be very helpful as well, but nothing beats spending time out there on the water and it sounds like that is the direction that you are heading.
A 26 foot boat is a nice size to start on, large and stable enough that you don''t have to worry about capsizing and small and light enough to be responsive so you can tell when you are doing right or wrong.
I would hold off focusing on a single model boat to buy until you have been through the sailing course. Under no circumstances would I suggest that you buy a new boat as a beginner. I say this for several reasons. New boats are considerably more expensive to purchase and (like cars) have a lot of depreciation. This is often masked by the fact that (unlike cars) a new boat does not come fully equipped and you end up putting a lot into one to get it set up (often in excess of 10% to 20% of the purchase price). So you will see almost new, used boats selling at what looks very close new boat prices but that actually represents in excess of a 10% to 20% depreciation.
As a beginner you are less likely to hold onto your first boat for a long period of time because your needs will change as you get more experienced and so its not uncommon for people to sell their first boat in a season or two and move on to something that better suits their needs. Also as a beginner you are more likely to get a few dings and scuffs on the boat as you learn boat handling skills and so are less likely to be a big price knock if you are already starting with a used boat.
Lastly there are several features that I believe are important in a boat to learn to sail on. While people have learned to sail on all kinds of boats, set up in all kinds of ways, it is easier to learn to sail well on a boat with a tiller rather than than
wheel steering. In my personal opinion,
wheel steering is a poor idea on any boat less than somewhere in the mid-30 foot range, but for a beginner a tiller offers more feel and so provides feed back that is useful in the learning process.
There is the issue of where you will keep your boat. A lot of people own trailer-sailers for their first boat. Launching and But for most of us hauling can really wear thin after a while; taking up a lot of time
rigging and getting underway and beating up the boat with each launch and haul (BTW 26 feet is big boat to trailer). If you live in an area where a boat can be left in the water pretty easily then you would be far better starting off with a fin keel and spade rudder boat where you also are more likely have more ''feel'' about what is happening and will have better sailing characteristics.
Unless you really have to do a lot of trailering, water ballast is a really bad idea as well. It is a very inefficient form of ballast and the ballast tanks tend to have their own problems (one of the worst being fouling which can lead to really foul smells)
So while the Hunter 260 may look like a winner for you there are really boats out there for far less money that may better suit your needs.
Good luck
Jeff
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