[JohnDrake]

Thank you and thank Duane for some really helpful and interesting observations. They more and more confirm what I found lacking in many boats I looked at and what I find advatageous about my boat. I am off for a long weekend sailing, so cannot write more. But do want to mention that one of the things I did recently was to take out my dinette. It really opened up the entire saloon. Makes it much more livable and we hardly ever dined on the dinette.

One thing I did while searching for my present boat was to actually measure the berths on all the other boats. It was an eye opener. I have to say that Bene''s uniformly had the smallest berths. 44 inch wide doubles in the qtr cabin and short narrow V''s in the forward cabin. A large V berth was one of my "gotta" have''s when looking. Happy with mine...almost 7 ft long and 7 ft wide at the base. It does not come to a point like many, but it quite wide there too. Very nice sleeping up there....no doubt I will sleep long past the alarm clock tomorrow am (well...no alarm clock tomorrow :O).

My best to all

John
s/v Invictus
Wauquiez Hood 38