[Jeff_H]

That is a very small crew for offshore racing a 35 to 40 footer. J-35''s or Express 37''s for example require a crew of 8 or more to be competitive unless you were racing non-spinacker or some kind of cruising spinacker class. If you were going to do that I would look for a J-37 and set her up with an assymetrical cruising chute. Another option would be something like a Farr 11.6 (38 footers) which you can generally pick up for half of your budget but which might need some work. These are fractional rigs so you can get by with a smaller crew. (That was one reason why I bought mine.)

Jeff