John Wrote in part: Hi folks -I'm flattered to be asked, but my knowledge of production boats is almost nil, aside from their reputation.> We too see our name mentioned an are flattered. We are not the great passagemakers of Beebe fame or Milt or some of the others. We do have a few sea miles under us in Swan Song and a hundred fold more in deliveries and passages of a multitude of other private vessels. We've had a few bad days at sea on various occasions and did need to be plucked out of one of them by a tanker looking like a wet rat. We are currently in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela having just completed a two week haul-out. There are several long range power boats in my sight at the moment. Cheshire Too, Charlie Morgan designed and custom built 55' X 18' X 5' steel passagemaker, called. Hard chine active fin stabilized, flat transom, 2500 gallon of fuel Jonalisa, Custom 59' steel with active fins, 1800 fuel, hard chine, flat transom. Pipedream, Hatteras LRC 42 active fins Dutchmaster, Hatteras LRC 48 active fins Krogen 48 Whaleback There are others including some cocktail cruisers, a newish Diesel Duck..a 46' I think, and sundry others with hailing ports of distant places. Most are either boats out of production or custom made sometime in the past. We see the occasional Nordhavn but infrequently. I expect many of these passagemaker/cruisers have less than $500K in them. A few have more and some are well over a million. The one thing that they have in common is they're not tied up at their home ports but are out on the world's oceans doing what they purchased the boat for...cruising. Some are varnished and look gorgeous, others are more a work in process (al la Swan Song) but they are all "out here doing it". We'll have about 270 days underway or anchored out for this year by the New Year. Some of that is "doing maintenance in exotic places" as someone has said. We'll end the year with 3000-3500 miles under the keel on Swan Song and another 2000 or so on our tender. Lots of cruising, anchoring and some passagemaking. Longest non-stop was 500 odd miles. If you desire to roam the world's oceans as a cruise vs. a "delivery type schedule", then the choice of boat is much broader and can encompass a slower gentler style of passagemaking. The Dashews style represents the "I want to go there now regardless" of mother oceans mood. Doable but not our cup of tea. We'd rather wait for mother ocean's moods to be in our favor and take the time required to explore where we are before we move on. Heck we might never get a chance to come back so why rush forward? Any list that you try to develop to pick "the boat" will be short circuited, just as John said, as something not on the list will appear and be just the ticket. Better to get some experience in, try as many things as you can, charter here/there, beg a ride here/there, do a delivery or two in the "off delivery season" to understand what mother ocean can do on a bad day. Have an appreciation that trying to force a passage regardless is not something to do unless you are a search and rescue boat built for it. Getting this type of experience will help you to know what you want, what your limits might be and which product best fits them. As Rich says, 3' aka 1 meter, seas are the max comfort today. OTOH I'll bet he can describe some of much greater height that he's navigated thru. Is that passagemaking/cruising? Not to most of us. Our comfort is 2 meters unless we need to make some miles for some reason. Swan Song in not uncomfortable in 3-4 meters but why have to hold your coffee or walk about without holding on? We are uncomfortable over the 4 meter line and need to be tightly secured to run in seas like this. Falling thru waves, which happens as the seas become more confused, is a PITA. The freefall and slamming at the bottoms are not fun. Will Swan Song survive this? I guess so as it does. Are we comfortable when we are in this kind of washing machine...heck no. Nancy is white knuckled and that makes my life unpleasant for the foreseeable future & perhaps beyond. As I don't wish to become a "single male cruiser" I do my best to work the forecasts to avoid these situations ;-) You will never find a boat that will survive a really bad day at sea. Once the waves approach 50 feet the tables are turned as the boat probably will be too. Getting pitchpoled (stern over bow) and rolled several times in a boat that was up to Cat 0 offshore racing standards is a good indication of the forces at work. If your number is on the wave, then time is up. Better to not be there and not think you have the "ultimate boat" as you'll lose anyway. As Rich says, only a fool/nut would be out there ;-) This one is run by a couple and seldom does Wolf wait for weather. 130' http://www.shipspotting.com/modules/myalbum/photo.php?lid=85960 As always YMMV..... Dave & Nancy Swan Song Roughwater 58