Hello, I'm trying to learn more about the characteristics of certain boats as suitable extensive coastal cruisers. I believe the best hull shape is full displacement for open ocean cruising, however our plans do not include multi-day ocean crossings. We are looking at the new Ocean Alexander 54 Trawler, an Ed Monk Jr. semi-displacement hull. Everything about this boat seems to be well suited to extensive coastal cruising, it's fuel capacity, it is stabilized and is strongly built with high end components and hardware. While the boat is marketed as being able to plane with higher horse power engines, we are powering it with smaller John Deere engines for efficiency. We like everything else about the boat but want to make sure it is safe for how we intend on using it. I understand you can cross the ocean in a row boat on the right day, so all of this is dependent on a lot of things. I'm interested in the opinion of more experienced power cruisers on how well this type of boat is suited to our described purposes. Our intent is to travel from the Mid-Atlantic through the Great Lakes, the Canadian Maritimes and south through the Caribbean. Our thought is this type of cruising allows us to pick our weather window with more accuracy and limit exposure to changing conditions. We only occasionally see ourselves making an overnight passage. We've been boating long enough to know conditions can change at sea rapidly but others seem to doing this kind of cruising in similar boats like the Fleming 55 or Grand Banks Aleutian class , both of which I consider to be comparable boats. I look forward to learning from your experience. Thank You and Kind Regards, Bob Bob Arrington bobarrington@comcast.net M: 410-598-8568 H: 410 377-4994