On Apr 14, 3:19 pm, Bruce in Bangkok wrote:
I've been aboard some of those 35 ft. cruising boats that have been
sailing for several years. The ones that entertain guests in the
cockpit because there isn;t room down below for four people to sit
down.

Well our experience here differs. I've enjoyed a good number of
dinners served below by cruising couples in their 30 something foot
boats. Some on small 30 something boats. We sat six to dinner one
night in Tonga on a 32 foot boat cruised by a couple. Four of us had
dinner below on a 25' Pacific Seacraft that was half way between
Hawaii and Oz with a couple aboard... I've got two sets of
particularly dear friends who've fed us many times in their 36 and 37
foot boats and both pairs of them have been cruising very seriously
for over 20 years. One of them is a professional boat builder and a
talented sculptor and he keeps an extraordinarily complete set of
tools and spares and there's still plenty of room below. Two folks
can live and cruise full time on a moderate displacement monohull of
35 feet in some comfort (eg. with a computer, tv, books &c) and still
have a place to entertain below, stow a few grand-kids for the
occasional week or two and carry a lot of spares. If you absolutely
refuse to ever take anything off the boat you'll eventually be
entertaining on deck no matter how big your boat is.

Of course, bigger boats can carry more, are generally faster, safer
and more comfortable at sea, have more privacy, berths that are kinder
to old backs and so on. The trade offs are that they're more
expensive to keep, and either harder to work or more complex... So,
there's an engineering compromise that juggles money, crew strength,
tech ability and so on. There are also many aesthetic questions. For
instance, I think its good for people to live on boat that gives them
a buzz to behold. Some folks want to live with a Zen like simplicity
and others want to be reminded of oak and tar... One size does not
fit all. But, IMO, all things considered, 36 isn't a bad number.

By the way, Pago is civilization. Heck Apia is civilization. They
have currier service, hardware stores, engineering shops, you name
it. I've had a broken boat in Apia.

-- Tom.