I just went to a boat show this morning. I was impressed with some of
the boats, and extremely disappointed with some.

The first boats we looked at were the new Catalinas. Not bad. Good
deck layout. But these didn't appear to be well made.

The next boats were the Beneteaus. Good deck layout, good interior.
They seem quite solid.

I looked at the Hunters next. I was impressed with the 356. Good
layout. Solid construction. It was just like mine. A little too
much teak on the interior. (A lot of show, a lot of slow.)

Next I looked at the Island Packets. Quite impressive, but again, too
slow.

Then came the biggest disappointment of the day, the C&C 99. What a
piece of ****. The boom was too low. The deck layout was
unimpressive. The interior was skimpy, and the layout was bad. You
have to walk all the way to the back to get to the cooler. This makes
it difficult to get a beer. The door to the head wouldn't close. The
door to the back cabin was jammed. The boat gave the appearance of
cheap and shoddy construction.

Then we looked at a 37 ft. Tartan. Very impressive, but again, this
looked too slow.

Finally, we went back to the Catalinas. Nice layout, and nice setup.
Again, the construction was not up to what we are used to. The
binnacle appeared cheap, and could easily snap off in a storm.
I don't like the way they have little hooks to hold open the doors.
These tend to break off. There wasn't enough cooler space. And the
trash compartment was very tiny. We all agreed we could fill up the
trash container with empty beer cans even before the start of a race.




Ave Imperator Bush!
Bush Was Right! Four More Years!