rhys wrote:
Starting a new thread because "Best bluewater 34 footer" is getting
insanely off-topic:

Frank Maier said:
Another of my prejudices is that I don't wanna have a pilothouse out
on the deep blue; so, I'd be looking for a non-pilothouse version.

Why is that? Me, I've always thought the advantages of a pilothouse,
or at least a hard dodger/bimini, were substantial if it was
well-integrated into the rest of the deck and the controls were
logical. I like the idea of hard points for rails, handgrips, places
to lash the boom, etc. That doesn't necessarily mean a pilot house,
but it does mean more than the typical enclosed bimini/dodger on light
steel tubing.

Hi,

Steve, my fellow Northwesterner, pretty much hit the high points.

If I were just cruising the Northwest, I'd love to have a pilothouse
because it provides a wonderful shelter and I'd have a reasonable
expectation of never getting hit by a big "freak" wave or getting
knocked down hard. Probably the same situation for New England coastal
cruising, although I couldn't say from personal experience.

But in the semitropics or tropics it's a sauna.

It's weight and windage. Granted the weight element isn't significant
and hopefully the designer allowed for it in his original plan; but
windage is significant to me. We always tend to discuss these design
elements in terms of extreme weather. Getting to gale force and above,
a pilothouse represents unacceptable windage to me.

In the event of a freak wave or hard knockdown... Well, I've been
knocked down offshore, during the Vic-Maui race (Victoria, B.C. to
Maui, if you're unfamiliar with it), and cracked expensive, sturdy,
small ports in the cabin trunk. Having huge expanses of glass (ok,
lexan or whatever) is not what I'd consider a safe offshore design
element.

So, given all that, and given that I'm done with cold weather sailing
and intend to stay South of 30 in the future, I don't want a
pilothouse.

YMMV,

Frank