Gusty wrote:
Doug,

Much thanks!

Although maybe this is not the appropriate place to ask, what other
places would you suggest for chat rooms. Your feedback has been very
helpful.

You're much welcome! This is a perfectly appropriate place to act, but
most of this newsgroup is taken up by fishing and political blowhards.
There is occasionally a flurry of talk about electrical systems &
engines which I try to follow, and leap on any sailing topic.

Try a similar newsgroup titled 'rec.boats.cruising' or 'alt.sailing.asa'
or the Cruising World forum

http://www.cruisingworld.com/forum.jsp?categoryID=205



Over the last two years my wife and I have looked extremely closely at
a J35 and a Catalina 35 but we never made the final move.

Kinda different boats there too... I sense that you are one with duality

If you liked the J-35, do yourself a favor and check out an Express 37
http://www.practical-sailor.com/pub/...ew/1173-1.html

It's roomy enough to cruise, fun to sail, and fast enough to pop
eyeballs. Darn good looking boat too. The biggest drawbacks as a
daysailer/weekender are that it requires an attentive helmsman (although
I bet it behaves just fine with an autpilot) and it would be rather
bouncy on passages (but less so than a J-35). Some of them have tillers!


... I'm pretty
sure we're going to act between now and this summer. As the son of a
Cruising Club member and Bermuda racer, I'm trying to find the best of
both worlds.

That means a different thing to everybody. My wife and I wanted a boat
with enough room for us to stay aboard for a few months at a time &
occasionally make passages (with sensible planning & caution), yet would
be enough fun to sail (SA/D 18 or higher, PHRF 110 or lower) to be worth
the effort. We were concentrating on 38~40 footers in the range of 180 ~
200 D/L... and we also wanted shoal draft, which cut the choices to very
few.




Being a Red Sox fan, I can't imagine spending the next 10 years on a
NY 40.

I'm embarrassed to admit how much I like these boats... it's certainly
not due to the name. I was racing a semi-custom (ie rather fast) 35
footer and we were dusting most 42 and 45 footers, and we kept facing
off with this very classy looking (at first I thought it was a custom
design) nearly flush-deck sloop that could pass us given half a chance.
After a while I made it a point to make friends with the folks sailing
it, and went aboard... my jaw dropped at the cabin furnishings & the
roominess. I blurted out (sounding like a country bumpkin I'm sure)
"Damn! What kind of boat is this again?" and they said "New York 40...
like the Herreshoff design, only modern"

Fast forward about 20 years. My wife and I are boat hunting. We go to
look at a very nice French centerboarder (sadly abused and very
ill-equipped with a high asking price, which is why we didn't buy it).
It is sitting next to a NY-40, which I recognize at a glance. My wife
admires it, and of course assumes I'll know what kind of boat it is. The
broker gallantly allows us to check it out, and my wife becomes more and
more enthusiastic... I knew she was going to say it but couldn't
forestall her... she asked "Do they make this boat in a shoal draft model?"

Fresh Breezes- Doug King