You're absolutely right, sailing is about freedom. I'm sure Les is only one of thousands of cruisers out there now with full enclosures who are absolutely delighted with them...

As always, it depends entirely on how a particular boat is going to be used... For example, an east coast snowbird motoring 1000 miles down the ICW in the late fall, I'm sure an enclosure is well worth the tradeoffs... as long as he's always stopped before nightfall, that is... (grin)

My point is almost always this: most people become interested in cruising as a result of an interest or love of SAILING... And yet, virtually every modification/improvement/increase in comfort applied to cruising boats today comes at the expense of degrading the boat's performance under sail... As a result, cruisers are motoring virtually everywhere today, at least where I see them... Nothing inherently wrong with that, of course, that's their choice... I simply think many of them are not mindful of how drastically some of their outfitting choices will lessen their amount of time sailing, or worse, have an impact of the safe operation of their boats in unanticipated situations... I would suspect, for example, many people installing a full enclosure don't have a clue how much it will impede visibility from the helm on a dirty night, until they find themselves in such a situation... I've been there, and done that, and am simply pointing it out...