The Admiral and I have had several longish talks of late. I decided that the Islander was not the boat choice I thought it was. She decided that I was crazy for buying it, working on it for 13 months and then talking about selling. I agreed but with reservations.....other people do it all the time I told her. In any event, WE have decided that we are going to buy one more boat. The "Last Boat" needs to have some very specific characteristics though, things that we like from previous efforts. We have a couple of vague ideas, but that's about it.

1. Gotta have shoal draft, or at least max draft of 5' - 5'3". Last fall when the water was low on Lake Erie we spent a great deal of time stuck on things in our club basin, it was also very difficult to get the lift straps on the boat. Shoal fin or full, centerboards I have reeservations about due to the pesky zebra mussels.
2. LOA, according to the Admiral, needs to be at least 33'. Max LOA is 40' dictated by our slip. Max beam about 13-14'. Anything closer to 30' LOA is not going to end up being the last boat according to her, and this IS the last boat.
3.Diesel, wheel, aft cockpit.
4. Traditional design, although I suppose we could learn to deal with a scoopy transom thing. I am not fond of the canoe transom look no matter how seaworthy they are (sorry bernie). We actually really, really like Bob Perry's lines of the Islander 28, it is just too small inside and I would would really like standing headroom.
5. Someplace decent to sleep. The q-berth is ok, the fold out double settee I thought was cool turns out to be unfolding the bed into the kitchen of your studio apartment......not so good if someone wants to sleep (her) and someones wants their morning coffee to watch the sun rise (me). We really liked the aft cabin of the powerboat, a nice sized forward berth would also work I suppose?
6.Manufacturer.....this is a biggie. I have been on the soapbox of boat bilders many times. Preached that production boats like older Catalina and Hunter were OK. Then I discovered what a really well made boat looks like and realized that I might have been wrong. Loomed wiring, finished edges, proper seacocks.......that's all really nice stuff that I didn't have to tear out and do over. I was also wondering if there is a major benefit of buying a boat from a company that is still in business? No one answers the phone at Islander, or ODay or Pearson or Endeavour or Morgan......does that make them a bad choice?

thoughts before the hurricane hits?