except for the driving the bus part - that part is true. It is all personal taste - I prefer driving a bus and living with space and view over driving a SUV and living in a broom closet. And let's face it - "blue water cruisers" as most think of them drive like SUV's at best and not porsches. What land transportation machine would you identify with the Gulfstar 50?

Others may prefer otherwise (and some have it both ways - drive buses and live in broom closets or drive SUV's and live with space and view). And believe me, there are true cruising multi's out there that will give you all the sailing feel you need. An old and beaten trimaran will give you more pure sailing fun than almost any mono made.

Thinking that the multi world consists of only what one sees in the rental fleets, is identical to thinking the mono world consists of the same. There are numerically more of both out there.

And driving a bus is relative in a blue water cruiser - how much time on passage making does one spend hand steering at the wheel in a nice close reach groove enjoying the spray and wind in one's face? I live for that in dinghies and day sailing, but not for days on end in passage making. There, it is more important to me to have a boat that doesn't roll in following seas, provides me with a 10' safety zone on either side of me when I am working at the mast or dealing with rigging, is stable and spacious when I'm landing a big fish (or 3 or 4 with the spread of lines I can handle), doesn't need gimbles, potholders or straps to cook while underway, allows me to stretch out in a queen-sized bed in the roughest conditions, etc.

But I don't mean to turn this into a mono/multi thing. Looking beyond the rental boats, true blue water multihull designs have changed dramatically in the past 30 years (as pertaining to the original post). I believe this is the ONLY true large-scale change in the category of blue water boat design in the past 30 years.

Many more advances have been made in construction methods, but they pertain to most boats being built now. And perversely, the "blue water" crowd seems to shun all advances in construction and materials by running away from, and denigrating, anything that doesn't have 1" thick solid glass everywhere with 3/4" teak covering all surfaces and webs of standing rigging attached everywhere holding up multiple mast and headsails.

Mark