Our 35'er allows us to deal with our local area with a level of comfort and confidence that we may not feel in a smaller boat. Moving around the foredeck is much easier than on my previous smaller boats. The ride is steady and when it pipes up, we are still comfortable. Sure there is more boat to paint and clean and the sails are heavier to move but that seems less of an issue for us right now. I'm not sure what we would downsize to when we tire of our present boat but I would imagine that it won't have any pretense of cruising. Just a simple day-sailer for nice summer days.