I'm one of the big boat guys who also replied early.
There are a lot of opinions here that seem to be made by folks who have spent little or no time on boats on the bigger end of the spectrum. I've done both ends of this discussion, and for being
offshore, the 55 footer that we currently own is far and away a more capable sea boat than the smaller ones, despite this one being a lightweight, high-performance boat with a SA/D around 30, and our previous boats being more traditional 'blue water' cruisers as is generally defined around here.
It also helps that our 55 weighs 8 tons less than the
steel 43', and only a little more than the 36 footer we had before that it replaced. This often gets missed in this discussion. The old, heavy, 'blue water' boats that are generally in favor are so damned heavy that the
rigging loads are actually higher than a larger, more modern design.
The idea that a big boat is too hard to manage by a
single person is simply no longer true. I do all of our sail handling alone if I want to, and have singlehanded the boat just fine. It all comes down to how the
gear is set up. We do have a
single electric winch to help with the main, but the whole show doesn't come to a stop if it does.
Have a look at the skinny Frenchmen who are regularly
racing open 60's around the world. They're not supermen. Well, they sort of are, but they're not freakishly strong either.
The
gear has come a LONG way since the 70's,
kids.
And, no, costs do not go up exponentially with size. Or even that much. Slip/hauling
fees are linear, after all.
With the exception of the sailing gear I mentioned earlier, which is vastly more expensive, systems belowdecks can be basically identical to the smaller rigs.
Of course, I'm not talking about the crowd who has a single 12v light, no fridge, and a bungee cord for an
autopilot, but we're not lugging around that much more gear than your average 35 footer which is fitted out in the normal long distance cruising way.
Yes, the big rigs suck around the
dock. No argument there, but it's really just a small part of things, isn't it?
TJ