I agree Stu.
I don't want to steal the thread of who is your favorite manufacturer but I have met so many who once thought the manufacturer that built their boat was their favorite only to be disappointed after a short while.
When I say a deep search of what the manufacture want their boat to do. One must understand that the
designer may have had different intentions for the boat. And what I mean by that is when a
designer signs a
contract he knows that the
builder will change certain things within the design to save
money. Maybe the designer designed a 4 inch SS
rudder post but the company decided that they could change it over to a 3.5 inch figerglass
rudder post and save
money. Or maybe the designer had easy to get to pipes in the
head galley by just removing 4 screws and out comes the panel but again the designer wanted to save money and puts a pre made unit in the
head with no way of getting to the pipes. A great NA once told me that when he signed a
contract to build the boat he designed for the company it was in the contract that the manufacture could chance up to 6% of the design to their liking. He then said discouragingly that how can I tell what is 6% and what is 20 %. A manufacturer may hire an NA to design a boat for lets say crossing an ocean once or twice in the designs lifetime. But the end product is something totally different than what the designer was hired for, it is really the manufactures end design.
I was just looking at one certain boat manufacturers website and they play the
game of
weather their boat is really made for open ocean or coastal cruising. Nice pictures of their boats in the tropics but not saying those boats should really cross oceans to get there.