A few things that enticed me about this were the obvious sleek lines, beautiful interior, and the low external teak finish, as well as an obvious sea going tendency. Then I started reading the specs. Displacement: 38,000 lbs. Wait... WHAT??!?! Comparable Catalinas are around 20,000 lbs so I made a call. Apparently the boat designer is famous for his designs (although I had a hard time finding any) and this was his personal boat for many years, but it has an interesting construction material... CONCRETE.
Fero-concrete to be exact, which is a method of covering steel lattice with a mixture of concrete to create the hull. I'm sorry, did you say steel? You know this boat will be used in SALT water right? Intuitively I'm thinking to myself, the last things I want involved with a floating vessel in saltwater are concrete and steel. Now, being in architecture and interested in engineering, I have always been interested in the concrete canoe design contests, but this is going a little too far for me.
Learning about stability and sea worthiness, this boat is clearly designed for blue water cruising, but I'm willing to forgo some of these characteristics (and a 6'-9" draft) to avoid the headache of the lattice beginning to rust, or the concrete chipping on impact and I am amateurishly starting with coastal cruising instead of crossing an ocean. I know if the boat is well designed and constructed, there may be few problems with the structure and there are some very old fero-concrete boats still sailing today, but having the limited experience I have with this type of vessel, I'm going to have to pass. Aside from it being more than I need, I really did like the 200 gals of fresh water, 80 gals of fuel, and the arch for solar panels, a wind generator and weather radar.
Oh, then there is that insurance thing. Not likely.
How about this option: http://tiny.cc/40ett
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