hi george, thanks for putting us on the "list". my wife pam and i have been full time liveaboard cruisers since october 1998 when we left the cold waters of new england and headed to the bahamas. the first two years we "camped" out on our J-34C and in 2001 bought a manta "42", hull #70. pat reischmann was a complete pleasure to work with - we've stayed in touch all these past years - and endeavour, who built the boat, have been helpful whenever we've had need to contact them. the first two years with our manta, "anything goes", we went back and forth to the bahamas although the "back" got smaller and smaller, until in 2003 we only got as far north as jacksonville, fl. since then we've been cruising all through the caribbean except in central america. our hurricane season activities were to cruise along the north coast of venezuela out to the ABC's. we bought a home in curacao and decided to live there part time and sail the rest of the year. well, although we had a lovely place in paradise we soon realized we'd be happier back on a boat full-time. the manta was about to enter the "higher" maintenance years - and so were we - combined with the reality that we motored far more than we sailed, wanted greater speed for comfort and safety, and had new ideas on how we wanted a boat interior configured, started thinking about a powercat sometime in 2006. after living and cruising around islands we never had a moments thought about considering a mono-hull trawler yacht. for the past two years we've done our homework, we believe. following your discourses here was a big part of it, a highlight being malcom tennant's participation. of course we did all the other stuff like boat shows, chatting with owners and other cruisers, etc. for us a big thing, once we felt a boat was designed properly, were the interiors. after all these years living on boats, " home-like comfort" was high on the "must have" list. finally we made our decision: we are now having a P-47 being built for us up at maine cat for delivery june 2010. maine cat is letting us design the interior as a part of the deal. we are also having the roof top extended so we can enclose the cockpit, and we'll have a flybridge as well. our plans are to return to the bahamas next winter with thoughts about exploring the western caribbean the following year. we'd be pleased to share our experiences and thoughts about our process of choosing a powercat. we've been on maine cat hulls #2 and #3 (#3 is in stuart, fl and i'll be on it today) so we are pretty familiar of their performance. hull #3 is named "sweet spot" and is headed to seattle next week as deck cargo out of ft. lauderdale. sweet spot is powered with 110 hp volvo D-3 motors. the owner is adamant he wants to cruise slowly! the boat arrived here in stuart on january 7th after an 8/9 day trip down the east coast. the crew only did one overnight (s.c. to florida) and saw hideous conditions from maine to new jersey. on the delivery, with only its 110 hp motors, the boat averaged almost 14 kts for the whole trip! we will have 220 hp D-3 motors on ours and hope to be able to cruise in the low 20's. thanks malcom tennant. glenn and pam cooper