Thank you very much guys for the welcome! I'm looking forward to getting to know everyone and learning from the incredible experience so many people here have.
FlyWright, the video you found is actually of my boat, the factory used it to make the video. Starting forward, the layout has the master stateroom forward with a queen walk-around bunk, followed by the head with a big stall shower to port and a guest cabin with a double berth to starboard. Then up 5 steps to the raised pilothouse, which has two double seats port and starboard, doors on both sides. Then down 3 steps to the salon, which has an L-shaped settee, table, and chair to port, and a U-shaped galley to starboard. Then out to the cockpit, which isn't huge, but big enough for 4 chairs, and is fully covered by the hardtop. From the cockpit is a ladder (with a covered hatch) to the boat deck, which is the largest space on the boat, could easily accomodate 8 people, then up 3 steps to a raised flybridge.
You're right, the layout is similar to the Helmsman 38PH except with walkaround side decks (the decks on the AT aren't the widest, with my size 12 feet I wish they were a few inches wider, but workable for getting around).
Jukesy, this is our second American Tug. We bought one of the first 34's in 2001 (hull #12, boat #10 for me) and loved it. This is actually sort of our 3rd American Tug. We originally ordered another 34 but with a flybridge like yours. But, while the boat was being built, the 395 was introduced. After much angsting, hand-wringing, and torturing and squeezing of the budget, the factory and dealer graciously accomodated us and we switched the order to the 39.
I absolutely love the American Tug (I'm a repeat customer!). I've looked at so many boats over the years (driving my amazing and totally supportive wife crazy). I've spent so many hours crawling into places (in boats) where most people never look, picking my way through the machinery spaces with an electron microscope scrutinizing every tiny detail. I ask companies to send me the layup schedules of the glass and resin for the hull and superstructure of any boat I've considered. I think I've probably looked at almost everything on the market in the past 15 years, and for my tastes and uses and my own personal preferences, the American Tug fits the best.
The boat is so ruggedly built, so logically laid out. It's built better than it needs to be. They just don't cut any corners in the boat, even in the deep dark recesses where no one ever goes except maybe a limber and dedicated suveryor. That's what has always impressed me about the boat - they're built solidly in places people rarely look. The solid glass hull is about an inch thick, just like the old glass boats from the 1960's I grew up with - probably overengineered and certainly heavier than the competition, but I would rather trade off a little speed and additional fuel use for that reassuring 'Rock of Gilbraltar' feeling (when we sold our AT34, the surveyor commented, 'this thing is built like a battleship').
The factory was wonderful to work with. They accomodated a very long list of semi-custom features I wanted in the boat, and never lost patience with me despite my endless phone calls and e-mails about esoterica and my requests for special layup schedules, engine choice, floor material, and a hundred other things.
After 40 years of messing around on the water - and being caught out in some weather I would have prefered to avoid - seakeeping is just as important to me as construction quality, and I love the balance the American Tug offers. I'm a big fan of semi-displacement hull designs, being able to both go faster than a full displacement boat but without sacrificing a lot seaworthiness as a full planing hull does. In our old AT34, we'd been out in 8-10 ft swells off of Nantucket and nasty 5 ft chop in Delaware Bay - which my wife literaly slept through because the ride was so smooth. But, with the 480 hp engine in this boat, we can also hit 20 knots.
This may be my last boat. Extrapolating the aging process, I could envision my body telling me in about 10 years that it just creaks and groans too much to do what a boat requires (and depending on how the economy goes, the boat might have to go sooner than that). In the meantime, we'll hopefully finally have some time to take the trips I've always longed to do. Not sure about the 'Great Loop', but variations on it. I would love to explore New England and spend time on the Maine coast, go up the Hudson River and then back through the Great Lakes. We're even thinking about moving the the Pacific Northwest and if we do, taking the boat through the Panama Canal. We'll see where the tides might take us.
Couldn't help but check out the difference it would make, though.
