Jeff, thanks for the questions.
I imagine that you must have some hours/experience accumulated with your boat...maybe the most of any Helmsman/Mariner owner? We have lived aboard since new. As of today that is 7yr 10mo. of continual use.
How many hours do you have on the boat? Engine hours 2800.1
What are you favorite three things about it? 1)The layout. large open salon. The separate head and nice shower: we only use marina showers when we are on the hard. Very good access to machinery components for servicing. Excellent visibility and excellent ventilation in the pilot house. We drive from the pilothouse all the time. The bridge deck area is great for entertaining. Salon table converts to a double. This allows room for our very infrequent guests, without wasting space of a normally unoccupied and unused second stateroom .
2) This will probably jinx me, reliability of all the systems. AC/Heat used for 8 summers and winters. no problems (Fwd AAC was taken out by a lightning strike in yr 4 and replaced) . Two heads in daily use. Never been rebuilt.
3) Sea keeping. My dad was a New England lobster boat builder,I designed and built boats for him. Spent my entire career in the boat building industry and have run all sorts and sizes of boats for god knows how many thousands of hours. So I realize that all boats are a compromise. But when I saw this hull I thought it would be a good compromise, and it has proven to be so. 3 times we have been caught in heavy squalls with exceedingly short steep seas and have driven the bow through waves, taken solid water onto the windshield (the mouth of the Potomac will do that to you), but never lost confidence in the boat.
What three things would you improve on?
1) Move the water tanks forward. with full tanks the stern drops over 4 inches and the bow rises about 2 inches.
2) Helm Station layout. With the fwd cabin entrance offset to starboard, it makes the helm console area very small and a challenge to fit electronics .
3 rudder location and design. Scott has already made one improvement by moving the rudder and prop back about 2 feet. Some of the original boats were built as a 35' express style. If you bought the 37 the rudder and prop are in the same place as the 35. the boat "hunts" a bit. But that being said, she does maneuver very well.
Thanks in advance.
Jeff