George, "need" is a relative term. Per OP's second post: "I want her [wife] to be comfortable so she would be willing to put up with my sense of adventure again. I'm already pushing her comfort level bare boating without a crew, chef and personal masseuse." If we had not transitioned from monos with crappy windscoops to cats with A/C in the mid-2000s, <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/circle.gif" alt="" /> I am pretty sure our crew's charter days would have ended long ago!