Chuck you can still do a good review & not accept or even correct the
marketing line, indeed most boats are OK on their own merit & it's
always sad to see the marketers degrade the genuine merits with spruik.

You've hit the nail on the head. Rather surprising, since most of the heads you
hit aren't connected to nails. :-)

I've never seen a major mfgr. boat that is a totally unsafe, unworkable,
ridiculous piece of crap. Every boat has something to recommend it to somebody,
for some purpose, under proper conditions.

Some of the difficulty stems from the difference beween fact and opinion.
People who have a negative, personal opinion about a boat naturally feel that
their opinion is a proven, objective fact and are not pleased when another
person fails to hold the same opinion, or consider it a proven, objective fact.

Most boat reviews are written to communicate a few specific ideas. A general
description of the boat, a list of the
product's high points, and a description of the experience underway. You
generally won't find a David Pascoe type article: ("Here's why every boat on
the market is a piece of crap and you're risking your life to leave the dock in
any of them"). If a boat review concentrates on "Here's what this boat does
particularly well......" and the information is based on reasonable
observations and factual data, that's absolutely legitimate. I nearly always
toss in a couple of slight negatives if they seem objectively apparent, (i.e. I
was slightly critical of the heads on the 46 Grand Banks- too small and mundane
compared to most of its competitors).

Some things are not absolutely cut and dried, and even naval architects can
disagree on theories and applications. Real life example: I just finished an
item on a very nice boat. The boat sells for just under $900k. Under most
circumstances, it would be my personal opinion that the stringers were
undersized - but that would be under most circumstances and it would be my
personal opinion. I don't have any way to know for sure that the stringers are
inadequate, and in any case this particular vessel has the engines mounted on
some stout powder coated beams that run immediately above the stringers and are
suspended between two bulkheads. With the weight (and torque) of the engines
removed from the stringers, would it be factual for me to state, categorically,
that the boat was underbuilt- or is it more likely that the mfgr ran a long
series of engineering studies before building a boat of this magnitude and that
somebody, somewhere, (most likely with a college degree in naval architecture)
is well satisfied that the stringers are adequate?

The hull was designed by a naval architect who also does work for Rybovich and
Palmer Johnson, so I'm not certainly not qualified to discuss the design on his
level and more or less inclined to trust in his expertise.

The result was a comment about the engine mounts, but no particular mention of
the stringers. It would be wrong to write
"The stringers are enormously overbuilt and very impressive!" It would be
equally wrong to state as a proven fact that they are too small for the boat.

Once somebody begins seriously looking at a boat, there will be no shortage of
negative feedback about the vessel. Everybody from shorebound dock walkers to
salespeople for competing brands will GD the boat unmercifully- whatever the
make and model. A salesperson selling against the boat I just finished writing
up, might ask a prospect to take a careful look at the stringers in the
salesperson's boat- and then go take a careful look at the stringers in this
particular brand. In the end, the consumer will make up his or her own mind-
maybe taking into account the difference between a strnger that has to bear the
weight and torque of the engine as well as provide longitudinal rigidity- and
maybe not.