Brad, yeah, there is a mariner facing my aft deck on the other side of the fariway. it does have nice safe sidedecks like this new 44 but all there is if a small bench at the bow. There used to be a 55ish cockpit aft cabin MY across my pier, also with a shortbow considering the size of the boat.
I guess it all comes down how you use your boat. We like to be out, not inside... so a large foredeck with large sunpad is important to us... Whenever we have friends on board, that's where they often hang out so i will sacrifice 10 sq ft of saloon space for the foredeck.
Visually, i think what a boat has to be balanced and if the house extends too far forward, the boat looks stubby and poorly proportioned and stuby. If you look at MOST Carver, that's the way they look. It doesn' take much... for instance hatteras has made a few boats (erarly 58MY for instance) with a slighly shorter foredeck and longer house, not much... couple of feet but the difference is huge.
Take the big Bayliners, now Meridian... even the now dated 45 something that they've been building since the mid 80s, it's not a bad looking boat, teh foredeck could use another couple of feet but it's pretty well balanced.
as i said, it's like a woman... too short a forehead, or too long a torso and you can see something isn't right!
(probably going to get flamed in the WOF for that one
Now, it perfectly ok not to care about how a boat looks like, not to be interested in spending time outside in the sun... it's the buyers' decision.
but I still think that such tall sidedecks, raised above the cabin on a 40 footer dont' make sense. visually and practically when you need to get off the boat. Lower side decks and an opening in the railing, amidship woudl be far more practical. Look in one of the picture how tall the decks are compared to the guy standing on the dock? It's a trade off you make on a large boat, not on a 40 footer.
