I have often thought about the skills that older boat rats learned when growing up. Back in the day you started (often as a pre teen) with a 10 footer and a single small OB. You learned to dock, beach, stabilize, navigate rough water (all water is rough at that size), maintain seaworthiness (bail water), and get maximum performance from limited resources ("rev sticks", hammering cup into props, punching exhaust relief holes into center sections, putting "runners on hull botttoms, shifting weight aft, etc). Later you "scaled up" to 13, 14, 15 and 16 footers, but always using the elementary skills you learned in the smallest hulls. This 16' starter boat idea is a good one. Far too many of today's performance boaters started in a 24, 28 or even 40 foot hull and can't feel the nuances in trim and stability that is second nature to the people who came up from the much smaller boats. Sadly these skills can probably never be learned in a much larger boat.
Food for thought.
