SOLD!! - 2002 American Tug 34 - $219,000 

I agree with you, being on a boats bridge is nice when on open water. However, this boat’s focus is mid range (400 - 1,000 state miles fuel range), protected seas such as rivers, canals, and channels you’d experience on the great loop. Thats too much fuel range for a day boat / express boat and not enough fuel range for a blue water passage maker. Its a ideal “Looper” boat. On rivers, canals and channels such as you would travel on the great loop, there are so may bridges that you just can’t help becoming annoyed by the delays as you wait for bridge openings. Roads and railroad bridges cause wait after wait, often in areas with current and no wharf or wall, meaning you must focus on maintaining position in the current as a queue of boats form waiting for the next bridge opening. It can cause stress, fuel consumption, and delays from minutes to hours. So the answer, from my experience, is eliminate the boats highest point, the boats bridge, and have a mast with radar and radio antenna on a hinge so they can be lowered as needed. If you store items such as a dingy, kayak, paddle board, bicycles, docking fenders, dingy fuel jug, and dock chairs on the roof, have the ability and space to bring them down off the roof so these items do not hit as you go under a bridge. Sure, you need to go up to the top to pull a pin then lower the mast and antenna and temporarily have clutter in your boats cockpit from the items you brought down from the roof, but now you can clear most bridges and keep going. As with everything on boats, its a trade off, with no clear best for everyone answer.

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