Since I found myself on the rant about my visit to China, great experience by the way, I am doing a separate post about the Prout factory. Bottom line, they will not be able to have a new boat completed for us by 2009, which was a goal relative to the special tax incentives. So for now, they are back down on the list until they have a few boats in the water and are proven.

This is a new factory for Prout in China, and many working there are not experienced catamaran builders. We were very impressed by the workmanship. The labor costs are so low, they really can spend a great deal of time on all the custom, hand completed type work. The owner, Jack, has an aerospace background, and some of the advances they are doing to make the boat light while still high end are impressive. And example is granite countertops, but with a very thin cut of stone on a honeycomb core, just like on high end private airplanes. We also liked the ability to do a semi-custom boat.

The final analysis is that we want a proven blue water boat. As this is a brand new boat, with brand new staff, in a brand new factory, we decided it was best to wait. If we were putting the boat in our marina and just taking short trips to Catalina, we would have jumped at the opportunity.