Visible Overheads

The Marina, in the afternoon sun, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

Over the course of my boating 'career' I have owned or a great many examples of different categories and types. Power and sail, inboard and outboard, narrowboat and widebeam, steel and GRP, planing and displacement, expensive and, er...very expensive.
Despite this variety, I have always considered two central characteristics to be absolutely crucial.
Dry inside (as opposed to wet), and standing headroom (rather than the eponymous 'sitting' variety.
Henry is dry as a bone inside. The bilges have dust in them, and the space under the cockpit floor could be used for dehydrating herring (if that floats your bag).
Some of my boats have been less obliging in this area. Stargazer had a leak over the guest bunk in the aft cabin that dripped persistently for five years, through two major refits, six tubes of silicone and two mothers in law.
Annapolis let water in through the main hatch, but only in a northerly wind, and I had a Chris Craft that filled to the brim with rain water when I left it under a tree for three months in Bowness.
But I got them all dry in the end.
Headroom, however, is a different matter. I am not that tall, my growth hormones stopped working about an inch and a half short of the magic 'six foot', but I have a very tricky spine that complains with all its might if I have to stoop. The inch difference between the headroom inside a Freeman and that in a Norman can ruin my weekend more effectively than ten pints and a dodgy curry, so the fact that Henry has a hardtop over the cockpit is a blessing. I can stand up comfortably next to the wheel, move around without ducking for bolt heads and more importantly, get on board without having to dive through a triangular opening between two canopy bars like a pub team goalkeeper whose team is losing 12-nil in extra time.
I know that I can't fold it flat on a sunny day and lounge around in open topped luxury, but that is a small price to pay, especially in the most rain soaked summer since 1735.