It's really just about mindset...

Happiness is a place between too little and too much.

                                            -Finnish proverb

The other day I read something from a couple who referred to their Brewer designed Whitby 42 as a "small" boat. They also remarked about how that they had to give up a lot as well as become super resourceful to make such a cramped space livable.

I suppose it all depends on where your head is at I guess...

The Whitby 42, from where I sit, is anything but small. Fact is, Ted Brewer was better than most designers at shoehorning maximum livability, useful stowage, and ergodynamics that actually work so that the Whitby 42 has an accommodation that a lot of fifty-foot boats would envy.

Of course, if you think something is small and cramped you'll most likely color your reality to fit.

Some friends of ours used to have a Gulfstar 37 and they liked it so much that when a good deal on a Gulfstar 50 popped up they decided to upsize as they were planning to do a circumnavigation...

Fast forward a few years near the end of the circumnavigation on the Gulfstar 50 and our friend mentioned they'd been foolish to get the fifty-footer because it was too big, too expensive, and too much work. Last I heard from them he was hoping to do a straight over trade of his Gulfstar 50 for his old Gulfstar 37 because "It was just perfect".

We lived on our 26-foot Jessie Cooper for a bit over four years and never felt it was too small or cramped and, while even I will use the word small when describing the first Loose Moose, we never had an issue with it's diminutive size as it completely fulfilled our needs at the time. The reason we upsized was not that it was too small but simply because our requirements had changed. That said, I suspect, that the reason we did not find the Jessie Cooper design too small or cramped was simply that our mindset was positive...

Simple as that.