Connie, Did you have the 16CB, with the centerboard and bowsprit? I would think the improved 16CB would go to windward better, with less leeway, than the earlier fixed-keel model. --Craig ----- Original Message ----- From: <chbenneck@juno.com> To: <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2003 11:11 AM Subject: Montgomery 15 vs Compac 16 Hi Jesse, Been there: done that! I bought a ComPac 16 and lived with it for a few years, getting ever more annoyed at it's failings, such as: It didn't like going to windward, and when you had to go to windward, the leeway made by the boat was so much that you almost had to allow 30 degrees to make your heading........... It has no sail lockers. Everything you need to operate a boat has to be stuffed on the berths under the cockpit seats. Murphy decrees that what you want "right now" is always the furthest away in the "storage area". Inside storage, as mentioned above is purely, "stuff it on the berths". No lockers, or other storage facilities. At night, if you want to use the berths, you have to haul everything off the berths and pile it in the cockpit. Then in the morning, you take everything from the cockpit and stuff it on the berths again. What a way to run a boat! After reading about the M15, and then getting information from members on the M-website, I bought one. My conclusion: Buy an M15. It is a "proper" vessel. It has sail lockers in the cockpit; it has storage lockers in the cabin; it has a large useable double berth forward, without a mast compression post in the middle of the cabin. It sails excellently; whether ghosting along or hard on the wind. In short, it is what a real sail boat is all about. So that you know where I'm coming from in my comments, I owned a Tripp-Lentsch 29 for 26 years; owned it's big brother, a Northeast 38, for two years (too big and didn't offer any more than what I already had in the T-L 29) When I sold the Tripp-Lentsch I bought a Bolger MICRO - 15' and trailerable. Great boat, but stepping a 22' solid spruce mast became more than I could handle, so I found the ComPac 16, with a deck stepped aluminum mast, as a replacement for the MICRO. After living with the ComPac and it's lack of basic boat requirements (no sail lockers; no inside storage; two berths - coffin-like - that preclude any "fun and games" (much worse than an Amish bundling board); and poor sailing characteristics (unless you were always on a broad reach), I went looking for something better. That was the Montgomery 15. Now I'm a happy sailor again, with all the characteristics I was used to on my Tripp-Lentsch, but in a 15 foot size. Go M15 and you'll be happy. Connie M15 #400 LEPPO