Glad you enjoyed the pics. Yes, for anybody out there looking for a great, all-round sailboat on a budget, it is hard to beat a Ranger 33. Usable for cruising, but quite reasonable for short-handed daysailing. I *will* consider a trade for your Valiant, though!!! (I was in a karate class with Bob Perry for a while, FYI!)

I added 5 more boat pics on Riocar.org. I'll explain them here:

Even with a 3rd Type 27 battery, I found that the 4+1-channel amp I had installed chewed up too many amps. I got rid of it along with an unpowered subwoofer that a friend gave me. I went back to running 4 speakers off a newer (that has AUX-IN) Kenwood head unit and I added an 8" powered Bazooka.

The Bazooka? Well, it sucks, but not that bad. It is only turned up to "1.5" and is not very boomy at that level. One pic shows the Bazooka tucked under the nav table (behind my trash bucket) and another shows the Bazooka remote level control.

One reason the Bazooka doesn't suck too bad is that I got it off eBay for ~$115 new.

Due to this change I have a Sony XA39 that I can sell you for half-price if you decide to go that route.

There's a pic of one of my (inside) KLH home theater speakers. These aren't great, but I picked them because they have very low magnetic effect on my bulkhead-mounted compass. With the addition of the Bazooka, the sound is adequate.

Another pic shows the waterproof Polyplanar speakers in the cockpit/transom (the important listening area!). These sound surprisingly good (esp. with the subwoofer added). I installed single volume-control knob in the companionway that lets me mute the exterior speakers as needed.

The last pic is a gratuitous glam shot of my almost-finished mast-step junction box that I thought you might appreciate.

Oh, that particular RJ-45 isn't ethernet. It's a RS-232 output from a Noland Engineering NMEA multiplexer. With a DB9-RJ45 adapter, I can hook up laptop and get combined GPS, depth/knot/wind messages for nav software.

I may use the other spot for ethernet, but I am probably going to add a wireless access point to the setup for Empeg remote control from my Zaurus.