JTM allows a good degree of customization, which although it means a lot of research, does allow the changes necessary to suit your lifestyle whether in a marina, on the hook, or underway.  These are some of the structural things we did.

Cockpit Stairs
Probably the most important decision structurally, was to delete the cockpit stairs to the Boat Deck.  The original design had a spiral staircase that went from the port side of the cockpit to approximately the center port side of the boat deck.  As there was good access to the boat deck though the Pilothouse, it was decided that this staircase took up too much useable room.

Removing it allows more room in the cockpit, a much more useable space on the Boat Deck without the opening on port side, allowing a second smaller tender to be carried and provides an excellent entertainment area when the tenders are in the water.  It also results in a bit more useable space at the aft end of the Saloon.

Saloon
The second biggest decision was to select the standard Saloon with outside walkways on both port and starboard sides, rather than the wide body version, which extends out over the port side walkway.  This decision reduces the size of the Saloon, but being a converted sailor I believe the convenience of having complete walk around access outweighed that consideration.  The standard Saloon is plenty big enough for our requirements, we will generally be cruising in the tropics and like to spend as much time as possible outside.

The Flybridge Stairs
This is an exciting layout change we made during our visit to JTM in early August 2008.  The standard stairs are a conventional curved staircase that sits to port of the Pilothouse just up from the stairs from the saloon.  We saw the open plan stairs on a Selene 66 that was just about to ship and fell in love with them.  After a chat with Candy, our Project Manager and also Howard Chen JTM CEO, they agreed to fit the open stair design into the 59.  It looks sensational and really opens up the access between the Saloon and the Pilothouse.

Hardtop
The GRP hardtop option was selected for the Flybridge.  This provided two functions, keeping the sun off and also providing a platform for Solar Panels - see 'Electrical Systems' for more information.  On top of the Hardtop is mounted a GRP radar mast for all the various antennas.

Various Doors
We added a few doors to the basic design in order to provide some additional convenience.  These were all standard options.

Full height Port and Starboard doors were added between the cockpit and the side decks.  These prevent a lot of the spray coming into the cockpit when underway in a choppy seaway and also cut down on the wind in the cockpit.  Eventually, we may enclose the cockpit with removable clears to make this an all weather area, but not until after we have cruised for a while and see if we need it.

 

An additional high boarding gate was added to the Starboard side of the Portuguese Bridge for access to fixed piers and jetties.

Finally a full head height water tight door was added between the Engine Room and the Lazarette to allow convenient access to spares and equipment when doing regular maintenance.