The main baises
is for it to give a wind speed that a boat is built to withstand judging by the set of standards covering design, materials, construction and stability. I believe a CE rating of A (for unlimited offshore use) is supposed to withstand winds up to 115 MPH. A rating of D is for lake only use.Now I am not sure how they came up with the standards, but most all boats over 32' usually get an A rating, including the production boats which many will swear isn't an offshore boat. Now I will agree that production boats may not be designed for offshore use but I feel they can actually withstand the pressures of offshore because the two have different meanings. The CE rating is not meant to say the boat is designed for offshore use, but to say it can withstand offshore use. Example: My boat has a rating of A, but it also only have a water tank of 75 gallons and fuel of 35 gallons. A boat designed for offshore use would have larger tanks, like 300 for water and 150 for fuel. I can only motor about 300 miles in my boat and sometimes that just doesn't cut it, but could I float around until the wind picked up, if I was very conservative with my water the whole time I was out there, yes.So, my point is this...don't use the rating to decide if it's a blue water boat, but to decide what it is capable of handling (and even that is argued by many forever and forever).Note: there is a table somewhere on the internet that lists the wind speeds each rating can handle but I can't seem to find it right now.