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Forward of this compartment, through a watertight door, is a surprisingly spacious engine room with stainless steel raw-water strainers--even for the raw-water washdown--seacocks for all overboard drains, and a 3,700-gph Rule bilge pump, one of four. (There's also a manual pump that can draw from any of the four compartments.) The grounding strap here and throughout is laminated into the stringers; you can screw into it anywhere along its length. One gaffe: The dipstick and oil fill for the starboard Volvo Penta D-12 are outboard.

If all this construction stuff is putting you to sleep, the 540's list of standard equipment should wake you up. It includes gauges and remote starts in the engine room and engine, autopilot, and bow thruster controls as well as teak decking, an icemaker, a deep freezer, a transom-mounted propane barbecue, and a Glendinning CableMaster in the cockpit. Then there's the full instrument package that includes a Furuno NavNet system with 10-inch LCD color display, 48-mile radar, chartplotter, DGPS, and depthsounder, plus a Furuno wind/speed/depth with a repeater in the master cabin. There's also an Icom SSB with remote head and VHF with DSC. Also standard is a Seamation Marine computer system with Pentium III processor, 128 MB RAM, 12-GB hard drive, dedicated 650-watt pure sine wave inverter, CD/DVD player, stationary and wireless mice, dedicated depthsounder, 15-inch waterproof Ocean PC flat-screen monitor, Nobletec software, Microsoft Windows 2000 and Office 2000, TV and stereo integration software, and closed-circuit TV in engine room.

For those more into tuna than tech, the 540 also comes standard with eight rod holders, a livewell with macerator, a lure locker, two laminated-in fighting bases, and stowage lockers under each coaming. To further enhance fishability, a molded-in curved stairway makes it easy and safe to rush to the cockpit from the enclosed bridge when a `rigger goes off. The captain has a good view of the cockpit from the aft-mounted helm up there, but not forward. From the helm I could see no foredeck--nothing on the boat except a small patch of bowrail through a forward cutout. The closest view was the water, about 15 feet forward of the bow. Fortunately, the problem is easily rectified: Order your 540 with the optional center-mounted helm and the aft controls.

The 540's interior needs no such modification, although the aft U-shape galley can be exchanged for a centrally located one. In doing so you'll give up a huge port-side dinette and starboard bench. The joinery on our test boat, cherry with maple accents, was beautiful and flawless. The saloon is unusually bright, mainly due to the glass windshield, although those in sunny climes can order a solid fiberglass one. I liked the large side windows that slide open for natural cooling and the fact that the flat-screen monitor above the beautiful curved cabinet and forward of the starboard refrigerator can display input from the TV, DVD player, chartplotter, or engine room camera.

Four steps down, the accommodations level on our boat offered a large master V-berth and port-side guest stateroom, both with networked flat-screen monitors (the guest's flips down from the overhead). A third starboard room was a large office but can be ordered as another stateroom. All the doors down here are lovely: solid cherry with a swath of bird's-eye maple for accent.

I can't close without mentioning the fuel fills. Either the port or starboard one will fill all tanks, and they're easily reachable beneath grates in the wide side decks, in deep wells designed to catch spills before they reach the water. That's the kind of exhaustive attention to detail you'll find all over this boat, the kind of thinking that would be considered exceptional, no matter where in the world a boat is built.

Delta Pacific Yachts Phone: (415) 456-5000. Fax: (415) 456-5250. www.deltapacificyachts.com.

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