L W,
The reason for the plastic rubrail is that, with the sandwich hull mating process, you bolt the hull together in a manner that results in a lip that runs around the perimeter of the boat. The easiest way to cover the lip is with the design of the rubrail that is on the A20 and A22. The reason these boats have this type of hull mating is purely due to the type of mold that is used. It's not a better or worse design, it's just different. The good thing about the rubber rubrail is that when you are tied up to another boat, if the two boats bump into each other, the rubber rubrail will not gouge the gel on the other boat. Also, while the rubber rubrail does tend to get marked up more easily than a stainless one, it's much much much easier and cheaper to replace. Frankly, you could probably replace a rubber rubrail every year for the cost of replacing a stainless rubrail every 10 years. Look, I like the aesthetics of a stainless rubrail over the black rubber one, but from a functional standpoint, the stainless rubrail is no better.
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