Thinking about heavy weather and power boats--it is apparent that power boats have not been revolutionary in design as racing sailboats have in the last few years. You see sailing monohulls controlled by one person which can average speeds in the 15 to 20 knot range, and large multihulls which average speeds in the mid 20's. Looking at Steve Dashew's site he makes the comment: "Most ocean going powerboats have very deeply immersed bows, which is why the only storm tactic that they can employ is heading slowly into the waves. Any other tactic brings with it the potential for loss of control and broaching. In the case of this new FPB-83 design, by virtue of our our long waterline, and the way in which we are able to distribute volume along the waterplane, even with our knife like bow we have dynamic lift to raise the bow as the boat accelerates. Though the bow is very fine, it is not deeply immersed. Drop back three feet (900mm) from the cutwater and you will find a little over a foot (300mm) of bow submerged (most powerboats are close to maximum draft at this point). The bottom line to all of this is that we expect to be able to maintain our normal cruising speeds off the wind, even in fresh tradewind seas. Going faster means there are less waves overtaking us, the hull is more dynamically stable, and the active stabilizers are working more efficiently (the force of active stabilizers goes up with the square of the increase in boat speed - so we'll generate 2.25 times the stabilizing force at 12 knots as we would at eight)." http://www.setsail.com/dashew/dashew227.html It would appear that most production voyaging motorboats are evolutionary--that is they are getting heavier and with more interior volume for the length. The origins are that of fishing trawlers or other working boats. We are seeing a few power catmarrans, which are revolutionary. There are other hull forms which are very seaworthy, have good stability and good lift as the speed accellerates. The narrow beam shoal draft with a lighter hull is cheaper to build, is able to get into more harbors and is more effecient to run. If I was going to buy a voyager, I would consider building from scratch and having different design characteristics than the current generation of production boats. A friend has a boat (began life as a racing sailboat--at 55 feet, 18,000 lbs, draft 4 feet (dagger board up), beam 12.5 feet. Later in life it became a cruising sailboat--and the weight went up to about 28,000 lbs. The boat was repowered from 50 hp -which gave a good cruising speed of 8 knots- to 112 hp and how a cruising speed of 10 to 11 knots. The hull form is such that the boat begins to lift and semi plane at low speeds. This boat has circumnavigated twice, plus another 100,000 miles and is well proven. This hull form could be built as a power boat from scratch. It behaves very well in heavy weather and is able to make good way into 10 foot seas and 55 knots of wind. I suspect as more people start to do power voyaging, we will see other vessels which are less expensive than the production boats, will be more effecient and probably be better sea boats. Bob Austin