Malcolm raises an interesting point about the custom boat business... As an experienced and well known designer he has managed to find a paying client for exactly one motor-sailor in spite of his published analysis that it is the best of both worlds..
It would appear to this observor that clients who can afford to pay for a custom boat have their own agenda...
The client who is into speed and power wants his boat to be big, powerful, fast, and an expression of his status in the world... He is absolutely not interested in messing with sails and with deciding if beating into the wind is worth the effort...
The client who is a sailor, who lives for having his face dripping with spray, lee rail in the foam, and a suite of big sails making those beautiful curves overhead, is not interested in buying diesel by the truck load - even if it is only half as much diesel...

As a po-boy I am interested in economical cruise... When I price the cost of mast, rigging, sails, hull reinforcement to handle the loads, sail repair and replacement costs over a 20 year period, I find that I can buy a lot of diesel for that money... I can cruise many years before spending the up front cost of the sailing rig...
Next I look back with fondness at the races where I was hanging over the foredeck in 20 foot rollers and untangling that beautiful genoa...  I look ahead 5, 10, or 20 years, and I have zero interest in being out on the deck in big rollers.... Been there, done that, got the tee shirt to prove it... Now, I am ready to stand comfortably in the warm pilot house, braced between the helm seat and the wheel, steaming cup of tea in hand, Mozart on the stereo, smell of supper coming up the companionway - and smiling at the exceptional wave that breaks over the bow, instead of swallowing it...

I am sure that Malcolm will point out that power control of sails from the pilot house is now common...  That does not change the decision making of operating a sailing vessel and the constant attention to wind, etc...  Simply put a power boat is a lot less work, both mental and physical...  In deciding on my retirement boat I have come around to a power catamaran, displacement hulls, single cruise engine, and no sails to tend...

denny
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In reply to Dennis OConnor:

Unfortunately Dennis OConnor has hit the nail on the head! to paraphrase
Charles Dickens  "The catamaran is the best of all possible worlds, it is
the worst of all possible worlds" I did the exercise many years ago of
calculating how far one of my displacement power cats could travel on the
cost of a rig and its associated gear. The result of this exercise placed me
firmly in the camp of the displacement power cat from the purely practical
point of view. However leaving aside the rational decision making:- there is
still a part of me that hankers for the romance, and above all, the silence
of sail. So can I have it both ways? the answer is yes. But as Dennis points
out there is a price to pay [isn't there always!] So my ideal boat, the cost
be damned, is a lightweight 60'displacement power catamaran with the
accommodation of a 40' catamaran. This would be surmounted by a BIG, VERY
BIG fully automated racing rig. Below would be a couple of 200hp engines
driving controllable pitch propellers. This boat would motor at 20 knots
and, when one of the gung ho racing keel boats pulled along side, be capable
of sheeting in the sails and disappearing over the horizon at 30+ knots!
Certainly possible but equally certain is that it is well beyond my
financial resources.

Malcolm Tennant Multihull Design Ltd
PO Box 60513 Titirangi,
Waitakere 0642
NEW ZEALAND

ph +64 9 817 1988
fax +64 9 817 6080

e-mail malcolm@tennantdesign.co.nz
www.tennantdesign.co.nz
www.catdesigners.com