Mark Long <mark424x@yahoo.com> wrote: After sailing on lakes growing up in the northeast US, I got more serious about boating when I moved to Los Angeles in the late 80's. Did lots of racing, mostly J35, Shock 35, Etchells, and a little ULDB 70. Was crew on a passage from California to the Marquesas in '91 on a 65' Sparkman and Stevens. Also, numerous sail and power charters locally and in the Pacific Northwest, BVI, Whitsundays, Raiatea, etc. A charter on a Privilege 39 in '95 opened my eyes to the joy of cats, so whenever we head to the tropics it's a sailing cat. But always power in the Pacific Northwest. Till about 2 weeks I ago, I owned a 32' open deck power cat. It was a custom job, built in the late 80's in Australia. The boat had spent most of it's life as a tender to large racing sailboats, but what do they say, one man's dingy is another man's yacht. I found out that I don't need something that fast or that fuel hungry. I also decided that even in Southern California, an open boat doesn't cut it on long trips with friends and families in the exposed water between the islands. On the delivery to the new owner we stopped by Avalon on Catalina Island for brunch and on the way to Newport I kept thinking that it just felt like driving a big truck. We were doing 30-35 in light chop and long swells. I missed the feel and fun of sailing fast. As I started to do some poking around, thinking about the next boat, I wondered if I could find a cat that could do 12-15 under power as well as sail, perhaps with the diesel electric system to keep it ultra quiet and efficient. It seems that most of the production sailing cats of reasonable size 30-45' are not very fast. I checked out Dashew's site to see what they were up to and saw the new Fast Passage Boat(FPB) project. I must say it really threw my thinking for a loop. To think that's it's cheaper to power across the pacific than sail. (1-2 nm/gal isn't bad for a 83' boat, that's what my 32fter got) If you have a stabilized boat that feels like a sailboat, do you need/want a sail? How do you choose between a power cat and a power-sailer? Just how much sail is needed and/or justified? If you are not sailing during the 2-3 week passages, what do you do? Interesting questions, I'm still pondering. My current thinking is that if I want to sail for fun, I can crew or get a small day boat, J/80, Martin 242, etc. (wish there were one design racing with a 25-30' cat around here! I'm too old for a beach cat). For cruising it seems that a power-cat or power sailer is the ticket. My background is in mechanical engineering (although I'm now in the software business) so I'm always interested in conventional wisdom in design, and understanding how much of it is wisdom, and how much just convention. Thus my interest in diesel-electric, foils, efficient propulsion, and understanding design innovations that aren't just "me too". Sorry for rambling on..... ------------------------------------------- Welcome aboard, Mark! You're lucky to be in Southern California where interesting small power cats are being developed, witness the Waterplane 22 <http://www.waterplane.com/design_waterplane22.htm> and the Reynolds 33 Powercat <http://reynoldssailing.com/en/r33power/index.asp>. Keep the List updated as your search for the best boat continues. --Georgs -- Georgs Kolesnikovs Power Catamaran World http://www.powercatamaranworld.com