Dear Brian, Thank you for forwarding John Winters comments on the MCAT 88. I certainly agree with his comments on the MCAT 88 but there are a couple of comments that he makes about the Pacific Harmony that need clarifying. He says "I have since learned [28 knots] are a little out of reach on canoe body pure displacement hulls of most lengths".If this is what he has been told then it is incorrect. If john goes to our web site he will see the 1992 design Red Diamond II. This 17.5m Loa design used our typical CS hull form and did a certified [by NKK the Japanese classification Society] 31.5 knots over the measured mile using 450hp per side. 30 knots can be achieved relatively easily by a pure displacement power cat with a CS hull. It also needs to be recognized that the "super skinny" hulls of the Pacific Harmony are not a function of the original design but were caused by the increasing of the LOA from the original designs 72' to the final 86' without increasing the hull beam. This resulted in a hull beam of around 1.4m/4' 6" [depending on where you measured it] whereas if it had been designed from scratch to be 86' it would have been at least 1.8m/ 6' in beam. So any problems ascribed to the ultafine hulls are actually attributable to the increase in length rather than the basic design. We certainly do not usually use such an extreme fineness ratio as all our data indicates that it is just as counter productive as making the hulls too wide. We have yet to see any published, and certified, data that indicates that there are currently any better [fuel use wise] hull forms than our optimised CS shape over the speed range where our designs usually operate [see graph concerning fuel consumption on our web site]. The 22m x 10m current design previously mentioned has island berths with all the [4] cabins located up in the wing. Regards, Malcolm. MALCOLM TENNANT MULTIHULL DESIGN LTD PO Box 60513, Titirangi. Waitakere 0642 NEW ZEALAND Ph: +64 9 817 1988 e-mail: <mailto:malcolm@tennantdesign.co.nz>malcolm@tennantdesign.co.nz <http://www.tennantdesign.co.nz>www.tennantdesign.co.nz <http://www.catdesigners.com>www.catdesigners.com