Brian, You sure led me down the primrose path! I read your missive with interest and was about to compliment you on it until I got to the last paragraph. Then, the apparent purpose leapt out at me and I thought: "Uh, oh! Another veiled catamaran promo." How cleverly you led me from speculating on the overpowering of "trawler" hulls to advocating motorsailers, only to surprise me, at the end, with another plug for cats. And, just a day after someone else got spanked for doing the same. What is with you cat guys, anyway? I have been sailing in the Eastern Caribbean for 4-6 months a year since 1998, and I assure you that there is no such thing as "...the already small sailing population..." nor is it "...on a decline and gravitating toward faster cruising forms in power and/or sail..." Perhaps you were speaking of the population of the New Jersey coast. How about posting some of the writings of your customers, who are sailing your "distinctive, multi-hull passagemakers" around the globe, instead? Might give us dyed-in-the-wool monohull folks some insight into how this new wave of passagemaking is taking the place of traditional hullforms. Regards, John Camm "Seahorse" Reply to: John@Camm.us brian eiland wrote: This reminds me of something I wrote recently, "I really can appreciate a lot of these new ideas in the 'motorsailer theme'. I believe that many marketing people are waking up to the reality that the already small sailing population is on a decline and gravitating toward faster cruising forms in power and/or sail. Some of this is a result of the older population deserting sail for a trawler. Some of this is the younger population not content with slow cruising in this fast paced world...they may only have the weekends to work with. I think some of the renewed interest in the motorsailer concept is the result of these observations...so they say lets add some more OOMPH in our sailboats. But be cautious, adding bigger and bigger engines, or twin engines does not a motor sailer make. Likewise, adding a sail to a trawler does not a motor sailer make. In fact this reverse configuration can be more problematic. The sail rig has a certain drag associated with itself, and the high freeboard/profile trawler shape even more drag. For the sail rig to provide any propulsive effort on the trawler it must overcome these two drag factors first. You begin to require a fair size rig that then requires counter ballast, making our trawler even heavier and possible deeper draft. Sail rigs on trawlers are 'steadying rigs' reducing rolling motions. Don't ask them to propel the vessel. Alternately consider a Motor Sailer. ...some more of that other discussion... Adding a bigger and bigger engine (or twins) is not the most efficient solution, although it does more truly exist as a MOTORsailer. As you said, "A big engine will only mean you will be able to maintain speed in adverse conditions: You won't go any faster" I think you made a very important observation, "Accept that the virtue of a motorsailer is that you can make higher average speeds, which is done by eliminating the slow speeds and continuing to make decent way even in the absence of wind." In other words bigger engines for faster top end speeds aren't the answer in defining the monohulled motorsailer, even thought the marketing guys would have you believe so. And the real virtue of twin engines is maneuverability and 'back up' propulsion source. But wait a minute, in a motorsailer our back up propulsion source is the sailing rig, so twin engines is overkill in most situations. I start to see a trend here similar to what is happening in the trawler world. There seems to be an increasing demand by the public for just a little more speed than that offered by the truly efficient displacement trawler. So now we see more and more twin-engined trawlers, with greater and greater HP, that in reality are going beyond the definition of trawler...they are becoming motoryachts in trawler clothing. (aka, wolf in sheep's clothing) The crux of the problem is when we try to overcome some basic laws of nature in trying to push the monohull form pass it's 'hull speed' in an efficient manner, whether power or sail. Sorry, but it just takes more power and some 'planning surfaces' to do it. Alternatively we can look at pushing longer slimmer shapes that exhibit less hull speed resistance. In the sail mode we have to space these slimmer hulls apart some considerable distance to get stability to carry the sailplan. In the power mode this wide separation is not required necessary.