I am more in the camp of those who believe it either should be a sailing cat with small auxiliaries or a powercat with larger engines and cruising speeds in the teens and twenties. Years ago the monohull market tried the same thing, the old Lancer 45 was an example of a motorsailer with automated sailing controls leading to the inside steering, that could motor at 15-20 knots and sail at 8-10 knots. Once most owners ran the boat at 15 knots they never pulled the sails out again! It was a marketing failure. There are compromises made both ways, it usually means it doesn't sail particularly well, or it doesn't motor particularly well, "neither fish nor foul". We actually considered the concept with the Manta 44 and after quite a bit of DD found out that the real market is made up of true sailors committed to the journey and power boaters committed to the destination. Though the motorsailer makes sense to many in the industry, if you want to make more than one you better do what makes sense to the market.

Pat Reischmann of Manta Catamarans wrote: >Though the motorsailer makes sense >to many in the industry, if you want to make more than one you better do what >makes sense to the market. Maybe it will need a powerhouse in the boating industry to produce and promote motorsailers. Maybe that's what will happen with Nordhavn introducing a motorsailer: http://www.trawlersandtrawlering.com/news/nordhavn56motors.html Pacific Asian Enterprises is pleased with the orders to date for its new model. --Georgs -- Georgs Kolesnikovs Power Catamaran World launches soon http://www.powercatamaranworld.com Disclosure: In my monohull life, I publish the Nordhavn magazine for which I'm compensated by PAE. http://www.trawlersandtrawlering.com/wheretoobtain.html