The following is posted by an unpaid PDQ 34 advocate/owner/crackpot -- me. Thank you Rod for the insightful posting. I refuse to snipe about a couple of details, and I like your overall analysis a lot. I don't share quite all your style judgments, but heartily endorse your disdain for the boxy, slab sided look that is so often seen, even in today's new designs. To me they too closely resemble home built plywood boats. However, just cast a glance over the waters today and you will see a dazzling variety of boats, each the apple of their owner's eye, and each as entitled to enjoy the waterways as the next. Different boats for different folks, one might say. I see the slow market acceptance of power catamarans in general and the PDQ styled slender hulled low power catamarans in particular as more driven by the public resistance to innovation in a field where folks lust for an image far more than they want this or that feature. Generally we all pick our automobiles, homes, boats (even spouses!) chiefly by their 'curb appeal.' (Geeze, I better be careful about using that term with spouses!!!). Ahem! We originally select our car, house or boat in a purely subjective way, by imagining ourselves in/on/aboard, whatever. Later, after our hearts have chosen what we want, our minds cut in and rationalize our choice to our friends with features -- how fast, thrifty, nifty, big or small our choice is. I liked your 'killer app' idea particularly, although I am uncertain that the analogy with power cats is quite perfect. Lotus was entirely new, nothing like it had ever existed (in the public eye at least, I know about Visi-Calc etc.), and it was easily seen by the public that the software (and the PC it rode in on) could do amazing work that they in particular wanted to do. It singularly powered the PC from geek toy to everyday tool. Power catamarans, especially the planing hull sort appear to the general public as a refinement of boats they already know, offering incremental improvements at the cost of major appearance changes. An image penalty, if you like. Heck, my boat looks like a wedding cake on a sled (although Barbie and I seldom appear on the flybridge in bridal gown and tux). I love your VW beetle analogy! Just as so many early VW beetle owners you mentioned became disciples and partisans about their cars, we first 114 PDQ owners find the PDQ to be wonderfully innovative in terms of sensible accommodations, fine fuel economy, etc. etc.. Just like the beetle, I see it as the first, and so far the only production boat with a great constellation of desirable features -- the rich combination of both speed and fuel economy; with fine handling and extreme roll resistance; with unprecedented deck and interior space; with great visibility from either helm and wonderfully bright interior and accommodations better than a monohull ten feet longer. They don't need bow or stern thrusters. They don't need fin stabilizers, paravanes or flopper-stoppers. They don't need giant thirsty engines to get a fine turn of speed or giant fuel tanks to get decent range. Heck, the side decks on a PDQ are over 24" wide; a fine fit for one paraplegic owner's wheelchair when he singlehanded his new boat from Whitby to the Bahamas and back. Take that CS-42! Ha! Somebody stop me! OK, I love my boat, but I do see it so far as the unique slender hull power cat in the under fifty foot range. Actually I can't think of any strictly planing boats over fifty feet, except the cigarette sort I suppose). I'm keen to hear that I'm wrong about that -- that other makers have stepped in with a light, slender hulled (as opposed to a planing hull with a 'smallish' tunnel), modestly powered cat. The VW beetle was from the beginning loaded with desirable features that ran entirely opposite to the norm (small, low cost, good fuel economy, absent from the entirely new style every year bit, rather the wonderfully productive evolution of fixes and upgrades, etc.), but it took a long time for the growing number of them seen on the road to dim the general public's anxiety about considering such an innovative car. Perhaps the PDQ will share that fate, where a slowly growing gang of proud, noisy owners at the beginning eventually get enough boats out on the water to be seen everyday that the style eventually becomes a solid institution in place of being an curious exception and they eventually wear down the resistance of the buying public to shift their traditional images of what a desirable boat -- or car might be. Today, most folks think very highly of the beetle style, and will regale you with stories of their beloved beetle. Look at the popularity of the retro styled 'new beetle' car, mostly among drivers who are way too young to have ever owned the old ones. Might power catamarans be on a similar trajectory in popularity and acceptance? Seems so to me, based on chats with folks who tour my boat and say: "Gee, this is swell, and I love this, this and that about your boat, but I really want a pilot house trawler (with none of those mentioned features)." Consider the current popularity of boats labeled as trawler. That began in the sixties, when 'yacht' meant Chris Craft, with the very first Grand Banks and has very slowly built up to huge popularity and market acceptance of boats that more or less share a common image which in turn bears only a fleeting resemblance to any boat that ever trawled a fishnet. Style trumps substance every time. Be patient, our time will come (if we can but survive long enough). Finally, the real reason I'm posting this is in hopes of finding images and information about two of the new designs you mentioned: ...Lagoon dealers' meeting fully 3 or 4 years ago for a 38' (or was it 39') power cat... ...Schionning-designed Coastal Cat 34 ... I did get Google results on: ...Roger Hill's BearCat 46... ...The Destiny 42 (from Jennings Yachts... As Henry Gibson said on Laugh In: "Verrrrry Interesting." Not my particular cup of tea, and still short of my gold standard for power catamarans in several respects, but to the extent that they resemble the image and style of currently popular monohulls, they could do well in today's market. Whatever floats yer boat. Ducking for cover.... Gary Bell

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I'll echo Gary's comment below. I'd be very curious for more info as well. I was pleasantly surprised by some features the Lagoon 420/440 sailboats - although still concerned about the quality. Is this the Schionning design he was talking about (PCM-330) http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/member.php?u=4839 Let me also add one attribute that I haven't seen mentioned yet. That's the "feel" of the boat as it moves through the wind, waves, and water. In a sailboat I feel like I'm working "with" the elements, in a monohull powerboat I feel like I'm working "against" the elements. Some slender hull cats feel a bit more like a sailboat in that way, others not so much. In a power mono I feel like I'm driving a big truck, getting jostled around, hull vibrating, while pushing against the water. The videos and photos of the NAR in heavier seas really give you the sense of something that you need to just survive. The big counterbalancing factor to all of that is that even long distance cruisers spend a small fraction of the their time underway and we all know that even sailboats spend a good chunk of their time under power. And there is the motorsailor - best of both, or worst of both - a discussion for another day. The BearCat is very interesting, for long term livability the master stateroom and enclosed flybridge with internal stair is very nice. As a life long sailor I would have never thought I'd be attracted to the enclosed fly bridge, but at a boat show last year the admiral fell in love with the Maritomo 48 sportfisher, the internal stair and enclosed flybridge added an extra "room" with a balcony off the back. You can sit above the dock, anchorage, etc and watch the goings on. The "upper balcony" is one of those things that the owners of the Nordhavn 62 like about that boat. Mark Marina del Rey, CA --- On Sun, 2/24/08, Candy Chapman and Gary Bell <tulgey@earthlink.net> wrote: > Finally, the real reason I'm posting this is in hopes > of finding images > and information about two of the new designs you mentioned: > > ...Lagoon dealers' meeting fully 3 or 4 years ago for a > 38' (or was it 39') power cat... > > ...Schionning-designed Coastal Cat 34 ... > > I did get Google results on: > > ...Roger Hill's BearCat 46... > > ...The Destiny 42 (from Jennings Yachts... > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ