Hello from snowy New Hampshire, We (wife and I) are currently boatless while we shepherd our youngest son through high school, but we're looking forward to getting back to some serious cruising within the next couple of years. In the past, we've owned several cruising sailboats, largest was a 41 ft ketch. Fifteen years ago, we downsized to a 33' Nauticat pilothouse motorsailer -- acquired for the specific purpose of cruising the Great Loop -- which we did, the long way around: Nova Scotia, around the Gaspé, up the St. Lawrence, through the Trent-Severn, on to Chicago, down the Mississippi to New Orleans, winter in Florida and Bahamas, then back up the ICW to NH. During that time we rented our house and spent a year and a half living aboard. As much of this trip involved motoring (as does so much coastal cruising) we were very happy to have a boat that powered so well. Cruising at 7.5 kts, we burned a mere 1.2 gallons/hour -- and we were much more comfortable than those folks in more conventional open sailboats. In the years since, we've chartered a bunch of sailing catamarans and always found them to be great fun, especially when the crew consisted of our kids (and their kids). If we were to own another sailboat, there's little doubt it would be a twin-hull. But now for us (a 60-something couple), a power boat seems the way to go. And, as an engineer, I'm drawn to the obvious advantages of the power catamaran. Looks to me like a great way to beat the hull-speed limitation of a displacement trawler while avoiding the excessive fuel cost and range limitation of a planing monohull. We've been researching the powercat market for over a year now, and we've recently begun to focus on the PDQ 34 -- the smallest of the lot! In January we chartered one of these in SW Florida and were very favorably impressed. As a result, we've signed up (with a small refundable deposit) to hold a May 2006 delivery spot. We've also scheduled a Factory visit to Whitby (Ontario) in late April to check out the dozen or so new boats awaiting PDQ's May "Delivery Flotilla". In December, we started a "New Boat" website to document our search: _http://www.geocities.com/hanoverhouse2005/NewBoat1.html_ (http://www.geocities.com/hanoverhouse2005/NewBoat1.html) . Also at this site you can see photos of our previous boats, chartered boats, and our Dutch Canal Barge. And commentary about our January powercat charter, as well as the Miami Boat show. Looking forward to a lively discussion of powercat issues on this new list. I'm pretty certain powercats will follow sailing cats in their growing popularity. (Nearly 50% of the sailboats on display in Miami last month were catamarans!) Henry Clews Hanover, NH

>Henry Clews wrote: >And, as an engineer, I'm drawn to the obvious advantages of the >power catamaran. Looks to me like a great way to beat the >hull-speed limitation of a displacement trawler while avoiding the >excessive fuel cost and range limitation of a planing monohull. What an excellent way to summarize the advantages of power catamarans! Are there any disadvantages of cruising under power on two hulls? I ask the question in seriousness in order to stimulate discussion. --Georgs

>Henry Clews wrote: >In December, we started a "New Boat" website to document our search: ><http://www.geocities.com/hanoverhouse2005/NewBoat1.html>http://www.geocities.com/hanoverhouse2005/NewBoat1.html . >Also at this site you can see photos of our previous boats, >chartered boats, and our Dutch Canal Barge. And commentary about >our January powercat charter, as well as the Miami Boat show. Henry and others, what power-catamaran sites do you find especially interesting? Here is a personal boat site run by Don and Ruth Kalen, owners of an Endeavour: http://www.kalendrl.com/ --Georgs