Hey, I like the St Francis range, too! The 44 is WAY more boat than
the Atlantic 42. I'd guess you have more than twice the volume that we
have and it sounds like shes a pretty trick sailer as well.

Anyway, the polars are nice but in the absence of racing or certified
ratings they tend to be quite optimistic. FWIW, the Farr marketing
guys' vpp says the Farr 40 at 90 degrees true does 5.3 in 4 knots true
(YIKES!), 7.1 in 6, 7.95 in 8, 8.6 in 10 and tops out at 11.3 in 30
knots true all with white sails only. Based on those we're faster than
a tricked out Farr 40 when jib reaching in winds over 16 and have
nearly twice the top end speed but are much much slower in winds under
8... Let's not even look at the upwind VMGs. Of course, if you put
the same two tons of cruising gear on the Farr 40 that we carry and
take away all the crew things will look much different. The ARC data
certainly seems to suggest that anyway. I'm sticking with my original
assessment: all else being equal multi's are about 30% faster than
monos, but the multi fleet is very much more geared towards the charter
market than the mono fleet so average differences accross the cruising
fleets currently on the water tend to be small.

-- Tom