On Wed, 28 Mar 2007 15:13:47 -0400, Jeff wrote:

The engines and performance is no problem, at 5 knots the boat is only
being pushed to half of hull speed,

Catamarrans do not have a hull speed in a conventional sense because
of the long narrow shape, and are thus easily driven in flat water
conditions. The only way they could run at night however is to have a
large power surplus during the day which seems unlikely in typical
ocean conditions.

* Wayne.B wrote, On 3/28/2007 4:46 PM:
On Wed, 28 Mar 2007 15:13:47 -0400, Jeff wrote:

The engines and performance is no problem, at 5 knots the boat is only
being pushed to half of hull speed,

Catamarrans do not have a hull speed in a conventional sense because
of the long narrow shape, and are thus easily driven in flat water
conditions.

I appreciate that, but the hull speed can still be computed. In fact,
the power/speed curves will still show a bump at hull speed, it just
isn't as noticeable. but more important for this case, the required
power formula works pretty well, especially at speed ratios less than 1.


The only way they could run at night however is to have a
large power surplus during the day which seems unlikely in typical
ocean conditions.

Yes, I'm wondering if their poor daily runs were caused by running out
of juice at night.