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Sound like someone does not like cats, or does not know how to drive them. You can Play with the Trim as Manintheboat said. I used to own his boat. Now coming in with a 10ft following sea that is quartering away, there is little you can do other than drive the boat into the wave.

I know you will get alot of opinions both ways. A 23 foot cat will not perform like a 36' Contender. It runs slower. It is not designed to run 50 in a 3' sea. Cost about 1/4 of the price.

My suggestion to you if you are looking at catamarans is to see which one will fit your needs.

For the probems Trashcanslam was talking about, the best hull would be a semi displacement hull.
For the the best ride in rough head seas, a full dislpacement hull would be your best bet.
for the best fuel economy a planing hull is what you need. (with 4-strokes)

If you are serious about buying a cat, talk to the people that own them. They know more about them than the ones who have opinions. There are not too many cat owners that would go back to a mono hull boat. Especially with gas prices what they are.

I think there is great marketing ability in an offshore cat style boat, but the simple truth is that they do not match up to conventional v-hulls. True, in a head on 3 foot swell a cat can handle the wave better (engineering proves this theory), but in any quartering head or quartering following sea a cat style boat will fail 100% of the time. It is because of their lack of handling in quartering seas that I cannot approve of cat style offshore boats.

I think they do a world of good in flats boats, but thats just my opinion

 

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I have hooked or tagged a billfish every trip I made to the floaters. It ain't the boat that catches the fish. Alot of people are trolling with cats. Most of the big sportfishers have not changed over yet. The are becoming verypopular in other parts of the world. and with fuel prices rising, they are going to get even more popular. Australia is starting to run alot of bigger catamarans. The main problem is that there are not alot of people building 40' cats at this time. If Fuel prices stay up, big boat sales will go down and you will see one of the major us builders design at cat sportfisher.

The thing that keeps me from getting a cat is that I'm very suspicious of their value in trolling for pelagics. In my observation, except in areas that have a real problem with rough water, nobody who is serious about trolling runs a cat. I don't know if this is just a boat fashion thing or if those wide spaced outboards make a nasty wake or what. Maybe there isn't anything to it but none of the big time offshore trolling boats that I can think of are twin hulled. At least that is the way it appears to me. As a bottom fishing machine I don't think that there is any argument as to a cats superiority. I'll bet some of the guys running cats can shed some light on this.

 

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Displacement ****!

That being said.......Glacier Bay!

 

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The wake issue can be fixed by trimming the motors waaaay up when trolling. This also helps the "Cat sneeze". On the larger heavier cats(36-up), I don't think it is a issue,

Just to make sure that I was understood. I am not necessarily of the opinion that Cats $uck as trolling machines. I do have too much anxiety about my observation as to the seeming trend of snapper guys with cats and tuna/billfish guys with monohulls to actually plunk down the large dollars for a boat I plan to have for a while. After all, since the ride is inarguably superior in a cat, why isn't everybody running them? Since I spend about 3/4 of the time chasing pelagics I want to make sure that the hull I choose is best suited for that activity. As for the boat not making the fisherman, absolutely. But in an all other things being equal game, which this is, it's a good idea to pay attention to what you really want. You don't have to read this board long to see plenty of sad stories about the boat/fisherman marriage not working out. Hopefully that will smooth any feathers that I inadvertantly ruffled and maybe someone will post up whether they have made the same observation in boat owner trend and the guys that drag baits behind cats will discuss the wake issue.