I was out on this FULLY CARBON 56 foot beast the other day and cruising at 16/17 knots through the islands. Maybe a hundred meters off one I sail a lot.
It was smooth and just felt like rolling along at a good clip.
I went to the side of the boat and just tried to gauge the speed if I was on one of my beach cats. I was happy that I often hit that speed but that it feels WAY faster low down and wet. However the island slips by at the same speed.
I had also sailed an older Alan Write 42 at 16 knots but that felt stressed and fully extended in 40 knots of gusts. Isis was in 12/16 knots that day and was almost always traveling faster than the wind.
One can only imagine what 40 knots feels like in those crazy cats and tris.
Unstoppable, scary and wonderful come to mind.

I love the mast set up on Isis.
It is a carbon, rotating wing section.
No spreaders.
The lowers are set lose but as the mast rotates the windward mast connection moves further way from the chain pate and automatically tensions the lower mast. The connection at mast also rotates to lower stress at that point.