Wouter,

You argue for advantages of shorter hulls:
Wetted-surface decreases, hence surface drag decreases.
However, to preserve volume (bouyancy), you need to increase cross-sectional area. This leads to increase in form drag (pressure-drag). Even if your length/width ratio still is low enough to keep wave drag low, there is still increasing form drag.

Hence, reducing length is not automatically a optimal solution.

The consequence of your arguments for shorter length cats, Wouter, would be to cut off a feet or so from the stern of your excellent Taipan 4.9. Or switch to a 12-14 foot class.

But this thread is not about boat length. Let us return to the original question!

What is possible today?
Are the Super Taipan or the M20 the fastest cats around?

Stein