My cup of coffee on the fiddle-free cockpit table was just where I had placed it minutes ago, and my three crew members remained sound asleep in their separate staterooms. The Autohelm 7000 plugged along in automaton-helmsman style. And in general, this Fountaine-Pajot Venezia 42 maintained poise as she tracked over the Atlantic, easily coping with the six to eight-foot seas rushing between her hulls. It was easy to get lulled into a contentment.

The Venezia's speed was a consistent seven to eight knots with an occasional low, double-digit spurt when surfing down a wave. My 20-year-old, 44-foot steel ketch could keep pace in these conditions, so I thought I'd be clutching my cup of Starbucks as we rolled through 30 degrees. Having sailed Next Wave nearly 5,000 offshore miles, I knew any dreams of screaming along at 20 knots, or even 15, were just that, dreams.

So, I'd like to deliver a dose of reality on cruising catamarans. I've made five offshore passages between Martha's Vineyard and Ft. Lauderdale in the Venezia, during which I encountered a variety of conditions. I have also delivered a St. Francis 43 from Palm Beach, FL, to Belize and ferried a Norseman 400 down island. In all, I've logged about 8,000 blue-water catamaran miles. In addition as a boat-test writer, I have sailed several big cats on weeklong charter tests—though in truth, you really can't learn much about a boat even during a perfect week in the Virgin Islands.

Naturally there are advantages and disadvantages of cruising catamarans. There are also more than a few misconceptions about cats offshore. Obviously, these catamarans offer spacious accommodations. It is not uncommon for a 40-foot cat to house four double staterooms with a proportionate number of heads. Their cockpits are invariably huge and normally quite dry. The foredeck space is terrific for spreading out on while underway-there is no better place to watch dolphins cavort than from the trampoline or from the forward bridgedeck. The saloon is usually bright and airy with large forward-facing portlights. And cats do sail flat. The lack of rolling downwind is refreshing, especially on a long trade-wind passage. Most of today's cruising cats are well-designed, engineered, and constructed.

But I have discovered compromises. It takes awhile to adjust to the lack of heel, a result of high initial stability, and the ensuing fast, jerky motion. These cats in general have a lot more motion than a monohull. Also, as designers create more interior volume in the saloon, they lose wing clearance, or bridgedeck freeboard, between the hulls. This can result in a great deal of pounding and slamming underneath, especially when sailing upwind in big seas. During a Force-9 gale in the Venezia two years ago, the water action between the hulls was at times so violent it created a 10-foot-high geyser through the bridgedeck scuppers. Beating across the Yucatan Straits in the St. Francis was slow going and in the aft cabins you felt like you were inside a kettledrum. Indeed, as cats tend to slap at every passing wave, the noise requires some acclimation.

The two top misconceptions about cruising cats are: (1) they are significantly faster than a comparable-length monohull, and (2) they are prone to capsizing and are dangerous offshore. A multihull has to be light to take advantage of its speed potential. But, let's face it, light and cruising generally don't mix. Furthermore, most cruising cats are under-rigged as a safety feature. As a result, the nearly seven-ton displacing Venezia has just a bit more than 1,000 square feet of working sail area on a fractional rig. I recall that our early passages on the Venezia were the fastest, and then the boat seemed to get slower and slower. In fact, it followed the addition of more and more cruising gear and dockside amenities by the owner. This extra weight caused the boat to become dramatically slower. Cruising cats, as well as many of today's performance monohulls, simply cannot be overloaded. This will not only cause them to lose speed but also to become sluggish and difficult to handle. (One distinct advantage of a heavy-displacement cruising boat is that you can pile on gear and provisions without significantly altering performance.)

The earlier mentioned gale developed out of the southeast shortly after we cleared Cape Hatteras. It was late September and we were southbound. Trying to stay out of the Gulf Stream, we tacked toward the coast, which was about 100 miles away. I figured I'd have the opportunity to handle a cat in severe weather and find out if the skeptics were right: Are these bulbous boats seaworthy? Like most cruising cats, the Venezia carries a large, roachy, full-battened main and smaller headsails. As the wind increased, we dropped the genoa and hoisted the working jib on the furling headstay system. Gradually throughout the day we reduced sail. As with any fractionally rigged boat, it's important to reduce sail proportionately to keep the rig balanced. To maintain our heading, we sailed close to the wind, but the GPS revealed that we were making appalling leeway. Although we were sailing nearly 50 degrees off the apparent wind, our track over the bottom was closer to 80 degrees.

Although the hulls rarely pounded in the rising seas, the water action between the hulls was significant. I didn't question the structural integrity of the boat, but I was surprised at the amount of slamming and slapping that the after-hull sections took. We had a scare when the latch supports of the emergency hatches in both heads broke. Suddenly we had open hatches four inches above the water with no way to secure them. We sacrificed handles from a mop and boathook and lashed them across each hatch. The hatches still leaked but at least the sea was kept out.

The storm reached its peak that night, climbing to a steady 50 knots, as reported to us by a passing ship. With the boost of the nearby Gulf Stream, the seas built rapidly to nearly 15 feet. Visibility was eliminated with torrents of rain. I considered running off as a way to reduce the terrible slamming between the hulls. But I dreaded the thought of losing ground and wanted to avoid another encounter with the Gulf Stream. We plugged southward through the night, tacking every four hours to maintain our position between the coast and the current. I warned the crew before each watch to be ready to release the mainsheet if the boat heeled excessively or fell off a wave. The only time the boat felt at all vulnerable was while tacking when we were momentarily broadside to the seas. Even then, we were occasionally pooped by the sizable waves, only to skid sideways down the wave face before coming through the wind. It was going to take a lot more than 15-foot seas to capsize Next Wave.