Whatever Happened To "Cathedral" Hulls?

When I was a kid in the late Sixties and my family
was just getting into boating, "cathedral" hulls
were all the rage.  In case anybody doesn't know
what I'm talking about, that's the term for that
pseudo-trimaran hull design like the boat the
father character drove in the TV show "Flipper."

That particular boat was a 22-foot Thunderbird
Iroquis.  Thunderbird, the precursor to Formula,
was one of the biggest users of the design. Both
Johnson and Evinrude sold cathedral-hull boats 
under their own names in those days.

I go to my share of boat shows, and I haven't seen
a boat with that hull design in decades.  It obviously
had some advantage over a conventional hull, but what
was it?  And why did the design fall out of favor with
manufacturers?



Geoff

--
"The future stretches before us, brown and sticky, like the
 broad smile of a mongoloid eating peanut butter off a spoon."
                                        	-- snide