Dave, I wasn't referring to you when I said "ok, rip me apart", I just knew somebody will eventually. I think your posts on this issue have been very sane. To be honest, when I was writing that post, I couldn't remember where you stood on the issue but I felt I had to address the comments you made.
To answer your other question, no, my wife hates purple!! We have bright yellow, lime green and dark blue graphics; actually, they look very nice together!
Regarding displacement hulls, I don't know how efficient or inefficient they are compared to planing hulls But I did find this at About.com:Powerboating:
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Some advantages of a displacement hull are 1. a relatively small engine can easily drive it; thus, its ability to travel long distances is outstanding, and 2. because it's traveling through the water, not on top of it, it has a very smooth, seaworthy ride. However, an obvious disadvantage is that this boat hull is slower than molasses in January!
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Regarding planing hulls, the same website had this to say (but they made no comment as to fuel efficiency):
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When a planing hull is either not moving or going very slowly, it is, in effect, a displacement hull. As power and speed increase, however, a planing hull lifts itself up on top of its own bow wave. This causes the boat to displace much less water. As a result, there is much less wetted surface on the hull bottom, meaning much less friction as well. The speed of the boat will now increase at a great rate. With this hull, the more horsepower added, the faster the boat will go.
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Now, to answer your questions about if the speed limit passes:
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If you operate your boat at idle, in gear, the bow will be down enough to see properly and you'll be well below the proposed speed limit and operating safely, efficiently and legally.
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Not going to happen because of the high cost of fuel and I can't afford to waste it.
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If you operate at 24 MPH with the bow blocking your forward vision, you'll be legally staying below the speed limit, but not very safe, and you'll be wasting a bunch of fuel.
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Also not going to happen because of the safety issue and the cost of fuel that I cannot afford to waste.
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If you operate at 26 MPH with the bow down, and light conditions allow you to do this safely, you'll be doing the smartest thing, but breaking the law.
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If my memory serves me correctly, my boat must be moving approx. 32mph to stay on plane and that's with my trim tabs ALL THE WAY DOWN. I'm not sure I'd even do this because I can't afford the speeding ticket on my license. But let me ask you this; how many people do you think actually ALWAYS travel at the posted speed limits on land (30, 35, 45, 65, etc.)? Most of the time, I'm travelling at 5mph above the posted limit and I've done it either in front of or behind the police travelling in the same direction with me or passing by in the opposite direction with no hand gesture to slow down.
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If you have a boat that can't plane below 25 MPH, you still can operate at night safely and legally, it's just not much fun.
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Correct and the pro-limit people will have won and taken away my freedom of enjoying my leisure time the way I want to.