Synergy unfurls her sails for a brisk ride in Hyannis, Mass.

Chris White is a man who understands the art of the compromise. No, he's not a mediator or a diplomat, but he is something close to that; he's a sailboat designer. In his book, The Cruising Multihull, Chris takes the position that anyone who claims to not have made compromises in the design of a boat is trying to sell you a boat that's not right for you. We agree wholeheartedly.

There are certain concepts inherent in boat design: a boat can be fast, a boat can be comfortable, or a boat can be cheap. Pick two. It's that simple. If you want to take any one of these factors and take it to the extreme, you can forget about the other two. For example, Stars and Stripes, the four-time winner of the America's Cup, is a very, very fast boat. She's also very, very expensive, and has nothing to offer in the way of accommodation (a non-factor in this type of racing, anyway, but you get the idea).

Chris White designs multihulls--catamarans and trimarans--which are inherently fast but are also more sensitive to weight than their monohull cousins. Many multihull designers assume that consumers will trade speed and performance for palatial interior space, but inevitably individuals buy luxurious boats only to be severely disappointed by their performance. Chris is a different kind of boat designer. He acknowledges the tradeoff between comfort and speed and chooses to design his boats primarily for speed. Note we said "primarily".

In order to create interior space and comfort, White's slender hulls need to be relatively long. The end result is a long, slender boat that, even to the untrained eye, simply looks fast, and while the accommodations are simple, few would call them sparse. We salute Chris for having the courage to face compromise and come up with a boat that not only moves like a scalded cat but provides ample space to live comfortably.