Barb,LWL is the length of you boat at the Waterline. I believe the Cat 30 is 25'-0".Froude's LawFroude's Law states that a displacement hulled boat will go faster than the wave length created by the hull as it moves through the water. This wave length is equal to 1.34 x LWL. In other words, a boat with a 25-foot waterline length will go no faster than 6.7 knots. Most boats can be overpowered or may sail down the back of a wave and temporarily exceed this calculated maximum, but they cannot maintain that speed unless they have a low displacement/length ratio when they plane.