Why don't I see any....

[Coyotes-R-Us]

Is there a technical reason I never see a Catamaran style airboat?

I my mind that would be purrrfect .
I'm hoping to make the "water bug" a Cat. Plan is 14 foot cats, 2 foot by 10 foot on the bottom each, and 6 feet wide.
That is when there is a water bug, Right now It looks like a Johnson skee horse smashed in to VW bug and It all exploded In My shop!!!???

[Corky]

This is strictly a guess...Airboats in general try to span the weight across a relatively broad area compared to other boats so the hull sits high on the water..Lets face it an airboat is the least efficient means of converting engergy into motion..So a catamaran style airboat would sit lower in the water and need more thrust to achieve the same amount of speed overall compared to a wide,flat bottom boat...That's my educated guess..

[Coyotes-R-Us]

If the square footage of surface and the displacement was the same it should sit in the water the same.

[peterCAPitALL]

It has been tried without much success, first off you have to fill in all the space between the hulls to prevent the water been sucked up destroying the propeller and in a turn one of the hulls dig in and it do not steer. I know this for that is how I got my first airboat, I got one like that for 8000 Z A R = 500 U S D, I then used what I had to make a 11' x 5' 9" aluminium hull on the remaining frame work.

[Corky]

All good points... Thanks for the insight..

[preventec47]

depending on your requirements in some ways a Cat setup will outperform a flat bottom setup.
Top end straight away speed I would think on smooth water. Handling in turns and on ground would suffer I think.