A Little more history, That boat was designed for a jet, The southwind comparison probably comes from the transom that looks somewhat like the southwind's Drag boat. but we believed that the aero lift was more important and that is why there are the extentions to the tunnels. This was a reflection on what the formula outboard guys were doing at the time in fact we even paid Billy Seabold to review the drawings and make recomendations. As I recalled we changed the tunnel to sponson angle due to those dicussions. When Liberty debuted the design Steve Faller drove it in Comp Jet drags, ran something like 113 mph when the record was 115 and carved a left hand turn around the end of the course like he was in a circle race. His comment after the first pass was he felt like he was driving a caddy, no sence of speed no wind in the face, exactly what Jeff and I were hoping. Due to the boat's surface area none were ever built light enough to be competative in drags but then again no one ever put serious hp to it or tried to lay up a vacume baged carbon/ kevlar hull ether. Other problems such as balace would then have caused the engine to move forward and the driver to force himself not to smile so much,