ORIGINAL: BMatthews

The lower side of a central pod of a catamaran planing hull of this sort defies normal aerodynamics. The very close presence of the water and the spray off the outer hulls contaminates any attempt to bring analysis by normal airplane means into play. It comes down to a question of how often will that center pod contact "hard" water vs not having a center pod at all.

Lift from the center joiner will play a part but for model boats I think you'll find that the last thing you want is too much lift. Somersaults are only a slight nose lift away on the best design from the couple of boat races I've seen. Much of the benifit of the "picklefork" design to my way of thinking is that it limits the "wing" area to the front of the hull to help limit lift rather than add to it.

Bottom line is that there's not much help to be had on this topic other than try to use as little a central pod on the exposed lower side as you can manage. If you MUST have a well for the crankcase of the engine or motor to lower the angle of the drive shaft then a sharp leading edge airfoil bubble with a knife like keel behind it would be my choice. Sort of a tadpole shape as seen from below.