During last decades, it is observed a growing demand for high speed multihull vessels. Due to its good performance in terms of speed and transversal stability, special attention has been given to the development of the catamaran concept. As a result, a large number of theoretical, experimental and numerical studies have been carried out in recent years. In response to the need for more efficient hull designs in less time and at low costs, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has becoming an integral part of the vessel’s design process. The demand for accurate powering predictions created the need for CFD models in which the designers can rely on as an effective design tool. Particularly, recent studies have shown that CFD techniques can be used with relative success for the problem of resistance prediction.

This paper reports on the simulation of the flow around a typical catamaran hull by means of CFD computations. Particularly, the purpose of the present work was to validate the numerical model in terms of its performance on estimating hull resistance and describing the wave cuts generated by the hull. The results obtained were validated against experimental data. The paper presents also a discussion on grid configuration and an analysis of the performance of the numerical model in describing the characteristics of the in-between hulls flow.