Mono-wave-piercing boats adopt a tumblehome and wave-piercing design which is becoming popular among military vessels and yachts. Published studies on mono-wave-piercing boats mostly focused on motions and stability in waves, or were conducted at low speed. A new high speed mono-wave-piercing boat is developed in this study and model tests have been finished in order to reveal more sailing characters of mono-wave-piercing boats. Special attention is paid to the sailing characters of mono-wave-piercing boats at speed. Model tests include resistance tests in calm water and seakeeping performance tests in regular waves. Available model test results give an insight in the way how the mono-wave-piercing boat runs in calm water and regular waves at speed and are valuable reference for similar and derived design. © 2016, Shanghai Jiaotong University and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.