Magic cruising speed
My experience from paddling a Magic for a couple of seasons is the same as Charlie and Eric’s - around 4.5mph sustained cruising speed. The boat will cruise faster than that, but I don’t have the engine to maintain it.
As far as how it will handle wind and waves, I think it is one of the best open boats around for those conditions.
Charlie mentioned that it was designed as a sit-and-switch boat. That’s how I did most of my paddling, but I like to switch off with some stretches of kneeling to paddle and the Magic handles kneeling just fine.
It handles heeling just fine too
best of both worlds. Straight ahead and sit and switch and kneel and turn.
Kind of a big radius turn but do a real hard J , heel it to the rail and watch it well not quite spin but it will u turn perhaps with a turning radius of your car.