I've got a lot of time for The Boat People - back in the day they were one of the best sources of info about inflatables - but I think that perhaps you should exercise a little caution and not take everything they tell you as absolute gospel. I think that they've been forced into safeguarding their position a little better in recent years with regard to Innovas/Gumotexes. They used to really major on them, which was fine when the US and Euro inventories were largely aligned except for a couple of the more obscure models. But with so many of the Innovas now made from the inferior Hevealon while their Gumotex equivalents are made from Light Nitrilon (the Swings and the Twists) or full Nitrilon (Framura/Swing EX) and with the very appealing SeaWave not even picked up by Innova, you can see why they're majoring on boats like the Sawtooth/Trinity and also why they might be tempted to pass on a little disinformation about the SeaWave. Particularly when everyone has internet access and shops in Europe are prepared to ship to the US
I'm sure the Trinity is a nice boat but 'exceptionally fast' is a big call. The Boat People themselves reckon it's half a knot faster than the Innova Sunny (the boat that they previously used to rave about being the fastest boat for under $1000) and that two competent paddlers can do 4.3 mph in it. (Let's assume that's an average over a reasonable distance rather than max speed.) Well, if you Google translate this page (unless you speak French)
http://www.mack-kayak.com/monoplaces/10 ... ist-1.html you'll see that during testing of the Seawave they covered 9 kilometres in 58 minutes on a calm sea with no wind. That's an average of over 5.5 miles an hour by my reckoning. I also read a blog post by some guy who'd done 100kms in the sea over a couple of days and had averaged 6.3 km/h which is just under 4 mph.
That Mack Kayak link also has some quite interesting info about the boat's safety at sea
I'm not trying to push you in any particular direction. I have nothing to do with Gumotex or any retailer, but I've always been very sceptical about the Innova/Boat People party line on the Sea Wave.
As you've noted, if you buy it from Solely Marine or Bluewater Sports here in the UK the full monty Seawave will cost around $1600 or if you get it from Boat Park in the Czech Republic (currently on sale) it'll cost you around $1,300 I think. 'Paddlesheep' and 'Kalif' on here have both bought one from there so they should be able to tell you the actual costs of getting it to the US