New High Performance Monofoilers [Archive]

bistros

12-24-2008, 07:10 PM

Just got the newest(to me) issue of Seahorse(Jan.09) and inside is a picture of Julian Bethwaites foiling 49er undergoing tow testing. The boat appears to use the system pioneered by John Ilett with a foil on the daggerboard and on on the rudder and a bow wand.
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As I can I will add pictures and use this thread to follow the progress of the number of new bi-foilers under development within existing classes and as experimental one offs. This is not a Peoples Foiler thread but will concentrate on high performance boats. The R Class, B14 class,49er class and others are currently under development. Cool!

Doug, SimonN on Sailing Anarchy (http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=78698&view=findpost&p=2053385) pointed out this is Frank's development project, and Julian is only helping to keep his father involved and active. SimonN was talking with Frank's grandson at the time, so the source was a little better than a magazine article. Simon also reported there was no intent to change the 49er class to integrate lifting daggerboard T-foils - this is a one-off project.

The surprising thing is that you knew this and persisted to report this to the Boatdesign.net site as if this was a Bethwaite design foray into modifying the 49er class. Much the same can be said of the B14 development. People interested in the real story can follow up on Sailing Anarchy's Dinghy Anarchy forum. You keep letting your obsession alter reality.

If you feel it necessary to report information, it would be best of you reported accurate information.

Doug Lord

12-24-2008, 07:36 PM

Read the Seahorse article before you team up with Simon N. I'll go with the accuracy of the magazine before that guy any day. And we know that Chris Turner is building a foiling B14. And Clive Everest is developing a twin daggerboard bi-foiler with an electronic control system. And there is a whole lot more. Stay tuned.

bistros

12-25-2008, 07:42 AM

I'll go with the accuracy of the magazine before that guy any day.

And we know you you prefer reading other people's Internet posts to actually sailing. And your Internet-based "foiling" experience trumps the on-the-water experience of people who actually do it. And you post other people's photos of other people foiling repeatedly as confirmation of your expertise.

We get it Doug. How long has it been since you have sailed a full size dinghy?

Since you live in Florida, you should take advantage of your location and give yourself the present of going sailing. It's actually a lot more fun than being the Internet's biggest self appointed foiling cheerleader.

Merry Christmas.

Chris Ostlind

12-25-2008, 09:17 AM

Read the Seahorse article before you team up with Simon N. I'll go with the accuracy of the magazine before that guy any day...

Doug,

I'm really surprised that you bring this particular business to BoatDesign, when you know fully well that it was recently hashed at Sailing Anarchy. You disputed Simon N over there and now, you're looking to discredit him over here. Only trouble is, Doug, your antics were put-down rather soundly on SA by a group of serious, and highly regarded sailors that included Bora Gulari, current US Moth Champ.

Simon's comeback to you when you disputed his relevant connections to the various classes and their so-called official foiling attempts was as follows, and I quote:

"Doug

I think it is totally reasonable that you can stick with your sources and I will stick with mine.* For instance, with the 49er, you rely on Seahorse, I will rely on having spoken to members of the Bethwaite Family who are actually involved in it! Julian might be helping on the project, but everybody in Sydney knows it is Frank's baby.

As for the other points you think I am wrong with, lets just look at how I might know what is going on. I think it is fair to say I know rather a lot about what the 18' skiff class is doing. With the I14's, I sailed them for a few years and see the current world champion every week. I have been discussing where development and the class might go, ahead of Sydney hosting the Worlds in 12 months time. Then take the B14, a class I was International Vice President.
So, which of my comments am I dead wrong about and what are your sources? Please don't quote things you have read on the web and in magazines because, and this really shouldn't be a surprise to you, they are often incorrect."

Bora Gulari added this bit in support of Simon's reportage:

"I hate to say this Doug but Frank is doing this with Julian and the reason is that to keep his dad's mind active. It is def not Julian's only project and I was there in Sydney with Simon."

Simon then went on to correct a component of his positions in the interest of fairness and accuracy in reporting. This is something I have never seen you do on any topic. When caught-out, you would much rather try to ignore the fact and pretend it never happened. Simon's demonstration of class in the matter is an excellent standard.

This is Christmas, Doug. Perhaps you could take a break from this hype thing, reconsider your manipulation tactics with info that is not true and come back from the Holidays with a positive sense of yourself without the relentless fluff?

You have made some great contributions here, Doug and I would hope that the potential for that type of participation would continue.

* Rather than a statement of equitable kindness. This was, in fact, a sarcastic glove in the face as Doug had gotten himself so far afield

ancient kayaker

12-25-2008, 12:31 PM

Oh dear, another ****-flinging contest, and such an interesting start to the thread too. I really don't want to poke through piles of excrement looking for nuggets of information on what I am actually interested in. I do hope this thread does not degenerate into yet another boring feud.

Bistros: OK, so there's a battle going on elsewhere, why bring it here?

Chris: I think your "Simon" gave us all great advice with "you can stick with your sources and I will stick with mine", why don't you take it? Nowhere in any of Doug's posts in THIS THREAD can I see anything to discredit anyone, no evidence of manipulation, just interesting stuff.

Doug: for what its worth, please continue to bring us your reports. Please ignore the claque on this thread.

All of you: you have, by all accounts, a perfectly good venue in which to take shots at each other. Keep it there. In general, if you should see a post and you think that another forum is relevant, just say so BRIEFLY and provide the link.

bistros

12-25-2008, 01:06 PM

Bistros: OK, so there's a battle going on elsewhere, why bring it here?

Doug IS providing disinformation to the members here. Someone without benefit of reading the thread on Sailing Anarchy would read the "interesting start" to this thread and get the distinct impression that many high performance classes of sailboats were very interested in foiling. Nothing is further from the truth. Most high performance dinghies & skiffs today have specific prohibitions written into class rules.

Doug brings the over-the-top hype with him.

I'm all for new and accurate information about foiling from people who actually foil, and from people who actually build foilers. I don't need or want Doug to "spin" information available on the Internet to try to create the impression that foiling is a revolution about to take over small boat sailing. Sorry, but it isn't happening.

Chris Ostlind

12-25-2008, 01:20 PM

Doug: for what its worth, please continue to bring us your reports. Please ignore the claque on this thread.

Oh Dear... another Dougista is born into the world. How very poignant that you would choose this day to make your presence known in such a fashion.

Incense, Myrrh and the Ancient Kayaker; the Holy Triumvirate of all things pontifical... ;-)

Doug Lord

12-25-2008, 01:47 PM

Thanks,AK. I'm tired of that kind of thing as well so I'm going to try to avoid responding. I'm going to add numerous pictures today of high performance monofoilers that have already been developed or where development continues. Here is the picture from Seahorse magazine(including the caption) of the Bethwaite foiling 49er undergoing towing tests in Sydney harbor: (click on the image to make it larger)
Note: Chris Turner ,who I think works for Ovington boats, has said that he is developing a foiling B14 but several years ago was the first to try to foil a 49er.

Doug Lord

12-25-2008, 02:28 PM

Most people probably know that the 14's are using a rudder foil that supports 25-30% of the sailing weight of the boat. What some people don't know is that the FIRST two person bi-foiler in the history of the world was an International 14 sailed in 1999 within months of John Iletts first sail of his foiling Moth.
Many people may not realize that this first foiling 14 also used MANUAL altitude control using a twist grip tiller operating the flap on the rudder foil.
Another first for David Lugg and Alan Smith who developed this boat. It is below with the blue spinnaker. The other I-14 pictures are of one of two 14 full flying foilers being developed in Switzerland. They use Fastacraft(John Ilett) foils:
http://www.i14.ch/fastsailing/
more: http://www.highperformancesailing.org/images/seahorse_article_jun05.pdf

Doug Lord

12-25-2008, 02:32 PM

Clive Everest is famous for a bunch of things but well known for his development of the RS600(to be covered later). Now he has embarked on a project that integrates electronic control with a wand system. His boat is quite unique having twin daggerboards to support the main foil:

Doug Lord

12-25-2008, 02:39 PM

This boat has been developed by Full Force boats in the UK. It has beaten the Moth in some races and been beaten by the Moth. A new company carrying the full RS line says that they will be importing the 600FF into the US. The first singlehanded bi-foiler with a trapeze it is an interesting development:

ancient kayaker

12-25-2008, 03:07 PM

Thanks for the breath of fresh air Doug. Now I am accused of being a fan or something: as I reacall we have crossed swords on a few occasions, and I've enjoyed that.

Merry Christmas to all, may your keyboards never melt or crack under the strain, and may your foils never point toward the sun!

Doug Lord

12-25-2008, 08:28 PM

This boat is a work in progress-here is two boat testing video. The comment on the site is that the foiler is consistently higher and faster.
http://www.rclass.org/video/hydrofoil-two-boat-testing/view
more: http://www.rclass.org/seasons/2008/fourth-attempt-with-hydrofoils-a-success

ancient kayaker

12-26-2008, 02:20 PM

I find myself becoming more and more interested in these strange craft. Perhaps you would answer a few simple questions for me.

What distinguishes a class B foiler? What other classes are there?
I notice sailing foilers have surface piercing Vee foils or fully immersed foils. Do these provide heeling resistance or is that entirely done by body weight in the smaller boats?
The foil can lift the hull surprisingly high out of the water without breaking the surface; is that to accommodate wave height or to make manual height control less critical?

I have also seen ladder foils and surface skimming foils but only on power boats.

Doug Lord

12-26-2008, 03:39 PM

Here's a link with speed sailing classes: http://www.speedsailing.com/Background_records.htm
This is an excellent article by Greg Ketterman(designer of Longshot and the Hobie Trifoiler among other things) about his design philosophy and why he thinks fully submerged foilers are better than surface piercing foilers at least in small sizes. http://www.hobiecat.com/sailing/TriFoiler%20History%20Original/Magazine%20Articles/Multihulls%201990.htm
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Surface Piercing foils generally don't provide RM-their RM comes from the distance the CG is from the center of lift. Thats why Hydroptere uses movable water ballast. Fully submerged foils (on multifoilers NOT monofoilers) can develop RM up to the structural limits of the boat. Surface piercing foilers can have the advantage because the area they use is regulated by speed so they can sail at optimum wetted surface all the time whereas fully submerged foils can have too much area sometimes. On small multifoilers the fully submerged system may be best for high end speed because of the virtually unlimited RM.
The first Moth to win a race back in 2000 sailed on surface piercing foils but they were outlawed as a "multihull configuration"-the guy that did it reckons that with the same development time as Ilett's wand based system they would be competitive or faster today...
Keep in mind(as demonstrated on the I-14) foils can be beneficial without fully flying the boat. If I remember correctly Tom Speer once said that if the wetted surface of the boat is reduced by 4 times the planform area of the foils there is likely to be a net gain.
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Pix below Andy Patersons surface piercing foiler-may be the first Moth to foil.
White boat is Brett Burvills Moth first to win a race on foils... And Bora Bgulari
on a bi-foiler Moth....

gketterman

12-27-2008, 11:20 PM

Chris Ostlind

12-28-2008, 10:20 AM

... It is unfortunate that so many are so quick to put down new ideas on this forum. This forum could be a very good means of brainstorming and everyone knows that the first rule of brainstorming is you do not put down any idea.

Welcome to the Forum, Greg.

It's one thing to brainstorm and it's another thing entirely different when the so-called, brainstorming is factually innacurate, excessively effusive and completely one-sided. What is the result of brainstorming when the baseline data being used to concoct the source idea is faulty?

Being an engineer, certainly you understand all too well, that there has to be a balance in that thinking, or things get quickly off-track?

bistros

12-28-2008, 11:24 AM

Doug, I appreciate your posts. I do not always see everything that is new on the internet so it is good to see a summary like this.

It is also good that you share your ideas. It is unfortunate that so many are so quick to put down new ideas on this forum. This forum could be a very good means of brainstorming and everyone knows that the first rule of brainstorming is you do not put down any idea.

I appreciate your enthusiasm for hydrofoils. It is taking a long time but hydrofoil development is accelerating. I believe there will be some real innovations with hydrofoils that will make sailing much more interesting.

Greg Ketterman
Vice President of Engineering
Hobie Cat Company

Well, that's truly scary. VP of Engineering at Hobie Cat and he needs to get his innovation information from Doug.

The I-14s pictured are older than time. The older moth pictured a couple posts ago is ancient. The Hobie Trifoiler is from the last century, and if I recall correctly, wasn't exactly a barn burner in the sales department. Most of Doug's photos showing the "breadth" of foiling development are of one-off projects that have no volume potential.

The only significant growth in foiling in sales volume has happened in the Moth development class. Almost every other sailing class (18' skiff, 16' skiff, 12' skiff, I-14, B14, IC, 49er, 29er, RS800 etc.) has specific prohibitions written into class rules preventing class-sanctioned racing using hydrofoil technology to lift the boat out of the water.

These prohibitions are for good reasons:

foiling isn't easy
it significantly increments the arms race and obsoletes boats
not everyone is thrilled with the idea of foiling
kills resale value on existing fleet (and fleet growth from re-cycling old boats)

Brainstorming is not sitting around a fire singing Kumbayah while accepting every idea is wonderful and great. It is a tough, competitive, trial-by-fire arena in which peer review of concepts happens. More importantly than the arena for discussion is the need to actually design, build and sail boats. This is Boatdesign.net, not HappyFoilingCheerleaders.net, so expect people to look at ideas critically.

All ideas are very welcome here - but re-posting the same old crap over and over again to a new audience isn't news.

Chris Ostlind

12-28-2008, 11:46 AM

(pre-empting the argument)

Wait for it, now...

Doug's going to come on here and complain about the disrespect, the insolence, the absurdity, the asininity, the just plain silliness of arguing a collection of points with Greg, as if he doesn't get plenty of that at Hobie from the other executives and it might harm his persona. As if he never heard anything like this when he wheeled-out the first Trifoiler, or the Mirage drive, or any of the other stuff in which he's had a hand.

Come-on, Doug, give Greg some credit for being a guy who knew fully well where he might be stepping when he showed-up here. I didn't pose any questions that were out of line at all. They're the kind of things that have to be answered no matter what the brainstorming might be about and Greg is not automatically removed from the process.

ancient kayaker

12-28-2008, 12:14 PM

Doug: interesting end shape to the foils in the middle pic. I presume that's to retain lateral control in the event the boat rides too high. Thanks for staying on the topic.

Doug Lord

12-28-2008, 12:19 PM

Doug: interesting end shape to the foils in the middle pic. I presume that's to retain lateral control in the event the boat rides too high. Thanks for staying on the topic.
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Helps with tracking I would think- as well as acting as a sort of endplate reducing induced drag. Like winglets on aircraft..
See the pix for a similar tip on hydropteres foils:

bistros

12-28-2008, 12:27 PM

Doug: interesting end shape to the foils in the middle pic. I presume that's to retain lateral control in the event the boat rides too high. Thanks for staying on the topic.

Don't worry AK, he's been on this exact same topic for about five years. If you care to use the search feature of the site, you could find the exact same photos, talking about the same foiling "epiphany" moments in every foiling thread he's "helped" (infected) over the years.

It is like subscribing to a magazine month after month and seeing the same centerfold using the same pictures and stories. If it is the first time you look at the magazine, you think it's great stuff - after reading 2 or 3 issues you start to get sick of it.

Don't know if you've see the Bill Murray comedy "Groundhog Day", but it sums up Doug's foiling contributions quite well. People on Sailing Anarchy now race to post "GROUNDHOG DAY" once Doug jumps into a thread.

The foiler in pics 1 and 2 (same boat) quickly precipitated a rule change to render the dual foil design illegal for Moth class racing.

I'm waiting for the insults and tantrums to start.

--
Bill

BWD

12-28-2008, 01:40 PM

While on the Hydro subject,
Regarding those wings:
wingtips: stabilize vortexes/reduce drag, + a bit o' lateral bite. commonplace, effective.
dogtooth: reduces cavitation propagation from surface towards root. Stabilizes lift under not-so stable foil yaw and AOA condition. So it doesn't crash, when the boat heaves or pitches.... at least not before it gets up a head of steam ;)
Perhaps the next iteration will have 2 dogtoofs rather than one?

The dogtooth is the greater novelty gadget for sure (insofar as I never saw it on a boat before), whether them Frongchez's computamachinations see it the way my speculations do or not. It may be a way forward, controlling the cavitation without adding more draggy fences.

ancient kayaker

12-28-2008, 01:59 PM

Doug and BWD: thanks fo the info. L'hydropteres "winglets" seem to go in the opposite direction to those I have seen on planes but it would depend on the force vector. I didn't spot the leading edge features, should pay more attention. There are similar features on humpbacked whale fins according which are usually fully submerged, but I have seen similar features on plane wings.

Bistros: OK, its my first time! I appreciate Doug bringing it to my attention, and it's a lot easier than searching through this ginormous forum even if I knew what to search for.

BWD

12-28-2008, 03:24 PM

yeah they do go the other way -time to lay off the eggnog I guess!

Doug Lord

12-28-2008, 10:01 PM

This is most interesting since for as long as I can remember as a kid these boats mesmerized me. There are now two Swiss 18's that have been converted to hydrofoils: the Access 18 and AET(Thomas Jundt). Another 18 is rumored to be on the way. These boats are conversions like the 14's, the RS600FF and early Moths. Not being designed from scratch as a foiler has some drawbacks but these are magnificent machines:

Doug Halsey

12-30-2008, 01:23 PM

I don't really want to send this thread any further off its original subject (monofoilers), but I'd like to clarify a couple of the comments that have been made about surface-piercing foilers (like Hydroptere).

Originally Posted by Doug Lord:
Surface Piercing foils generally don't provide RM-their RM comes from the distance the CG is from the center of lift. Thats why Hydroptere uses movable water ballast.

Actually, surface-piercing multifoilers get most of their righting moment from the lift differential between the windward & leeward foils. As the boat heels, the leeward foil area increases & the windward foil area decreases. If the boat heels far enough, all the weight is supported by the leeward foil, so the righting moment develops in a similar way to a conventional (nonfoiler) catamaran flying the windward hull.

Originally Posted by Ancient Kayaker:
Doug: interesting end shape to the foils in the middle pic. I presume that's to retain lateral control in the event the boat rides too high.

If the boat did not have the vertical fins at the foil tips, and it heeled far enough to get the windward foil out of the water, then the leeward foil could not balance both the vertical force (L) & horizontal force (S) simultaneously, except when the tangent of the effective, heeled dihedral angle= S / L. Any side force not balanced by the leeward foil would then be shifted to the rudder, so yes, tracking might be a problem. I believe this is more important than any possible tip end-plate effect that might occur.

To Greg Ketterman:

Let me second Chris's welcome to the forum. I'm looking forward to hearing your opinions about foilers & boats, in general.

Doug Halsey

Chris Ostlind

12-30-2008, 01:41 PM

Doug Lord

12-30-2008, 01:47 PM

I don't really want to send this thread any further off its original subject (monofoilers), but I'd like to clarify a couple of the comments that have been made about surface-piercing foilers (like Hydroptere).

Actually, surface-piercing multifoilers get most of their righting moment from the lift differential between the windward & leeward foils. As the boat heels, the leeward foil area increases & the windward foil area decreases. If the boat heels far enough, all the weight is supported by the leeward foil, so the righting moment develops in a similar way to a conventional (nonfoiler) catamaran flying the windward hull.

If the boat did not have the vertical fins at the foil tips, and it heeled far enough to get the windward foil out of the water, then the leeward foil could not balance both the vertical force (L) & horizontal force (S) simultaneously, except when the tangent of the effective, heeled dihedral angle= S / L. Any side force not balanced by the leeward foil would then be shifted to the rudder, so yes, tracking might be a problem. I believe this is more important than any possible tip end-plate effect that might occur.

To Greg Ketterman:

Let me second Chris's welcome to the forum. I'm looking forward to hearing your opinions about foilers & boats, in general.

Doug Halsey
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Thanks, Doug. I'm going to do a thread summary like this for multifoilers as well.

Doug Lord

12-30-2008, 01:52 PM

Doug,

That last photo you have included in the vast collection as submitted; Could you tell us as to why the two foils are not functioning with the same parallel orientation to hull?

Is there a differential side loading process going one there from the forward foil to the aft? If there is, perhaps you could explain the process, the calculations necessary in order to understand the loading and the source of the loading that causes the deflection?
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If you're referring to the bottom photo on the 18 post: the forward foil on AET is angled forward about 5-7 degrees and may cause the appearance of not being parallel. The reasoning behind it is to help prevent ventilation.

Chris Ostlind

12-30-2008, 02:51 PM

The 7 degree angle "might" be correct with some additional fudge factors added. You can see the overlay of a properly angled hull with drawn-in foils at seven degrees. The difference in the photo and the CAD overlay is two degrees additional angle, which may, or may not be allowable in the scheme of things.

What you are saying, in reality, is that the foil strut (vertical component) does not deflect at all from sailing loads.

So, where is the additional deflection coming from if it is not side loading? This is very much like what happens to any daggerboard when sailed.

Doug Lord

12-30-2008, 04:41 PM

What you are saying, in reality, is that the foil strut (vertical component) does not deflect at all from sailing loads.

.
==================
Not true-there are several possible explanations.

Chris Ostlind

12-30-2008, 05:54 PM

Then list them, please. Please be sure to include deflection.

All materials deflect, Doug. They deflect from even the tiniest of loads, if you can measure the movement. The side loads on the foils of that boat shown are potentially huge and the foil verticals just aren't big enough to resist the potential.

You went through this before with SimonN regarding torsional loads when gybing and the effect it has on vertical foil components. He even produced a photo of the characteristic. I'm sure if you think back a bit, you'll remember the conversation.

Doug Lord

12-30-2008, 06:15 PM

Not interested, thanks. If you want to start another thread on the engineering issues of T-foils I'll be glad to contribute what I can. I remember that discussion and I think I stand by what I said there.

Doug Lord

12-30-2008, 06:42 PM

This boat is so unique it has it own thread(s). But a summary here: The boat is the largest monofoiler on the planet to fly-26' hull 30' overall but with an amazing all up weight of 350kg INCL CREW! The boat was developed by Thomas Jundt- an inspired sailor/inventor engineer.

Technical data:
LOA: 10m
Width (structure, without the ladders): 1,8m
Weight: 150 kg (25 kg for the foils)
Surface of sails: (upwind) : 32m2(344 sq.ft.)
Surface of sails: (downwind) : 62m2(667 sq.ft)

This boat was developed from work Thomas did on the foiling 18 AET. He has incorporated many innovative features including dual wands, moving the daggerboard forward of the mast and more.
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I've found W/SA an interesting way to take a first look at small foilers but amazingly this 26' super foiler has a result SMALLER than that of the foiler Moth! Nothing short of an engineering marvel.
W/SA Moth=2.558(lbs per sq.ft.SA)
W/SA (upwind)Mirabaud=2.23
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Click on image:

Doug Lord

01-04-2009, 08:33 AM

Here is a short article(from the r-class site) about testing-note the foiler is faster than the non-foiler BEFORE it fully flies:
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"In the first phase of testing, our goal was simply to achieve liftoff. We experimented with a manual flap control in varying wind strengths. Sean had some trouble joining together the first set of main foil halves due to issues with the moulds, and the first version of foils had a couple of failures when the halves parted under high load. Another fault was the T joint's robustness, or lack thereof.

The join was modified and the foil repaired, but not surprisingly it failed again. Sean built a second main foil which also failed. The laminate schedule has since been revised.

Once we had the basics of foiling sorted, the next challenge was controlling the foiling height whilst maintaining sailability. A rudimentary system with an adjustable-height wand was fitted. It was routed along the gunwale and around onto the rear of the centrecase platform. This set-up was chosen mainly to avoid moving the kicker, which was connected to the base of the mast post. Although there was a fair bit of friction in the system, it worked well enough to show that the boat could foil under control, and that it was worth putting in a proper system.

With the base of the kicker moved up, the cable could be routed directly from the modified holder and clamp to the centreboard. Friction is now very low and the mechanism works well.

We've been testing the wand setting at a low height to minimise the danger of loosing control by foiling too high. We'll try varying the ride height when we've got more confidence in the mechanism and the boat's characteristics at different points of sail, wave states, and wind strength.

Some of the first test with the new wand is shown in the charteris bay clip

It's apparent both from two-boat sailing between a foil-equipped L3 and a standard L3, and watching the videos, that even when the foiling hull is still in contact with the surface of the water, it is quicker than the standard boat. We've not been able to test in light enough conditions to determine at what stage the foils become a disadvantage.

In the last couple of tests the rudder stock popped off the bottom of its pivot tube. This was due to the stock distorting under load and the pin being slightly too short. This has all been rectified, and so far, nothing else has required strengthening. The rationale is still to build as light as seems reasonable and beef it up if it breaks. Fortunately, there's not been a lot of that!

When foiling, the boat is much more stable and easier to sail than a conventional R. Until now Sean and Dan have been testing without a spinnaker, mostly to keep additional clutter out of the boat. In the next test they'll likely try a small flat spinnaker as they feel that, although the boat is easy to sail upwind, they haven't yet seen the foiling R's downwind potential.

There has been plenty of outside speculation that "the boats will be harder to sail" on foils. It turns out that the R on foils is actually more stable and much easier to control. It didn't take long to acclimate to the decrease in lateral resistance from the much smaller vertical main foil, and stop falling into windward when wiring.

Now that Sean and Dan have done the hard initial work, and shown that the foils are clearly quicker, it's time to get the next keen boats up on foils. We've decided to use pre-preg for the next sets, so we have to finish setting up the vacuum table and oven before we can start. Once we have a few more foiling boats we can work on optimising set-ups.

Thanks to Sutter Schumacher for the photos and help on this article."
==========================
There is a lot of misinformation around about foiling. This is a short summary of what is known about the R class foiler:
1) The boat is more stable on foils than the standard boat.
2) The foiler is EASIER to control than the normal boat.
3) The foiler is faster than the normal boat before it lifts off-and is faster and points higher after liftoff. This is very interesting since it is a good indication that a dinghy could be designed using "foil assist"(not fully flying).
4) The R class foiler uses a wand that is adjustable so that altitude can be adjusted.

Chris Ostlind

01-04-2009, 09:07 AM

Doug Lord

01-04-2009, 11:48 AM

The failure of the structure of a foil assembly happens on many foiler developments. The fact that such a failure is mentioned is interesting but doesn't change the subject of this thread. This thread is not necessarily about solving design and/or engineering issues of the various development projects but is more about relating the experiences and results achieved-according to those involved(as much as possible).

Chris Ostlind

01-04-2009, 06:03 PM

Oh, I get it now....

This is just another gloss piece of yours that is not meant to go anywhere constructive save for the end result you desire; That being: All foilers are the coolest things on the planet. Virtually this entire thread has been about the technical aspects of foiling as it might apply to the new boats mentioned, as well as existing boats like l'Hydroptere, that are out there being used.

Go, look again at the different posts and you'll see that the nice folks who have dropped in here have had strong and wonderfully insightful observations about all things technical as they apply to foiling in general, much less the boats you described at the outset.

You even posted a quote from the guys doing the R-Class discovery process with their struggles to come to grips with the physics of a good foil design, as well as the structural aspects of build failure education as they moved through their development process.

Please stop pretending that the physical aspects of vertical foil member bend-off at high lateral loads is not an issue with which to contend. It's an issue for every other sailing craft out there, Doug. To pretend otherwise regarding foiliers is so out of the loop that I shudder to think of how you classify the topic.

Doug... This is a public Forum. The discussion is well within the topic and perhaps you should stop suggesting otherwise.

Doug Lord

01-08-2009, 08:32 PM

In Grafham Grand Prix held in freezing temperatures " in the Medium event the foilers were to the fore with the RS600FF of Sam Pascoe beating the Moth of Alex Adams." As best I can tell, while this is not the first time an RS600FF has beaten a Moth it is the first time it has happened with the RS in first place overall(first in the Medium Handicap fleet). And the UK Moth site speculates this and the upcoming Bloody Mary may become "flyer" races with numerous emerging foilers vs the Moth. Cool! Congratulations to the RS guys!

http://www.sail-world.com/USA/fffreezing-for-popular-Grafham-Grand-Prix/52409

ancient kayaker

01-08-2009, 11:30 PM

Doug, to my uninformed eye those boats look somewhat alike with merely detail differences. Is this a case of the devil's in the details or is there a significant technical difference?

Doug Lord

01-09-2009, 06:32 AM

AK, there are significant differences as well as some similarity:
Moth-
SA: 86 sq.ft
Sailing Weight(includes crew): 220lb.
All up weight minus crew=66lb.
main foil area: 1.076 sq. ft.
Foil Loading(Lbs per sq. ft. at 80% max boat weight with crew):163.56
W/SA: 2.558lb. per sq.ft.(sail loading)
SA per sq.ft. of main foil area(a SA/ws ratio shortened to cover planform area of main foil only): 79.92
=======================
For ease of comparison foil area for the RS was arrived at by using the same FOIL LOADING as a Moth. This is a guess and may not be accurate so W/SA is the only accurate comparison possible with known data.
Only upwind SA is considered. Moth crew=154lb.RS crew=160lb.
=======================
RS600FF
SA: 131 sq. ft.
Sailing Weight(includes crew): 327lb.
All up weight minus crew=167lb.
main foil area: 1.6 sq.ft.
Foil Loading: 163.5 lb. per sq.ft.
W/SA: 2.5 lb. per sq.ft.
SA per sq. ft. main foil area: 81.88
=================================
So the sailing weight of the RS is 1.49 times a Moth; SA is 1.52 times a Moth; and the RS all up weight minus the crew is a whopping 2.57 times that of a Moth.
Interestingly, the W(all up weight in lb.s) divided by SA(in sq.ft.) is nearly identical for both boats.(As it is for the 26' Mirabaud!)
The Moth has an L/B ratio of over 10/1 where as the RS is much lower than that with a much wider hull. This can affect take off in that the Moth may be able to reach take off speed quicker than the RS in marginal conditions. One other major difference is that the RS600FF is the first trapeze equipped singlehanded foiler.
Hope this helps a bit....
---------

bistros

01-09-2009, 07:19 AM

AK, there are significant differences as well as some similarity:

So basically Doug, using the filter of your Dr. Science "ratios" the boats are fundamentally the same, proving AK's point by your own quasi-technical methods.

AK, you are catching on .... the performance level necessary to foil requires the boats fit within a very narrow specification window. This narrow window defines a lot - righting moment, weight, rig efficiency and a lot of details. The boats all "look" similar because they are similar. Some larger, some smaller but fundamentally very similar.

Every new boat in the foiling "revolution" is a minor variation on a theme. It's like proclaiming each new snowflake is a revolution in snowflake design because they are technically different, but when you step back and look rationally, they are pretty much .... the same.

Now I'm going to go outside and use my snowblower to go destroy some piles of "revolutionary unique snowflakes" in my driveway. Another couple inches last night to go with the ten inches the night before.

Doug Lord

01-09-2009, 07:42 AM

Actually, the window does not appear to be very narrow at all. If you consider that a boat like the RS600FF which weighs 2.57 times what a Moth weighs has performance essentially equal to the Moth then you could draw the conclusion that singlehanders could foil well at a hull weight from 66-167 lb or more as long as the power to weight ratio was satisfactory and the RM was there for the SA required.
That seems like a huge,wide open, window to me.
===============================================

AK, there are significant differences as well as some similarity:
Moth-
SA: 86 sq.ft
Sailing Weight(includes crew): 220lb.
All up weight minus crew=66lb.
main foil area: 1.076 sq. ft.
Foil Loading(Lbs per sq. ft. at 80% max boat weight with crew):163.56
W/SA: 2.558lb. per sq.ft.(sail loading)
SA per sq.ft. of main foil area(a SA/ws ratio shortened to cover planform area of main foil only): 79.92
=======================
For ease of comparison foil area for the RS was arrived at by using the same FOIL LOADING as a Moth. This is a guess and may not be accurate so W/SA is the only accurate comparison possible with known data.
Only upwind SA is considered. Moth crew=154lb.RS crew=160lb.
=======================
RS600FF
SA: 131 sq. ft.
Sailing Weight(includes crew): 327lb.
All up weight minus crew=167lb.
main foil area: 1.6 sq.ft.
Foil Loading: 163.5 lb. per sq.ft.
W/SA: 2.5 lb. per sq.ft.
SA per sq. ft. main foil area: 81.88
=================================
So the sailing weight of the RS is 1.49 times a Moth; SA is 1.52 times a Moth; and the RS all up weight minus the crew is a whopping 2.57 times that of a Moth.
Interestingly, the W(all up weight in lb.s) divided by SA(in sq.ft.) is nearly identical for both boats.(As it is for the 26' Mirabaud!)
The Moth has an L/B ratio of over 10/1 where as the RS is much lower than that with a much wider hull. This can affect take off in that the Moth may be able to reach take off speed quicker than the RS in marginal conditions. One other major difference is that the RS600FF is the first trapeze equipped singlehanded foiler.
Hope this helps a bit....
---------

bistros

01-09-2009, 09:41 AM

ancient kayaker

01-09-2009, 01:08 PM

AK, you are catching on .... the performance level necessary to foil requires the boats fit within a very narrow specification window. This narrow window defines a lot - righting moment, weight, rig efficiency and a lot of details. The boats all "look" similar because they are similar. Some larger, some smaller but fundamentally very similar.

Bistros: actually I'm not sure what it is that I'm supposed to be catching on to, and I wasn't making a point, just asking for information. If you are trying to recruit me in some ongoing argument, please don't, but thank you for the additional information.

Doug: thank you for the information.

bistros

01-09-2009, 03:23 PM

Doug, to my uninformed eye those boats look somewhat alike with merely detail differences. Is this a case of the devil's in the details or is there a significant technical difference?

This is what you are catching on to. Your words, not mine.

Your "uninformed eye" is more informed than you give it credit. There are no significant technical differences to be found. Minor variations, yes.

I'm not promoting an argument, just trying to slow the unending, ceaseless, repetitive reposting of the same material again and again.

I was under the impression this was a boat design forum - for people who actually design, build and sail boats. I also thought that in a public forum pointing out misinformation and misleading presentations was an obligation, not a disservice.

Over time, you may learn that public forum quality is a function of the member's willingness to critically evaluate content. You've done a great job of defending and encouraging mediocre, repetitive and misleading crap.

I give up.

Doug Lord

01-09-2009, 04:04 PM

"Bistros" I don't know how you can say: "There are no significant technical differences to be found. Minor variations, yes." I pointed out rather clearly (I thought) that the RS600FF that just beat a Moth for the first time( as overall winner) was 2.57 times as heavy as a Moth.
I would say that that was a VERY SIGNIFICANT technical difference between the two boats!
I'd say ,as well, that the fact that these two boats are virtually equal in speed is worth study and discussion. Even more so when the performance of Mirabaud vs a Moth is factored in: virtually equal in speed.

ancient kayaker

01-09-2009, 05:43 PM

This is what you are catching on to. Your words, not mine.

Your "uninformed eye" is more informed than you give it credit. There are no significant technical differences to be found. Minor variations, yes.

I'm not promoting an argument, just trying to slow the unending, ceaseless, repetitive reposting of the same material again and again.

I was under the impression this was a boat design forum - for people who actually design, build and sail boats. I also thought that in a public forum pointing out misinformation and misleading presentations was an obligation, not a disservice.

Over time, you may learn that public forum quality is a function of the member's willingness to critically evaluate content. You've done a great job of defending and encouraging mediocre, repetitive and misleading crap.

I give up.

Bistros: thank you for giving up. I disagree with your comments entirely, as is my right.
Doug: thank you for providing information that I find useful. Please do not give up.

Chris Ostlind

01-09-2009, 08:39 PM

I would say that that was a VERY SIGNIFICANT technical difference between the two boats!

Perhaps it is stimulated by errors of ommission?

Maybe the RS performed so well because it has a bigger rig, or bigger foils with a less draggy profile for the given operating speeds... or the driver, Sam Pascoe, who was the 2006 UK National Champion, is a much better sailor... or the simple fact that the Grafham Grand Prix establishes both boats with level ratings... or the guy on the Moth, Alex Adams, made some serious screw-ups at critical times, or..... the list is potentially quite long here, Doug and you know it.

Making a big deal out of a singular event is not.... a big deal, just because you'd like to think that it may be.

Doug Lord

01-09-2009, 09:41 PM

There's a lot more to this than just the historic victory by an RS600FF over a Moth......
----------------
1/10/09 Bloody Mary Pursuit Race: Extreme cold and extreme light air. Foilers were dead last. First foiler was a Moth(145th) followed by an RS600FF(146th) followed by several Moths.
RS600(79th) beat all International Moths. International Moth w/o foils placed 96th.
More, from a Moth perspective: http://bristol-moths.blogspot.com/2009/01/bloody-crazy-mary.html

ancient kayaker

01-09-2009, 10:21 PM

Perhaps it is stimulated by errors of ommission?

Maybe the RS performed so well because it has a bigger rig, or bigger foils with a less draggy profile for the given operating speeds... or the driver, Sam Pascoe, who was the 2006 UK National Champion, is a much better sailor... or the simple fact that the Grafham Grand Prix establishes both boats with level ratings... or the guy on the Moth, Alex Adams, made some serious screw-ups at critical times, or..... the list is potentially quite long here, Doug and you know it.

Making a big deal out of a singular event is not.... a big deal, just because you'd like to think that it may be.

This thread is becoming a slanging match just like so many others have done. I truly regret that.

Doug Lord

01-11-2009, 06:45 PM

Doug: interesting end shape to the foils in the middle pic. I presume that's to retain lateral control in the event the boat rides too high. Thanks for staying on the topic.

===================
AK, this is from the "Foilers!-blog of flying vessels"(Dr.Goulu) site-translation by Google. It is an answer to your question:
"The presence of Winglet, like many 60', can increase the surface antiderive, but mainly to reduce the effect of vortex at the bottom of the foil."
There is a good picture there as well(below) He's talking about the tips on Banque Populaire 5.
------
Foilers! http://foils.wordpress.com/
---------------------------------------------------------
Surface Piercing Moth Foils w/tips--------BP5 tips

Guest625101138

01-11-2009, 07:51 PM

I conduct most of my boating on a little lake near my home.

There was a rare sight last Saturday when a fellow rolled up with a foiling moth. It is the first one I have seen in the flesh and I am guessing he was a novice who had come to a quiet location to test it without a lot of attention.

He got it all together just inside 2 hours. He had to wade neck deep to get it to float. I was reasonably surprised that he could climb on board without capsizing it on only the third try. THat hull is very narrow. I gather the tramp frame provides a little buoyancy.

The wind was variable from very light to bullets around 20kts coming around the hills.

In about two hours of watching it he managed to get it sailing maybe 20 to 30 times. On two occasions he got it to foil for about 100m or so but was easily passed by a 16ft catamaran. For some reason the foiling looked laboured. It lifted but did not seem to take off. This did bring some interest from the swimmers and other boaters on the shore. The rest of the time he was swimming and trying to board it from deep water. Often he would just get it moving and then it would capsize again. I think it would be really good for fitness because there is a lot of climbing up onto the boat after you capsize.

I expect it would take more skill and practice than a sail board to get one of these things going well and I can see it would have a narrow window of operation.

I can see more sense in a sailing boat with three foils that has some inherent stability that does not rely on dynamic stability.

The wading neck deep to get going is a put-off for me. Man those foils are deep. The bit of weed in the lake would not help matters either.

For me the utility of a recreational boat of this sort is linked to weight so it is easy to transport, ease of preparing and launching, simplicity of operation and speed over a set course in the full range of wind conditions. My pedal boat beats the Moth on all counts. Maybe the Moth would provide a better aerobic workout because you would need to be moderately fit to keep climbing onto it.

Just my observations and opinion. (plus a bit of pedal boat promotion)

Rick W

Doug Lord

01-11-2009, 08:04 PM

Interesting comments ,Rick-thanks. The Moth has quite a reputation for being difficult to learn to sail. The fact that the foils have to be installed and removed from the bottom every time you go out is offputting to a lot of people. The RS600FF has retractable foils that would appear to make it much easier to sail from a beach.
Eventually, there will be a "Peoples Foiler" that ,while still very fast, will be much,much easier to learn to sail with foils that retract(and can be trailered retracted), buoyancy pods to augment initial stability and more. Monofoiler development has concentrated on performance but sooner or later the same kind of development time will be spent making the thing user friendly.

Guest625101138

01-11-2009, 09:27 PM

Doug
There is a small sailing fleet on the lake I visit most weekend. Typical roll up for Saturday afternoon is about 20 boats now. There are a couple of well sailed lasers and a few cats up to 16ft plus a range of dinghies up to about 14ft. I think the smallest are Mirrors. I often pace myself against the fleet when I am doing laps on the 1.5km long lake.

I was once invited to join in the races. They had two short events over about 3nm on the day at the beginning of the season for practicing starts. It was light winds up to about 15kph but plenty of holes. I did both courses in about 20 minutes and the fastest boat, a cat, was about 50 minutes.

I have not raced the sailing boats since but still monitor my performance relative to theirs. In a whole season there has not been one day when I would not be able to beat any of the boats over two or three laps of 3nm triangular course. I can hold around 7kts on all points unless the wind gets up. I really notice the head wind above about 20kts but on the small lake it does not alter my average much because I can make up time downwind.

The point I am taking a long time to get at is how would the ideal foiler perform under a range of conditions?

If you considered a triangular course of say 7nm and a range of windspeed from nothing to 40kts in 5kt increments how often would the foiler do it in less than 1 hour. You have to consider capsizes as well - my feeling is that they would be skittish in 30+kts.

My best days are when there is no wind. Under these conditions the sailing boats abandon racing. The sailing boats become useless ornaments.

As far as speed goes the fastest pedal boat has achieved 18.5kts and that was a long time ago with a person of above average athletic ability but not an elite athlete. I wonder how fast a pedal boat could go with the latest technology and an elite athlete. Or even a person of average ability.

So the Peoples Foiler needs a detailed list of requirements, performance over a range of conditions being one, that sets it apart. All the other aspects of utility that make it user friendly need to be considered as well. Otherwise it will not happen.

There is no doubt that there is a growing band of recreational small boat users. Five years ago I had the lake to myself plus a few sailing dinghies. The sailing fleet has grown to 20 regulars. Last Saturday there were three pedal boats and about 10 paddled craft from sit-ons to touring kayaks and surf skis. Also one electric inflatable and one foiling Moth.

Will be interesting to see if foils catch on.

Rick W

Chris Ostlind

01-11-2009, 10:49 PM

This thread is becoming a slanging match just like so many others have done. I truly regret that.

It's, what did you call it... "a slanging match", when someone points out that there are, literally, dozens of reasons why a particular boat could beat another in a given race?

Come on, AK, take a look at the vast list of reasonable descriptions as to why a specific boat would beat another with an exactly equal rating. This isn't slanging, to use your terminology... it's more like reality. To put it another way... **** happens.

The fact that Doug ignored the reality should be far more telling to a person of common sense. Look at his response and I quote, "There's a lot more to this than just the historic victory by an RS600FF over a Moth......" and tell me that he addressed the issue effectively, then issue your slanging comment in the right direction.

Chris Ostlind

01-11-2009, 10:55 PM

Now, AK... tell us how Doug's disconnect affects the parameters, as defined by Rick in his post above. No wind on the lake, and the pedal driven craft kick the crap out of the Moth foilers, as well as any other wind driven boats, every time. Is that also slanging, when all he is doing is stating the realities?

Again, AK, you can look at the definitive function of what is being claimed and source the purpose of the so-called argument. To not be pragmatic in these things make you seem like you are egregiously slanted in your interpretive skills. From what science background do you derive this perspective?

If you want to call that slanging, then I wear the term with a very high degree of confidence.

markdrela

01-12-2009, 12:25 AM

As far as speed goes the fastest pedal boat has achieved 18.5kts and that was a long time ago with a person of above average athletic ability but not an elite athlete. Hey! I resemble that remark. :rolleyes:

I wonder how fast a pedal boat could go with the latest technology and an elite athlete. Or even a person of average ability. After the Decavitator a few of the remaining people tried to build a "sport" hydrofoil HPB with a more practical water prop. I posted a sketch here, but without the hydrofoils:
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/boat-design/pedal-powered-boats-23345-11.html#post225087
The hydrofoil system was essentially the same as on the Decavitator, except there was no small high-speed wing, only the larger intermediate-speed wing. I was able to cruise below my AT at 11-12 knots, so in that sense it worked. We never got beyond the initial testing because most of the people graduated and left.

One thing that became clear:
Even if the power is low enough to sustain flight for an hour, say, a hydrofoil HPB is still very mentally exhausting. The reason is that you cannot let up, else you drop down unto the hull, and have to anaerobically power over the hump to get going again. In that sense it's like climbing a 30% grade on your bike while maxed out in your lowest granny gear --- let up for a second and you stop and fall over. Hence, the target minimum power for flight should be well below the expected available cruise power.
The Decavitator's "big" wing that we used for this new boat was a bit too small:
118 in^2 area
59 in span
2.0 in average chord
This was fast, but the power was just too high for mentally-comfortable crusing (see point above). The next time around I would maybe scale up the wing by 1.2x or so.

Guest625101138

01-12-2009, 01:07 AM

Mark
What power level did it take to achieve the 11 to 12 kts? (Sorry if I did not accurately categorise your athletic ability.)

For my long distance cruising I design for 6.5 to 7kts with a displacement hull. This can be achieved with 130 to 170W. My long term output right now is about 130W but I could get better with more dedicated training.

I figure a foil to achieve flight around the 7kt mark would require something like 170W which is beyond my continuous output so I have not bothered doing it seriously. I made a foil for one of my older boats but could only get it to lift clear; hull still partially immersed. The hull was heavier than needed for a purpose built foiler.

What would be nice is a two-mode system where you can throw a lever and set foils into place that enables sprint speed for maybe 1000m. I can hold about 250W for five minutes or so. In displacement mode this gives me just under 8kts. It would be great if I could get more like 12kts with that power level.

My unsupported prop arrangement is very low drag and I could get high 80s efficiency at that speed.

I can already give rowing sculls a fright and I have a long-term ambition of asking a rowing 8 to move over so I can overtake. I think that would be something to behold. A grey haired old fool blasting off a rowing eight.

It is a pity you are no longer doing research in the HPB arena. Decavitator has inspired a lot of thinking on boats - it is often referenced. I can already see an increase in interest in efficient human powered craft and not everyone has the persistence or physique to learn to row or paddle efficiently.

I have sailed quite extensively mostly in keel boats but I get the greatest thrill from just cranking up the pedal boat. It has to be the best fun you can have on water.

Rick W

markdrela

01-12-2009, 01:58 AM

What power level did it take to achieve the 11 to 12 kts? My guess is somewhere around 220 Watts. This is for my 140 lb body weight.

I should stress that specifying required-power without specifying the rider weight is almost meaningless. For our 50 lb boat, increasing the rider weight from 140 lb to 154 lb (a 10% increase), theoretically increased the cruise power by 11.1% -- almost in proportion. So the required-power nearly matches the available-power for different-sized people of comparable athletic ability.

What would be nice is a two-mode system where you can throw a lever and akset foils into place that enables sprint speed for maybe 1000m. I can hold about 250W for five minutes or so. In displacement mode this gives me just under 8kts. It would be great if I could get more like 12kts with that power level. That's theoretically doable, but a real mechanical challenge for a number of reasons. To minimize both 2D-wave drag and 3D induced drag, you want a very long skinny wing --- see the wing specs in the previous message. This was just barely doable with the molded solid-carbon wing, with two struts 26" apart. A single strut would be out of the question. But the real problem is retracting such a long wing -- it can't go up through the hull. Retracting the two front inverted-T surfaces and skimmers would be relatively easy.

I can already give rowing sculls a fright and I have a long-term ambition of asking a rowing 8 to move over so I can overtake. I think that would be something to behold. A grey haired old fool blasting off a rowing eight. With the Decavitator, I actually did a few times run past the heavyweight 8's on the Charles river like they were standing still. :P
We never measured the max speed of the water-prop boat, but I estimated it had to be something like 15 kts in a hard sprint. Faster than an 8 by a few kts, but one can't keep that power long enough to pass the entire boat length.

Guest625101138

01-12-2009, 03:41 AM

Mark
Your 220W figure gives some promise.

I have been reducing target weight for boats since I started playing with pedal boat about 6 years ago. The 4th one was what I thought would be a good weight. It came in at 38kg. I thought 7th would be just about the best you could get using a professionally built OC1 with a bit of strengthening. The hull and outrigger are 16kg but by the time the drive was added it came in at 28kg.

My latest boat (4th variation of 11th design) is just over 20kg and my new target is 15kg. I might be able to set up CF foils and support for about 2kg so total around 17kg. I currently weigh 156lbs but I could get down to maybe 140lb if I was to train in a structured way and not overeat. A picture of the latest boat is on the Pedal Power Boat thread:
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/attachments/boat-design/27845d1230111804-pedal-powered-boats-pc240005.jpg

I will look more closely at the possibilities when I have finished my new CF hull. Aluminium was my preferred material but I do most things now in CF now. I have a nice TIG welder that I hardly use now.

I am thinking of three separate "T" foils. One off each outrigger and a third smaller one at the bow of the boat.

Rick W

markdrela

01-12-2009, 10:25 AM

I am thinking of three separate "T" foils. One off each outrigger and a third smaller one at the bow of the boat.
The two lifting T foils will work well, provided you can join them at the center after deployment -- a gap would be really bad for induced drag. By appropriately setting the spanwise separation of the vertical struts you can make the bending moment at the wing center to be nearly zero to simplify the joiner problem. You can have a tube in one wing and a pointed-end rod in the other wing, so the two ends just automatically plug together.
The three other problems are
1) roll stability
2) depth stability
3) depth control.
On the Decavitator we got 1) and 2) at the same time with two independent front T foils each with a surface-skimming sensor.
With a single surface-sensing T foil you'd get 2), but still need to address 1). The single main wing does have a little bit of roll stability from the free-surface unloading effect, but it isn't much.
We got 3) by making the incidence of the wing adjustable. The entire wing/foil system moved as a unit, avoiding any underwater hinges.

ancient kayaker

01-12-2009, 12:17 PM

The retractable foils are of interest to me - do you have a link with details of how it is done? I tried google but I kept landing up in a moth vs RS600FF war zone.

Guest625101138

01-12-2009, 03:55 PM

The retractable foils are of interest to me - do you have a link with details of how it is done? I tried google but I kept landing up in a moth vs RS600FF war zone.

I realise there would be more induced drag with twin "T" foils but that was the only way I had thought about using them. They would be mounted off an outrigger cross beam located near the CoG. They would have a longitudinal shaft that allows them to be rotated clear of the water. When used they would be rotated into the water. Mark has suggested that they be wide enough to have a tapered pin and matching recess so the two "T" foils form one wide continuous foil when fully deployed.

You would slow to deploy the foils so they are unloaded but, because they roll down in their transverse plane of operation, they would not present much drag when being deployed. Once locked in you would power up. I would probably have spring lifting and pull cord for locking down.

It might make sense to mount the outrigger cross beam in bearings so the angle of the foil can be tweaked.

The first foil I tested was intended to lift around 8kts. It was 8ft wide. I thought it would provide roll stability but I sit on the hull and once it started to lift the outriggers I would always get into a roll attitude and could not correct. I was thinking that two wide set "T" foils would provide inherent roll stability. I realise there would be some loss of efficiency.

Rick W

sailor2

01-15-2009, 12:37 PM

A word monohull describes a boat with one hull. Shouldn't word monofoil describe a boat with only one foil ?
It seems 100% of the boats mentioned in this thread that fully foil have more than one foils. So why are they still refered as monofoilers ?
Isn't a boat like a moth a bifoiler instead ? Is this just sloppy language or is there some logic behind the usage ?

Doug Lord

01-15-2009, 12:53 PM

sailor2

01-15-2009, 01:16 PM

Monohull foiler=monofoiler. A monofoiler can have just two foils like a Moth and other bi-foilers or three or more foils like the surface piercing Moth sailed by Brett Burvil or the numerous "ladder" foils of the first monofoiler in history-the Monitor.
I see, so people classify foilers by the amount of hulls in the air having no effect on sailing capabilities in normal operating conditions. That's due to tradition then rather than logic. Bi-foil & trifoil & quattro-foil describre amount of foils but mono-foil discribe number of hulls instead. Wierd logic.
Is a 3 hulled vessel with 2 foils called a trifoil bi-foiler or just multifoil bi-foiler ?

What if someone one day in the future happens to find out how to make a windsurfer foil with just one foil in the water. In theory having electronic automatic control systems on the only foil and sailor using windsurf type sail to keep pitching moments withing limits by shifting bodyweight that should be possible in theory. What would that be called then ?
A foiling windsurfer I guess, but ...
Or is it already there ?

Chris Ostlind

01-15-2009, 02:41 PM

Actually, Sailor2, there's another reason for all this wordsmithing and if Doug is honest about it, he'll muster the gumption to tell you. Right Doug?

You are right, S2, the language already has plenty of descriptive terms for all this wanky foiler-smithing and new words were not necessary at all. It falls under the same pattern as using words like AeroSKIFF for boats that can't foil. The euphemism, AeroSKIFF, is marvelous, sending the message to the reader that somehow, the "Aero" desginator actually indicates a boat that has some kind of aeronautical component. Unfortunately, no AeroSKIFF has ever flown, or Doug would have video proof of same, just like he indicates about his foiling model boats.

From the thread regarding the pie in the sky "60' monofoiler" that Doug dredges-up every once in awhile for pure entertainment value...

... Video was taken and was part of the original presentation on the website but was removed when the site was downsized. No still pix. No boat was tested to destruction. My windmeter only measured in mph...
Still some video on the microsail site...

Isn't it interesting that the model boats, at a speck of the cash outlay, have video confirmation... yet the magnificent, thoroughly conceived and full sized, AeroSKIFF, does not? One would almost think that the guy is pulling our leg(s)

So, Doug... where is the equivalent video clip of the vaunted AeroSKIFF doing it's bad thing in your local waters?

bistros

01-15-2009, 02:47 PM

I see, so people classify foilers by the amount of hulls in the air having no effect on sailing capabilities in normal operating conditions. That's due to tradition then rather than logic. Bi-foil & trifoil & quattro-foil describre amount of foils but mono-foil discribe number of hulls instead. Wierd logic.
Is a 3 hulled vessel with 2 foils called a trifoil bi-foiler or just multifoil bi-foiler ?

What if someone one day in the future happens to find out how to make a windsurfer foil with just one foil in the water. In theory having electronic automatic control systems on the only foil and sailor using windsurf type sail to keep pitching moments withing limits by shifting bodyweight that should be possible in theory. What would that be called then ?
A foiling windsurfer I guess, but ...
Or is it already there ?

It's been done, as has this discussion ad nauseum. There is no point in arguing terminology with Mr. Lord, he's already decided what you should think.

Just as a heads-up, you are starting down a long, ugly road .... as one who has already traveled it, I would recommend you think very hard about proceeding. There is absolutely no benefit in trying to debate Mr. Lord regarding foiling technology, the science behind it, the real market potential or anything else. If you are looking for suitable linguistics that apply, you could try monomaniacal and bipolar, although I'm not referring to the boats here.

Move along, these aren't the droids you are looking for .....

ancient kayaker

01-15-2009, 06:50 PM

Doug Lord

01-22-2009, 07:24 PM

Comment from SA by Sean M regarding the R Class:

"Definitely suited to narrow boat in our experience, but hydro foils have laid waste to conventional foils now as the speed gain is massive whilst not losing any height, but gaining that as well! Next season most of the R fleet will be on foils, so I guess that we will be adding to the classes on foils as our rules are open to developments. "

--------------------
An example of the future of Skiff design:
www.rclass.org

bistros

01-22-2009, 08:26 PM

An example of the future of Skiff design:
www.rclass.org

More accurately an example of future foiler design. Once the class majority migrates to foiling, it is no longer a skiff.

Doug Lord

01-22-2009, 08:31 PM

More accurately an example of future foiler design. Once the class majority migrates to foiling, it is no longer a skiff.
-----------
Funny, I don't think the R Class will agree with you.......

Doug Lord

01-29-2009, 06:36 PM

See this: http://www.3news.co.nz/High-hopes-Innovation-to-help-yachting-crew-to-third-national-title/tabid/317/articleID/88979/cat/187/Default.aspx#video

ancient kayaker

01-30-2009, 12:30 AM

The way of the future! Are foils being banned from classes that permit a measure of innovation?

Doug Lord

01-30-2009, 06:34 AM

When the I14 class adopted the rudder foil that is now standard they wrote the rule to effectively ban fully flying lifting hydrofoils. Despite that there are 14ers experimenting with lifting foils. In the 18's there are different rules in Europe and Australia yet there are two-possibly going on three 18's in Europe experimenting with foils. Many classes have rules that effecively ban hydrofoils but that doesn't stop the adventuresome from experimenting. I think sooner or later we will have new classes of one,two and three person foilers that are designed from scratch as foilers. I think that some of these may not be fully flying using foils to "assist" upwind while flying offwind.
But there are many avenues of foil development being explored-it will be exciting to see what results!

bistros

01-30-2009, 08:27 AM

Doug Lord

02-01-2009, 09:43 PM

At this point we have the Moth, RS600FF, and R Class that allow full flying foiling for class racing. And the I-14 has approved "foil assist" for class racing. C Class catamarans allow foils and individuals in the B-14 class,Aussie 18 class and other classes are experimenting with foils.
And thats just the tip of the iceberg: dozens of individuals all over the world are doing their own independent development of dinghy foilers.
Yes,it is a revolution.

ancient kayaker

02-01-2009, 11:15 PM

Generally I am a reactionary, but in this case, long live the revolution!

Chris Ostlind

02-01-2009, 11:30 PM

At this point... C Class catamarans allow foils...

Yes,it is a revolution.

Thread Subject: New High Performance Monofoilers

Doug, it appears that you have, once again soiled a thread, by mentioning off-topic subject material with the inclusion of the C-Class catamarans as foil equipped monohull boats.

Take special notice of the photo below in which the only foiling C-Class cat is shown. I could be totally wrong here, but it really does look as if the boat actually has two hulls. Of course, why would a guy such as yourself, who prides himself on being oh-so technically correct about foiling, ever foist such a scam on the readers here? While you guys are absorbing the disconnect, observe the fairly pronounced bend-off of the rudder foils on the cat ,as they absorb lateral loading. This impossible phenomenon was denied by none other than our own, Doug Lord, who wishes to attribute the reality to optical illusions and other, non-disclosed sources. This is the same guy who refused to talk about that bending-off issue, saying that it was off-topic for the thread.

How very ironic.

Doug... Please remove the offending material in your post and get the discussion back on topic. I'm sure that there are, literally, dozens of revolutionary reasons why this is so, but it's truly amazing that you can't even conform to the subject of your own thread.

Doug Lord

02-02-2009, 07:19 AM

Chris Ostlind

02-02-2009, 08:16 AM

The reference to the C Class was not because it is or isn't a monofoiler-it was merely to illustrate another major class that allows hydrofoils in development. By the way, a C Class monofoiler IS possible.

It looks like the purpose for including a cat in a monohull discussion was purely hype driven to fluff the importance of what is already a very tiny number of experimental boats. Major Class? In whose boating lexicon is the C-Class a major class? Certainly, you could have selected a better example than the remarkably tiny C-Class of racing catamarans where the only foiling foray has been, shall we say.... less than exciting.

To illustrate this point... How many boats do you suppose were at the last C-Class Worlds in Toronto, Doug? Go ahead, list the boat names for us and make a hyped statement about the huge turnout.

Now tell us if the foil equipped C-Clas boat has seen any further development since the experimental tryout at the Worlds, where it was decidedly off pace compared to the typical, non-foiled cat. The guys who built it, Eaton and Clarke, have said they are done, after spending the wad necessary to get it on the water. Too many issues to sort, too slow around the course and way too expensive to continue to mess with it, was the conclusion reached. A noble effort, to be sure, but one which has been quietly put away as a "been there, done that" moment in sailing history. Of course, you could always bankroll the further development of the boat on your own time and show us all just how much you know about the technology. What a golden opportunity for you to demonstrate your mastery....

Go look at the rules.... again, Doug. You were scolded on this pipe dream idea of a monohull being class legal in the C-Class events by none other than Mr. Steve Clark, the driver of Cogito. When will you stop trying to impress the guys, who are reading this thread, with unsupportable hype that is pure fabrication?

Here is an excerpt from the C-Class rules for your consideration. I direct your attention to entry number one below:

Written by International C Class Catamaran
Thursday, 08 March 2007
International C Class Catamaran

The C Class Catamaran is controlled by the rules of the International C Class Catamaran Association, which are as follows:

1. A catamaran is defined as a two-hulled sailing boat with essentially duplicate or mirror image hulls, fixed in parallel positions.

2. Sail area shall not be more than 300 square feet.

The sail area shall be measured in accordance with the “ISAF Guide to Sail Area Calculation", which is available on the internet at http://www.sailing.org/technical/GuideSailArea.pdf

3. The overall length of the catamaran shall not be more than 25 feet.

The length shall be measured between perpendiculars to the extremities of the hulls with the catamaran in her normal trim. The measurement shall be taken parallel to the centre line of the craft and shall exclude rudder hangings, but if the athwartships width of a rudder within 6 inches of the bottom of the hull is more than 3 inches, the length shall be taken to the aftermost point of the rudder.

4. The extreme beam shall not be more than: 14 feet.

The beam shall be measured at right angles to the centre line of the craft at the widest point and including all fixed or adjustable apparatus with the exception of any trapeze or retractable seat.

5. The crew shall be two persons.

6. Unballasted retractable seats or trapezes shall be allowed for the crew. When in use the crew at all times shall have at least one foot in contact with the boat.

7. The C Class emblem shall be carried on the mainsail and shall consist of the letter C over two parallel horizontal lines over national letters and sail numbers,

These rules very clearly indicate a two hulled vessel and not a monohull.

Doug Lord

02-02-2009, 12:49 PM

There would have to be a "minor" rule change to allow a monohull to race in the C Class. I imagine in years past that would not be a problem since it was always considered impossible for a monohull to beat a cat its own length. Not any more since a Moth has beaten every cat under 20' so far.
Steve Clark was gracious enough to say that he would race me if I ( or anyone else,I imagine) came up with a C Class monofoiler that fit all the rules except being a cat. He's first class.
One day it will happen and if it is done right and the race is in foiling conditions the foiler will win.......

Chris Ostlind

02-02-2009, 02:07 PM

In fact, you can have a "C class" of any type, Monohull, kite board, proa, trimaran, quadramaran, etc.

You have stated the rules for the ICCA, but that is only an offshoot of what a C class can be. You can't sail your C Class Trimaran in the ICCA events, but you could hold the Speed Sailing record for the C Class in one.

A through D classes are defined by sail area.

I get the hairsplitting thing, Paul. If we loosen-up the definition of the C-Class Catamaran design rules to a more global interpretation, why not just let them be, oh... "Any Boat in the World rules and then further relax things so that they are open to any sail area you'd like to bring?

Yes, I'm exaggerating to make the point. C-Class cats by the definitions of their organization have their own specific rules. End of story, really, though I do see your broader argument.

Here's Clark's first response to Doug when he made his desperate proposal on Sailing Anarchy back in March of last year:
http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?showtopic=69592&hl=

"Doug, Our first rule is that the boat has to be a catamaran.
Unnecessary type forming? perhaps, but I would say that opening the rule to other configurations would be a fundamental change, not a minor change.
So the short answer is no.
There are many longer answers that would have to do with making more advanced calculations and studies of the speed potential of your proposed boat.
If you build such a boat, it will be very interesting to sail against it. We can't call it the I4C but that doesn't mean that an alternate challenge couldn't be made.
Build it and I will race against you.
SHC"

Then, after more departures from topic by Doug; Clark jumped-in a couple of days later with this bit:

"I have been beaten on paper and in the parking lot thousands of times.
What turns this kind of banter into a sport is the actual sailing around the race course."

After Clark and fellow C-Class racer, Fredo invited Doug to build his dream machine and race both of them openly, Doug had this to say:

"Its almost an offer I can't refuse.....I have what I hoped for at this stage thanks to the C Class guys. I don't want to see the rules changed at this point...

Then, well-known foiler and foil craft designer, Doug Culnane dropped-in and hit Doug with this rather poignant missive:

"You can talk yourself into changing the C-Class cats with one of your designs but everyone knows you will never have the balls to build it and race these guys.

This is like me challenging NASA to a race round the moon, and them accepting the challenge. You must be thinking what I would be thinking. Ooops! I have to build a thing of which I have only ever seen pictures of and take it into an environment where I have no real experience...

Time to run way Doug and start a new thread and pretend this did not happen."

Doug kept spewing and foaming-on with regular postings of irrelevant numbers and then came this post:

"C Class Monofoiler
blah, blah, blah, specs and then this bit...
Mainfoil area: 2.93 sq.ft.(take off profile same as Moth-or better with variable geometry main foil*)

*Being tested on my new foiler later this year as removable foil tips." (as in last year...2008, so where's this wonder boat? (my addition)

It was after another run of pointless postings of yet more of the same photos, spec sheets going nowhere and just pure simplicity of thought that Steve Clark jumped-in with this gem:

"Slight change to the Declaration of Independance:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Loose Shoes and a Warm Place to Shite."
Only a minor change....
SHC "

So, we clearly see that Doug's idea of a small modification to existing C-Class Cat rules so that he can further pontificate about a boat that will never be built has been met with derision by the guy who has absolutely dominated the C-Class Cats for many, many years.

Make your own conclusions, of course and on your way out, don't forget to drink the Kool-Aid that Doug has so kindly provided at the front door.

Doug Lord

02-02-2009, 06:06 PM

This is bound to happen: the Moth has proved so fast against all the multihulls it has raced against from Hobies to the A Class to F 18's there is no doubt that someone will want to knock off the C Class cats. Doing so with a boat that as the power to weight ratio identical to a Moth is not only feasible its not that much of a stretch-there is already a 26' foiler that fits that description. Ideally,a two boat program would be necessary with plenty of time to work up the technology. Damn, it would be so cool!

See Gary Bagents "sort of C Class" trimaran foiler concept here:
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/multihulls/oh-my-oh-my-25855.html
------------------
R Class TV Video----For those that haven't seen this yet do yourself a favor and take a look: http://www.3news.co.nz/High-hopes-Innovation-to-help-yachting-crew-to-third-national-title/tabid/317/articleID/88979/cat/187/Default.aspx#video

Paul B

02-02-2009, 06:42 PM

This is bound to happen: blah blah blah

Only a loon would think a C Class foiler was "bound to happen."

There is no venue to sail such a craft, so why would anyone build one?

Why would someone spend the requisite number of fun tickets to fund such a program? The Canucks reportedly spent a very large amount chasing the ICCC trophy. Some would say a crazy amount of filthy lucre. At least they had a prize worth chasing.

Or did they? They were no longer sailing for the "Little America's Cup". That award had been hijacked away years before...

Chris Ostlind

02-02-2009, 06:55 PM

... Ideally, a two boat program would be necessary with plenty of time to work up the technology. Damn, it would be so cool!

So would a flying saucer with full cloaking and unlimited Photon Torpedoes.

bistros

02-03-2009, 07:53 AM

The Canucks reportedly spent a very large amount chasing the ICCC trophy. Some would say a crazy amount of filthy lucre. At least they had a prize worth chasing.

Being able to develop, trial and race a world class series with Steve Clark and Cogito is certainly a prize worth chasing - word police problems with calling it the Little America's Cup notwithstanding.

Fredo is far more than a money spender here is Canada - he is both a world class helmsman as well as a silent and unassuming benefactor of high performance sailing development. Trickle down parts & boats from Fredo's circle have energized many enthusiasts - making skiff sailing a reality here with several active and growing fleets of I-14s. Fredo owns and sponsored the Beiker 5 molds that made all the winning I-14s in the last few years - he put the money on the table to make these boats possible.

Fredo also isn't afraid of trying things most people wouldn't dare - he built, tested and subsequently abandoned the C-Class foiler after determining without prejudice that it was NOT competitive with his standard C-Class cat.

The Fredo I've met is a very nice, unassuming guy, with no agenda other than to help other people get excited and have a great time sailing performance boats along with him. From third party reports, I've been told Fredo is a national leader in many philanthropic endeavors, a smart businessman and a careful and thoughtful steward of his family's fortune.

--
Bill

Paul B

02-03-2009, 10:49 AM

The Fredo I've met is a very nice, unassuming guy, with no agenda other than to help other people get excited and have a great time sailing performance boats along with him. From third party reports, I've been told Fredo is a national leader in many philanthropic endeavors, a smart businessman and a careful and thoughtful steward of his family's fortune.

--
Bill

I was not denigrating Mr. Eaton's effort. I was trying to point out the commitment required to build/debug/trial ANY sort of C Class vessel is an enormous undertaking.

Considering what was spent on the Canuck program, with all of the Cogito info open to them as reference, implies making some other type of competitive C Class would require even more funding and time to be successful. I can't see anyone stepping up to that.

Even the Mirabaud would probably be lapped by Fred's boat at this point, even with their year in the converted 18 and another year sailing their erector set boat.

Doug Lord

02-05-2009, 06:43 PM

The first foiling R Class skiff raced the rest of the fleet and led at times by 10 minutes!
more here: http://www.rclass.org/seasons/2008/r-class-on-tv3

Doug Lord

02-05-2009, 07:04 PM

Chris Ostlind

02-05-2009, 07:15 PM

Slow day at the hype factory, is it?

I'd really like to share your fizz on all this, Doug, but really, this is not news and it's not something to crow about; The R-Class thing.

Go get the Plain Jane Subaru Impreza 2.5 with 170 hp. You know, the one that suburb mom's buy... Go put it up against a full turbo Impreza WRX STI at 305 hp and you get the same result.

Dude, let us know when you have something of real substance.

Chris Ostlind

02-05-2009, 07:19 PM

UPDATE: The importer is saying under $20,000 here in the states.

"Is saying" being the words of note. Let's get the container landed and see what show's up as an invoice.

PI Design

02-06-2009, 05:44 AM

$20k is a lot of money, especially for a singlehander, and especially in this economic climate!

bistros

02-06-2009, 08:45 AM

$20k is a lot of money, especially for a singlehander, and especially in this economic climate!

Absolutely too much money for the economic climate, although I don't think it is overpriced in terms of materials cost, labor required & thin profits for the importer and all involved. Face it, these machines are not money makers, as the weight requirements and tiny production volumes demand use of high cost, high labor composites.

I just don't see enough market out there to support a $20K one person recreational purchase in enough volume to make it worthwhile to build. What are worldwide volumes going to be in a year? 20 - 30 units? That is only a half million dollars at retail. Subtract material costs, shipping, labor costs, importer percentage and I doubt there is enough to send the manufacturing team to the pub for an afternoon's debauchery.

Other than Wind_Apparent, I see no vocal evidence of North American pent up demand for trapeze foiling. My club, one of the hotbeds of performance sailing in North America with a strong and growing I-14 fleet hasn't been talking in the bar about foiling. Everybody here is looking to climb the I-14 arms race ladder - the Penultimate folks want a Beiker 3, the M12 and Beiker 3 people want a Beilker 5 and the Beiker 5 folks want there to be no new developments that will obsolete their $35K two-man wunderboots.

A one or two guys at the club have had a go on the Bladerider and Prowler, but no one has been excited enough to buy one. Our economy is very closely coupled with the US, and people are worried about their jobs, or the real estate market following the US down the toilet.

I think the foiling market is very price sensitive. The single hand price point that has been proven to work in high volume is $6-7K. Laser price range. I think there is some latitude to have foiling demand a somewhat higher price, but not $13K more than a Laser.

Many stillborn "revolutions" never make it past the stage where a few fanatics babble amongst themselves and fail to get the necessary crowd excited enough to reach critical mass.

--
Bill

Yes, it is a revolution, but not the Che Guevara kind!

ancient kayaker

02-06-2009, 12:32 PM

Bistros, in the current economic situation are any boats money makers?

You’re correct that top-end foiling has no prospects for commercial success beyond parts. The top guys don’t want the same as the other guy, they want an edge. Therefore everything is custom-built and design success is short-lived. That’s true of most if not all extreme performance activities.

You’re right about price sensitivity. As a recreational boater, offered a choice between a laser or a trapeze foiler, even at the same price I’d take the Laser in a New York minute; I prefer a more practical boat. In the same circumstances however, I might be tempted by a foiler that could still get me around in non-foiling mode with a place for the beer, if it would trailer or car-top. The “People’s Foiler” is discussed in other threads but it’s where commercial success will be found if it happens. Club guys want class rules so they can race each other; that would tap that important market.

Chris Ostlind

02-06-2009, 01:37 PM

... in the current economic situation are any boats money makers?

Well, yes, there are some boats that do make money for the guys who make them. Take the O'pen BIC, for example. Thousands of them have been sold since their introduction just a few years ago. At $3K out the door with a set of extras as sales enhancements, it makes all kinds of sense as a kid's training craft in this market. The boat is vacu-thermoformed and has similar qualities to polyethylene sit-on-top kayaks in that it is darned near indestructible. For that matter, pretty much the entire line of plastic boats by Hobie are also doing well.

A foiler, because of weight and strength senstitivities, has to be built from a different set of material choices, so the pricing structure is quite different. And then there is the issue of the foils, themselves. Let's just say that they cost quite a bit and leave it at that.

The “People’s Foiler” is discussed in other threads, but it’s where commercial success will be found if it happens...

IF is one heck of a big word with all the issues that need to be sorted. This particular segment of the sailing world requires a different set of objective accomplishments in order to be functional. The foils have to take some pretty big loads, yet be as light as possible. Same with the hull. To get a light, strong, solo boat that can be handled by a guy, or gal, with typically much lower skills than the guys you see right now blasting away on the Moth, AND deliver it at a price point that will attract the public; that's the nut to crack.

Bladerider produces a fiberglass Moth foiler at something less than the all-carbon version. It's heavier. Because it is heavier, the optimal weight for the driver is going to be lower. That process limits the market potential without any adjustments for current global economy issues. Every reduction in market potential does a real number on the success quotient of the product. Pretty soon, the need to compromise the product forces it into a place where it can't possibly be called a "People's" anything.

Over at Sailing Anarchy, just today, http://www.sailinganarchy.com/fringe/2009/hobie%20alter%20innerview.htm there's the first part of an innerview with The Man, Hobie Alter. He and a few close friends were totally responsible for putting the most successful sailing product in history in front of the buying public. He makes the point that the H16's real potentcy as a marketable product was not in the techno stuff, but in the ability of the boats to get families and couples out on the water and subsequently enjoying the beach boat social interaction of the whole thing.

It's going to be very hard to do that with a solo boat that costs a small fortune and is difficult to learn. Make it into a two crew craft in order to edge into that socializing paradigm mentioned by Hobie and the costs escalate even more. It's a self-defeating proposition. Especially when you go out and price a brand new Hobie16 for comparison... which, by the way, are still in production after more than 250,000 copies have ben sold since introduced.

We can wait for another miracle fiber and fabrication process for the foiling product to become viable, or we can move along and get another boat that works for the budget and the desires. With enough time for the above to materialize, I'm sure that someday, the potential just may be out there. Question then is... By that time, what technology flavor of the month thing will have long ago superceded the foiler... finding nobody interested anymore?

Paul B

02-06-2009, 02:03 PM

Especially when you go out and price a brand new Hobie16 for comparison... which, by the way, are still in production after more than 250,000 copies have ben sold since introduced.

I worked my way through college at a Hobie dealership.

If anything could ever be called "the peoples" whatever it would be the Hobie 16.

Most of the boats we sold (>50%) were to people who had never sailed before. We included several hours of sailing lessons with the purchase price. First lessson included how to rig everything, then sail. Second lesson they rigged their boat and launched, then we would go meet them and sail. We would capsize/right the boat during the second lesson.

Many customers would not complete all the lesson hours, they would be comfortable after a couple and would be on the beach with everyone else at the weekends, learning more from their peers.

The Hobie platform is so stable it is easy to learn the basics without swimming. No boards, easily launch off the beach, pretty much idiot proof. You could never do that sort of thing on a Laser, let alone a Moth.

If someone asks me today what they should do to get into sailing I tell them to buy a used Hobie 16. For under US$1K they can be out on a good learning platform, going faster than most others on the water.

Foilers are cool things, but they lack the simplicity and ease of use of the H16.

Have a Hobie Day.

Doug Lord

02-06-2009, 06:16 PM

This thread is about High Performance Monofoilers- these boats make no pretence about being a "Peoples Foiler" -an ENTIRELY different breed of machine that is easy to launch, easy to sail and not around yet. Comparing a Moth or R Class foiler or RS600FF to a Hobie 16 is ridiculous.
A "Peoples Foiler" will have buoyancy pods, retractable foils ,reefable rig, and be designed to take off in 5 knots of wind. It will be easy to sail off a beach, to handle on the beach, easy to trailer and easy to rig. It will not be "fiddly",
and will be able to be sailed at different skill levels.
And when "turboed" it will be a "High Performance Monofoiler". It's just a matter of time.....

Chris Ostlind

02-06-2009, 06:36 PM

Paul B

02-06-2009, 07:35 PM

and, and... There’ll be a Smoking Caterpillar, and a Red Queen and most important of all... There's also gonna be this rather curious old man who runs around all full of the most impossible energy always blabbing-on about new fangled things and... he will wear ragtag clothing and a crazily tilted Top Hat!!! Isn't that cute?

The author who gave us those flights of fancy was an opiate abuser, who went so far as to import a wombat that lived on his dining table, also partaking of his master's stash.

Not only that, the author was awkward in social situations and is reported to be a paedophile.

The "Mad Hatter" is not just some random collection of words to build a character. The people of the time who made hats would soak them in a mercury solution to make the fabric hold shape. This massive exposure to mercury would eventually poison them and drive them mad. Of course people didn't know why the hatters were all going starkers, they assumed people like that were just drawn to that profession.

Tcubed

02-06-2009, 08:13 PM

Hear hear!

But Lewis Carol was in fact a virgin...

Chris Ostlind

02-06-2009, 08:23 PM

In what sense?

Paul B

02-06-2009, 08:48 PM

In what sense?

In the sense that he never foiled on a design of his own, at least.

Wait, am I confused?

ancient kayaker

02-06-2009, 11:12 PM

When a thread gets to this point I just quit.

'bye

johnelliott24

02-07-2009, 12:11 AM

Chris Ostlind

02-07-2009, 01:27 AM

... Your proclivity to resort to personal attacks and to throw as much mud as possible to see what sticks is disruptive by design. You want to stifle any discussions amongst reasonable people of what could be possible by any means necessary. Go stick your head in the sand on some car forum and stop disrupting every foiler thread!"

Funny, I didn't see my next to last post as a personal attack at all. More like a satirical commentary on your propensity to wander about the dreamscape of your foiling obsession. Much like Alice in Through the Looking Glass, you dance about, flitting from one nonsensical foiling escapade to another. Never touching down, never really getting that boat done, much less sailed and proved. I very clearly stated that the whole thing was done in jest. Are things going so badly for you that you've lost what little sense of humor you once had?

Bubba... get a job, save some money and finish that contraption of yours. The foiling community awaits your shining light of brilliance.

Doug Lord

02-07-2009, 07:52 AM

Does anyone have thoughts on why Hydroptere is going so fast? She is big and powerful, but uses surface piercing foils that throw tons of spray. How did the early surface piercing Moths do? Why did the bi-foil setup prevail?
========================
Before John Illett and Ian Ward first foiled successfully on bi-foilers, Andy Paterson and Brett Burvill had both foiled with three foil surface piercing arrangements with Burvill the first Moth foiler to win a race. But even before that Frank Raisin had foiled a Moth with a multiple foil arrangement in 1972!
In the Moth class the bi-foil configuration prevailed because the race winning surface piercing arrangement that Burvill used was outlawed as violating the "anti-multihull" rule within the Moth class. I wrote Burvill a while ago and he is convinced that if that configuration hadn't been outlawed it would have been at least as fast or faster than a bi-foil system. I'm not convinced of that but surface piercers have a major thing going for them: the faster they go the less foil area they need. Bi-foiler designers have to pick an area that allows the boat to take off relatively early while not penalizing top speed too much.
But it's not all rosy for surface piercers: the foil system develops lift right up to the air/water interface and because of that a surface piercing foiler has a greater tendency to ventilate the foils causing loss of lift and possibly a crash.
Hydroptere is an extraordinary boat that uses the advantages of surface piercing foils to the max-can't wait to see her go after the record again.
see the "fences" on hydropteres foils-used to prevent ventilation(the ridges you can see on top of the port foil):

johnelliott24

02-07-2009, 09:02 AM

Does a bi-foiler have the advantage of allowing the skipper to cant the rig whereas a tri-foiler sails flat? The reason I ask is that I have built three tris and a cat with canting rigs. The results are very impressive. Also as a sailboarder who did some racing, back when it was popular, I found that the rig cant angle was key to speed. Everybody would just "hook in" and stand straight whereas on marginal days I'd not "hook in" and plane away from everybody by getting the cant optimized.

Doug Lord

02-07-2009, 04:00 PM

Rohan Veal invented the technique of sailing a Moth heeled to windward. It unloads the vertical fin, reducing the tendency to ventilate that it would have if loaded. It increases righting moment(regardless of altitude) by ,roughly, one percent per degree of heel. Most Moths and other bi-foilers sail at 15-20 degrees upwind. There is also a gain in vmg upwind, similar to the gain from using a gybing board, because the lift from the main foil is providing all the vertical lift and all the lateral resistance required.
PS John: would like to here about your boats and how you canted the rigs-sounds great.

Doug Lord

02-07-2009, 04:44 PM

One of the great advantages of a boat like the Hobie trifoiler, Rave or Dr. Sams new Osprey is that that dual wands operate independently allowing the boat to develop all its own RM without input from the crew. Hydroptere and every surface piercer I know of develop RM differently by increasing the separation between the center of lift of the main foils and the boat CG as it heels(leeward foil develops an increasing amount of lift). Hydroptere uses movable ballast as well.
I've been toying with the idea of a hybrid: a "bi-foiler" that uses retractable
small foils in each buoyancy pod-primarily in heavy air upwind. The point would be to increase the RM of the boat boosting upwind speed. The foil would be deployed in such a way as to hold the boat at a designed angle of veal heel along WITH crew participation. A target might be to add 50% to upwind RM and that would require a foil about half the size of a Moth mainfoil.
Disadvantages include the fact that two foils would be required and the additional weight. The gains could be appreciable, allowing a substantial increase in SA.
In light air the foils are retracted but the boat still has all the extra SA. So the gains would be not only upwind in heavy air but downwind in every condition and upwind and downwind in light air due to the extra power.
Takeoff would be significantly earlier than a "normal" bi-foiler....
Bradfield and Ketterman have already proved that the extra drag of a third foil is more than made up for in moderate to heavy air by the virtually unlimited rm available with their system. I think that it would be ideal to have these "power foils" able to be deployed without an altitude control system-a preset angle of incidence might work.

CT 249

02-07-2009, 05:43 PM

Rohan Veal invented the technique of sailing a Moth heeled to windward.

Actually, for the sake of accuracy it could be noted that Moths had been sailed heeled to windward for years before Rohan entered the class or foilers came along. 18s also sailed heeled to windward for some time, although apparently it was a fashion to some extent. Even Lasers have been heeled to windward; see Bourkey's book.

Doug Lord

02-07-2009, 06:02 PM

The technique is different on a bi-foiler-thats why its called "veal heel" . I should have said that Rohan invented the technique of sailing a FOILER Moth to windward. Not only is the technique different the physics of what happens, largely, ONLY applies to a bi-foiler.

Chris Ostlind

02-07-2009, 07:25 PM

Geez Chris, how could you possibly think that you could inject reality into a purely fantasy stream of consciousness?

As long as we're going whole hog with retracting foils, heeling Veals and all that one could possibly toss onto an otherwise spare and purposeful craft... how about this one that I've been toying with lately?

We start with a tri config of a foiler with, you guessed it foils on the ends of the akas. There are no aka end vestigial floats, as they only get in the way of a purist’s boat and visually clutter the design. Yes, there's another foil on the rudder and of course there's that robust foil at the end of the daggerboard board. Because we only sail in the really windy parts of the country, there's no reason to be concerned about the take-off speed. If the wind is less than 12 knots, we just don't bother. Wouldn't be sporting anyway.

Now, here's the twist with my remarkable brainstorm... as the currently, being-toyed-with boat gets into the Heel O' the Veal and the windward aka(and no retracted foil) immerse, the boat just continues to roll to windward, right on past our icon Veal into a whole new territory that I call Angle d'Abolic. The previously extended aka retracts into the now speeding hull for a perfect hydrodynamic shape.

With precise coordination, unaffected by sea state and wind conditions, I pull on my discreetly powered-up hydraulic lever and out comes a whole new, foil on end of aka system (FEAS) that extends up and out of the hull at what would be a 45 degree angle, should the craft not have already rolled well past that reference point. When fully deployed, the Systeme FEAS d'Abolic comes into its own as a foiling vessel of serious anxiety.

With the mast now canted well to windward... so far over, in fact, that it now becomes a lifting wing in the atmosphere and not just a sail as you may have known it just seconds before. It is at that point that some real magic takes place.

A whole second sail system is lifted from a secret compartment on the hull and it takes on the principal duties of the former rig. The Hyper-Heeled (TM) rig, is in full lift mode, the upright rig is driving like a drunken moonshiner and the Systeme FEAS d'Abolic is doing the heavy lifting from the water side of the craft. Dare I say that this entire function is automatic, requiring no input from the pilot, as it is keyed to velocity, as well as sensed angle?

While all of these coordinated devices are engaged in the dance of beauty, the main and rudder foils are also undergoing a fabulous change of their own... yes, you may have guessed it, they cant!!! And why not, really? The technology has been underused by the monohull genre, yet it retains that unmistakeable power that only advanced sailors will recognize.

Yes, it is a bit on the overly complex side of the equation. But... and this is the important part, it works when I run the calcs, (I can supply a sheet with a long list of fairly vague and self-important numbers). It can be built (it will be built) and it will take over the previous foiling revolution with multiple lifting surfaces and revolutionary design techniques never before seen in the genre of foiling machines.

As you can see, I firmly believe in design complexity. In fact it is the driving philosophy of my refreshed approach to foiling craft. Limited thinkers will be forced to sit back and weep at their deep lack of vision, while production examples will be shipping to the youngest of sailors who augment their home allowance with a simple paper route.

No need to send us an email, we already know your ISP number and your propensities for foiling dreams.

We own the revolution!!!!

johnelliott24

02-08-2009, 12:20 AM

To answer your question about some of the boats... the last two are general copies of Hydroptere. One 22 ft and the other 20ft. Canting of the masts is just done with crude lines pulling laterally on the loose stays; producing 10 degrees of cant. Nothing fancy but it works. The jib is on its own mast. The head is hooked onto a hook on the main mast. The foot is loosely attached with an adjustable line. The jib cant is maybe 20 degrees in strong air and very noticeable. On one of the cats this produces enough lift that the bows do not dive at all making it considerably faster and very nice to drive hard. Next change planned is to add center foils to the latest Hydroptere like tri and cant the whole boat on one ama and the center hull -- the reason for my questions about foils and canting. Thanks for the tips.

Doug Lord

02-08-2009, 03:05 PM

Doug Lord

02-08-2009, 06:04 PM

Sean M and Dan Leech won the Leander in the foiler-using foils in only some of the races.
R Class website has an updated report:
http://www.rclass.org/leander/2009/leander-2009
---------------------------

johnelliott24

02-08-2009, 10:23 PM

Here are some shots of the second of my 3 tris, "Precarious!" which was 22ft -- taken on a dead day where foils were of no use so you don't see them attached to the amas. (Previously I said there were 2 tris, but forgot about the first one which was 17ft. She flew on one piercing foil under the main hull.) The 3rd and latest tri has a larger main hull and is lighter; otherwise pretty much the same. The idea is to be fast, inexpensive and simple.
http://s371.photobucket.com/albums/oo159/johnelliott24/Precarious%20the%20trimaran/

Doug Lord

02-09-2009, 07:09 AM

Thats impressive,John! How do you have one surface piercing foil under the main hull?

johnelliott24

02-09-2009, 11:11 PM

I just wanted to test the bigger tri idea so I threw together a boat with the amas and one foil under the main hull -- with no consideration for the fact that it would not be optimal at all. This way I could see how the amas worked and test one foil (strength with all of the boat, me -- everything on it, ability to lift, etc...) with very little effort. Yes, it did not make sense for sailing. It just tested the components. This boat was 17ft long and only carried 110 sq ft of sail area. On this third boat I plan to try it with foils on the amas and stern first and then add 2 under the center of the main hull (they will effectively be a 'V' but not joined at the bottom so that they can swing up while sailing due to the kelp.) The amas will be higher so that the boat can cant like a Moth. On light days it will cant to leeward with the foils up out of the water and in air to windward, ie by adjusting your weight to cause her to sail on the center foils and either the windward or leeward ama foil she will cant. This might be a a bad idea since a gust could throw the boat onto the leeward ama and cause her to spin. I don't know. But the idea of canting the whole tri like this attractive.

PI Design

02-19-2009, 07:01 AM

In the words of Frank Bethwaite:

We are developing a strap-on kit to put the 49er on foils (talk to Graham Hanna) The Tasar, with its compact, efficient, tight-leech rig, may just become one of the fastest foilers in the years ahead. (I explained to Martyn that the 49er has too much sail to be really fast. On calculation 42 knots in a 20kt wind looks the fastest possible. This assumes that all the sails above about ten feet are at zero coeff of lift. But it has adequate sail for tremendous fun and spectacular speed in the 10 to 20 knot wind speed range. The Tasar, heeled to windward with its smaller rig and one on trapeze looks much more like a Skeeta.)

Could the Tasar become the people's foiler?

Doug Lord

02-19-2009, 12:44 PM

PI Design

02-19-2009, 03:26 PM

Paul B

02-19-2009, 03:48 PM

but I think it is important to note that Frank Bethwaite, probably the most influential designer of the last 20 years, is at least thinking about sticking foils on a mainstream boat.

Really? What has Frank designed in the past 20 years that had great influence? What were the designs, who was influenced by them?

Chris Ostlind

02-19-2009, 04:25 PM

...Could the Tasar become the people's foiler?

I don't think so, PI. The boat retails for USD$11,500. Jam a pair of T-foils and the attendent controls, wands, etc. on the dude and you have a boat that will probably fetch $17,500 on the US market.

That price will not call the folks out in droves in any numbers that might get remotely close to a People's anything, IMHO.

I don't see it ever happening.

What you need is cheap. Cheap equals heavy, heavy equals can't possibly foil when it comes to a one, or two person product... even if it is made in China and you have the People's Workers chained to the laminating table with 24/7 face masks in place with food and waste tubes going full blast.

The type of boat that it is and the stuff that it takes to make it go... a foiler does not lend itself to a People's version and will likely not in your lifetime.

This is said as the Chinese Middle Class turns its eyes on Africa for the next round of enslaved affordable labor. But, what is after that once the swinging pendulum runs its course... penguins and Eskimos?

No, I'm afraid that Mr. Lord's Orwellian vision has no legs on which to run.

Doug Lord

02-19-2009, 06:01 PM

Hi Doug,

From the Tasar site:

http://www.tasar.org/news/2009/designers_report.htm

It sounds like its still a pipedream, but I think it is important to note that Frank Bethwaite, probably the most influential designer of the last 20 years, is at least thinking about sticking foils on a mainstream boat.
----------------------------
Wow! That is interesting! Don't think its a Peoples Foiler but who knows. I'll have to look at the numbers but it may not have enough SA to foil in really light air-but neither does the R Class. Exciting to see who's thinking about what these days! Thanks, "Pi Design".
Just as a matter of interest: the W/SA of the Tasar with a 300lb crew is 3.67. The Moth, RS600FF and even Mirabaud are 2.558 or less except the R class foiler which is somewhere around 3.15 . The smaller the number the lighter air the boat should takeoff in(as a very rough first look).

PI Design

02-20-2009, 03:22 AM

Really? What has Frank designed in the past 20 years that had great influence? What were the designs, who was influenced by them?

I don't know why your posts are always so confrontational - I guess you just like to stir things up - but I'm sure you are fully aware of the boats FB has been involved with, and the influence he (and the rest of his family) has had. If not, I strongly recommend you read HSP1 and HSP2.

PI Design

02-20-2009, 03:45 AM

I don't think so, PI. The boat retails for USD$11,500. Jam a pair of T-foils and the attendent controls, wands, etc. on the dude and you have a boat that will probably fetch $17,500 on the US market.

That price will not call the folks out in droves in any numbers that might get remotely close to a People's anything, IMHO.

I don't see it ever happening.

What you need is cheap. Cheap equals heavy, heavy equals can't possibly foil when it comes to a one, or two person product... even if it is made in China and you have the People's Workers chained to the laminating table with 24/7 face masks in place with food and waste tubes going full blast.

The type of boat that it is and the stuff that it takes to make it go... a foiler does not lend itself to a People's version and will likely not in your lifetime.

This is said as the Chinese Middle Class turns its eyes on Africa for the next round of enslaved affordable labor. But, what is after that once the swinging pendulum runs its course... penguins and Eskimos?

No, I'm afraid that Mr. Lord's Orwellian vision has no legs on which to run.

I guess it depends on your definition of a people's foiler. I don't want to get stuck in a semantic argument, and you're right - it will never sell in the numbers of a Hobie or a Laser, but then perhaps nothing ever will again?
But boats like the Tasar and RS200 are popular (in the relative sense of the small world of dinghy sailing). I would describe both as 'people's boats' in as much as they are affordable and manageable - the RS200 has turnouts of over 100 at UK Nationals, the Tasar about 50. It may not be a revolution, or a get-rich-quick scheme, but if a foiling Tasar can be made to work and retail for less than £10k (approx $15k) then I think it would sell a few - although the idea is probably still ahead of its time at the moment.

For what its worth, I doubt it will happen, but the very fact that Bethwaite has thought about it perhaps shows that the concept of a popular foiler is gaining momemtum.

Chris Ostlind

02-20-2009, 08:24 AM

... But boats like the Tasar and RS200 are popular (in the relative sense of the small world of dinghy sailing). I would describe both as 'people's boats' in as much as they are affordable and manageable...

For what its worth, I doubt it will happen, but the very fact that Bethwaite has thought about it perhaps shows that the concept of a popular foiler is gaining momentum.

I don't know what is happening in the UK, but the US economy is looking pretty harsh for any recreational product that is kicking along at $15,000 right now. That's a might big hurdle to overcome for anything much less a product with as many other issues for everyday sailors.

Over at Sailing Anarchy just this morning, Australian foil enthusiast, Phil Stevo had this to say on the subject of Bethwaite's anointing...

Fantasy!!
FB has done a lot of good for our sport of dinghy sailing, particularly in modernising the northern hemishrere. The *ers have at least brought them up to what AUS and NZ had in the 20th century.
But foiling is 21st century and the Taser is very 1970s. Its " tight leach sails" are way too full for foiling and the glass hull is way too heavy as are a lot of the people who sail them.
What the moths have shown is that to go fast upwind and downwind in a wide variety of winds, you need very adjustable flat sails and light platforms. A moth has very little righting moment, it goes fast because it is so efficient. Full sails and heavy hulls are not efficient.
The foiling ferries and 49er do however show that you can make anything fly if you put enough mechanical horse power in it.
A 30kg Taser (or anything) with a new flat rig would be another story?

Very interesting set of observations. You simply fix what ails the Tasar and Pow! you have a ready made foiling boat. That's kind of freeing, actually. It means that my old, beat-up dining room table could become a foiler if it were light enough and rigged correctly. It gets a guy to thinking. ;-)

One of the other "issues" I mentioned above is the exposed susceptibility of the foil system, itself when it comes to damage to the foils and disruption of the lifting surface. Even though he has gone to great lengths to discredit my observations in this area... apparently even our guy, Doug Lord, has suddenly changed his tune on the topic. Witness the quote below, also from Sailing Anarchy:

QUOTE (Doug Lord @ Feb 18 2009, 04:17 PM)

" How about the control system if you nail a fish or other relatively small impact? "

At the time, the conversation involved the control system on the foils of the new Swiss, Bladerider-esque, foiler.

A damaged control system due to a relatively small impact, huh? Remarkably concise observation of how vulnerable these things actually are when it comes to damage potential. Too bad it took Doug three years to come to that conclusion.

So, right here we've got two major issues that will prevent the foiler from becoming a People's craft of any merit... Over the top expense for the average guy and routine susceptibility to anything that can disrupt, or damage the lifting surfaces.... "a small impact" indeed.

I do not think that foilers will be going the way of the dinosaurs in the near future. I also do not think that they will ever penetrate the market in anything like stunning numbers. In fact, until a new set of structural material realities hit the market, along with simpler, less expensive build systems... we aren't going to be seeing any boat truly becoming a People's variety in the way that the concept has been so enthusiastically projected on these pages.

PI Design

02-20-2009, 08:49 AM

Hi Chris,

I can't access SA here, so will check that out later.
With regards to a People's Foiler, I am in two minds. On the one hand, any foiler will be more expensive than a non-foiler, due to the added equipment. It will also be considerably more fiddly, less practical, harder to sail and higher maintenance. All these things mitigate against foiling reaching the masses. However, there is always (present economic climate aside - and who knows how long that wil last?) a small portion of people willing to try something new, something that advances the status quo. £10k is a lot of money, but par for the course for many boats here - and they do sell.
It depends to some extent on whether one wants to foil to get max performance, or merely for the sake of foiling as a thing to do. If it is the latter, then provided the sails are cut to suit, then I can't really see why anything can not foil e.g. a Laser or a Tasar. Sure it would need bigger foils than a Moth, which would give a lower top speed, and yes, you may need to beef up the transom, but I am convinced you could get a Laser airborne if you wanted. I don't see the weight of the boat as a huge hurdle (within reason) - you just need higher lift foils, either through more area or higher Cl. There is a practical limit obviously, for structural reasons and to limit foil span, but I'm sure a Laser could fly. Question is - does anyone want to fly one?

Paul B

02-20-2009, 12:50 PM

I don't know why your posts are always so confrontational - I guess you just like to stir things up - but I'm sure you are fully aware of the boats FB has been involved with, and the influence he (and the rest of his family) has had. If not, I strongly recommend you read HSP1 and HSP2.

Oh, I've read FB's first book, and am waiting on delivery of the second.

FB is the king of self-promotion. If you believe everything he writes, well, not everyone does.

Frank is not Julian.

The only boat I am aware of that FB has designed in the past 20 years is the 59er. Not very successful or influential.

Most of the things that came out of Frank's shed over the years were down his own path and not really followed on by others.

Doug Lord

02-20-2009, 01:12 PM

One of the other "issues" I mentioned above is the exposed susceptibility of the foil system, itself when it comes to damage to the foils and disruption of the lifting surface. Even though he has gone to great lengths to discredit my observations in this area... apparently even our guy, Doug Lord, has suddenly changed his tune on the topic. Witness the quote below, also from Sailing Anarchy:

QUOTE (Doug Lord @ Feb 18 2009, 04:17 PM)

" How about the control system if you nail a fish or other relatively small impact? "

At the time, the conversation involved the control system on the foils of the new Swiss, Bladerider-esque, foiler.

A damaged control system due to a relatively small impact, huh? Remarkably concise observation of how vulnerable these things actually are when it comes to damage potential. Too bad it took Doug three years to come to that conclusion.

======================
Not true: the conversation was about an all moving foil that I thought was similar to the Japanese Mothie who doesn't use a flap but moves the whole foil. Turns out the guy I had addressed the question to had a vertical fin/foil joint just like normal but moved the whole foil instead of a flap. Leaves the control system vulnerable-it seems to me. However, he and others discounted my concern as I do on "normal" well designed main foil systems that are structurally very strong and capable of taking major impacts w/o damage.

Chris Ostlind

02-20-2009, 01:46 PM

Cough, cough.... you realize, of course, just how transparent that argument might be, Doug?

You are saying that an incidental smack on the foil would damage the control system in the acknowledgment. You are also intimating that said damage would just drop the boat like a rock because the tweaked control system, (you know, that stuff that moves the, "entire foil") would put things so out of whack that the guy would not be able to just continue on as if nothing had happened. If that was the case, my boy, then why bother asking what should be so obvious... especially for a guy like you who is the self-anointed guru of all things foily?

Doug, you can not have it both ways. Either the foil control system (control rods, cables, linkages, settings, etc.) can be damaged by incidental impact, or it can not. Everyone knows that the system would be tweaked and controlled flying would be a whole different exercise, so what difference does it make whether it’s the foil flaps themselves, or the alignment of the whole foil? The facts are still the same, as is the outcome.

Nevertheless, lifting foils are extremely susceptible to impact damage in a wide variety of ways.

You go to great lengths to tell us all about how fast these boats can go and then wish to wave-off the fact that this same high speed contributes to much greater damage whenever the critical components hit something. Check with your local automotive body shop if you need a corroborative comment or two.

For those of you who even care to bother with it... here's the URL to the entire conversation in question where all sorts of control surface and control input issues were being discussed. You can make your own call.

http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?showtopic=86254&st=0

PI Design

02-20-2009, 02:53 PM

Oh, I've read FB's first book, and am waiting on delivery of the second.

FB is the king of self-promotion. If you believe everything he writes, well, not everyone does.

Frank is not Julian.

The only boat I am aware of that FB has designed in the past 20 years is the 59er. Not very successful or influential.

Most of the things that came out of Frank's shed over the years were down his own path and not really followed on by others.

Hi Paul,
FB designed the Tasar in '76 which went on to influence the B14, 49er and 29er. He was involved with his son with the 49er and 29er projects - he financed the projects and was heavily involved with the designs. The 49er is an Olympic class, the 29er is an ISAF Youth class. He also designed the Laser 2 with 10,000 boats sold, and his thinking continues to influence NS14s, Cherubs, and countless 'skiff' classes even though he isn't directly involved with them. Seems a better CV than most designers.

Paul B

02-20-2009, 04:13 PM

Hi Paul,
FB designed the Tasar in '76 which went on to influence the B14, 49er and 29er. He was involved with his son with the 49er and 29er projects - he financed the projects and was heavily involved with the designs. The 49er is an Olympic class, the 29er is an ISAF Youth class. He also designed the Laser 2 with 10,000 boats sold, and his thinking continues to influence NS14s, Cherubs, and countless 'skiff' classes even though he isn't directly involved with them. Seems a better CV than most designers.

1976 was not 20 years ago. Saying the Tasar influenced the other designs mentioned is like saying a Cross 3 influenced them.

FB did not design the 49er or 29er. Many sailors think the 49er has some serious flaws.

The 49ers Frank built were not very good quality.

The Yngling was recently an Olympic class, so it must be one heckuva boat.

Seems Bieker's GT60 is a pretty nice alternative to the 29er, and seems to be nice as a Cherub. I suppose someone might take a leap and state that it is "influenced" by FB's work as well. Others might not.

The Laser 2 was not a very good boat. If it had not been mandated as a youths boat with the Laser name it would not have sold in numbers. Today you can't give one away. I don't think that design had any influence on the art.

Honestly, every designer is influenced in some way by everything he sees. In that sense FB "has influenced" development over the past 20 years. I don't think any current designer thinking about doing a skiff is pulling out the offsets of a Tasar for inspiration.

PI Design

02-21-2009, 02:14 AM

Paul B

02-23-2009, 01:18 AM

Well, that's not what I said is it? Which designers have had more influence in the last 20 years? Morrison, maybe. Howlett - not really. Bieker - only in I14s (and the GT60), and not really copied elsewhere. Murray? No. Ian Bruce? Not since the Laser in any big way. Julian Bethwaite - possibly, but clearly he is influenced by his dad. Anyway, this is going wildly off topic.

You continue to say "influence" but you don't define it.

Let's say Frank B was never born. Would the current 18s be any different? No. Ditto 14s. What about 12s, 16s? You tell me.

You mention Julian as being influenced by Frank. Probably. But anyone else? How is that influence manifested?

If Julian had never been born would anyone be talking about Frank today?

When I think about "influential" designers I think of Bob Miller and Taipan, that led to a whole new way of approaching the class.

Andrew Buckland's idea to use an assymetric spinnaker was very influential in skiffs and now keelboats.

Doug Peterson's designs absolutely changed the way IOR boats and especially keel and rudder foils looked, then his heavy/long/narrow ACC shape defined the class (after showing Frers' wide and Farr's shorter skiff avenues were weaker).

Davidson's ACC double knuckle bow was a huge influence on the class.

Bruce Farr's 18s changed the class, and then his IOR boats ushered in lighter weights and fractional rig acceptance. His early IMS desings were the benchmark for others to follow.

Uffa Fox's I14s changed the thinking in the class.

Tom Schnackenberg's approach to sail design has had a huge influence in sailmaking, and also in design, matching his ideas with the yacht designer's to produce a harmonized winning combination.

To me, this is what influential design is. I don't know of anything Frank B did that really caused others to follow. Perhaps his NS14 work was significant during his time, but even the boats in that class now show no influence of his designs.

So who is the "most influential" designer" of the past 20 years. I would not make that statement without a lot of research. I just don't see Frank's influence prominent in the recent work of designers.

If someone said who was the most influential designer of the past 40 years I would say Bruce Farr, for his work in Skiffs, IOR, IMS, One Design, and production boats.

Guest625101138

02-23-2009, 01:40 AM

Paul B

02-23-2009, 02:03 AM

Paul
On keel boat designers do you rate Joe Adams in your part of the world?

By the way I agree with Bruce Farr in this part of the world as well. High water to land ratio in his homeland encourages sailing. Certainly New Zealanders punch well above their weight in this field.

Would be interesting to see some good research on the development and influences on yachts over the past 50 years. From my own experience I saw Adams first heading toward good sailing boats uncompromised by rating rules. Adams 10 was a classic here.

Rick W

I am aware of some Adams boats and particularly like the 10 for it's era. I doubt most racers in North America ever heard of an Adams 10, or know there was a designer called Adams.

I should have mentioned Ben-Bob's 12 metre winged keel in addition to his 18 footer Taipan. Every 12 built after AII showed his influence and sported a winged appendage.

Doug Lord

02-23-2009, 06:25 AM

alans

02-23-2009, 09:22 PM

From Julian Bethwaite on SA: "...there is no intention whatsoever of putting the Tasar on foils". But they are going full tilt on a 49er foiler...
See post # 40 below:

http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?showtopic=86543&st=0&#entry2154143
==================
49er comments from SA:
"Yes we have gone the Canard route, because the Canard is inherently more stable than the tractor route. Firstly moths are quasi Canards anyway, secondly there is a huge difference in crashing a 30-40kgs moth at 18-20 knts compared to crashing a 130kg 49er at 25-30 knts. The 49er has another 50% of the power of a moth, it will take off at double to treble the speed of the moth. It should go 1/2 as fast again with the existing rig. If we go to a smaller rig, say 600mm shorter, it should go significantly faster again.

I also find it interesting that people are bemused about steering from the front when none of them drive cars with the steering wheels at the back. Stupid!

No we dont expect to fly first time perfectly, yes we expect to have some very trying days before we get it right. But we are very confident of what we are doing and we believe strongly that in 2-3 months we will be flying and operating in the mid 20 knts.

From the speed boat testing, we are now very confident of speeds up to 20knts, and have had a couple of successful runs at speeds mid and high 20 knts bracket. We are also confident we can do it without hurting people!"

Doug

When testing our large Kooee model, we discovered why front wheel steering has not been successfully applied to sail boats. I certainly thought that, when used with a canard configuration, it had stability and performance advantages and the theory shows that it does. However we found, as did some ot the moth guys that tried it, that there is a boat handling problem. If you get into irons then it is almost no chance of backing out as you can with a stern rudder. The centre of drag of the sail relative to the forces and moments generated by rudder and centre board push you back into rather than accelerating you out of irons.

Putting a steerable forward strut for the canard and a stern rudder is less efficient than "conventional" configuration. Stability wise there is actually no difference if the elevator is linked into the active control system. Hence my latest Kooee configuration is a tail dragger

Doug Lord

02-23-2009, 09:40 PM

Alan,Bethwaite also calls the Moth a "quasi-canard"-which makes no sense to me. John Ilett told me long ago that the nominal design of the boat was with 80% of the all up weight on the main foil. Now, I know that in the past a "quick lightair takeoff" technique loaded the rudder foil a bit more than that but according to a Mothie who races now that technique isn't used any more.
A guy who races Moths(Bora Bgulari) said ,on SA, that he sails with up to 70% of the all up weight on the rear foil and also called the Moth a "canard" configuration. His comments were contradicted by another experienced Mothie.
The Main foil on the Moth is larger than the rudder foil(elevator)-is there anyway to define that configuration as a canard?

Guest625101138

02-23-2009, 10:36 PM

I also find it interesting that people are bemused about steering from the front when none of them drive cars with the steering wheels at the back. Stupid!

Doug
This probably should be corrected at the source.

Having done this on a conventional boat there is a very good reason for having stern mounted rudders on most boats. The CoG is usually well above the steering force generated by the rudder as is the hull drag. The response of the boat is that it leans into the turn. A bow mounted rudder provides lean out, which is not a nice feel and with some boats would cause instant roll.

With a foiler they are already unstable requiring dynamic stability control so the steering force is just another applied force to contend with. A bow mounted ruder might take some getting used to though.

Try riding a bike with back wheel steering!!! Can be set up to work but the geometry requires some careful thinking.

The comment above lacks insight into the dynamics involved in many boat applications.

Rick W

Doug Lord

02-24-2009, 02:22 AM

Guest625101138

02-24-2009, 02:33 AM

Rick, the comment you quoted was made by Julian Bethwaite -I was surprised
at it and at his attitude toward canards( not sure of his definition there either). I don't yet know what he means by "we're going the cannard route".
Every time it(as I understand it) has been tried-so far-on a monofoiler it has been less than succesfull with the possible exception of the Miller foilboard.

Doug
I know you were quoting from another forum. I do not visit it so the suggestion was for you to point out the problems to him for conventional boats. There are other issues as well like being out of the water a lot of the time on planing hulls. Stern tends to stay attached to the water for longer periods than the bow.

I always look around for experience in other areas to add to understanding. Not many aircraft with forward mounted steering surfaces??? Don't think his car analogy is very good.

I can do the stability analysis as time domain modelling is something I have done a lot with over the years in my paid work. However setting up the model takes a lot of time to come to grips with all the significant degrees of freedom. It often pays to try something and then set up the model based on initial learning.

Rick W

Doug Lord

02-24-2009, 02:47 AM

bistros

02-24-2009, 08:48 AM

Thanks,Rick. I just can't get the picture in my head of what he is actually doing. The only picture there is of his intial testing doesn't seem to show a forward rudder. Seems to show a "conventional" Moth configuration with a bow wand:

Jeez, Doug how about writing a letter to Julian Bethwaite and asking? His email address is really easy to find - took me all of three seconds.

You aren't going to have much success trying to get him to respond on web forums, as he doesn't actively participate. Julian tends to only post to quiet rumors and misinformation.

Julian came up to the Ottawa Skiff Grand Prix three or four years ago - he was a really nice approachable guy. I expect he'd respond if you are polite and to the point with your request.

Cheers,

Bill

Doug Lord

02-24-2009, 10:25 AM

I'm hoping he might respond here( I PM'd him on SA) as he already is posting on Sailing Anarchy.

Doug Lord

02-24-2009, 05:55 PM

PM received from Julian today:
"Doug,
Your welcome to quote me

Re Moths, I find them frustrating and fascinating.

If you go to any high end models where they have been at this for the last 100 years you find the majority are Tractors (control surface behind the main lift surface) and the control surface is quite small, 28-29% of the main surface.

With the moth, not only do you have the control surface as the main lifting surface, but you have a huge stabilising surface, aft, upwards of 70% of the main lifting surface.

Its pretty easy to do the sums so we know the CoL they are running and the load they are running.

We would like to tow them full size and get some real CoD numbers and may do that very shortly. Scott Babage is a very old friend as in John Harris, both of their boats are within 200m of my office.

Hencce my comment that they are quasi Canards!

We have progressed 150 pages of data and probably 10 variants since the SeaHorse photos.

We are now busy getting a sailing variant ready for a run.

if you tell me how to do it I will attach a photo,

Julian "

markdrela

02-24-2009, 06:35 PM

A guy who races Moths(Bora Buglari) said ,on SA, that he sails with up to 70% of the all up weight on the rear foil and also called the Moth a "canard" configuration. His comments were contradicted by another experienced Mothie.
The Main foil on the Moth is larger than the rudder foil(elevator)-is there anyway to define that configuration as a canard? This is an argument only about labels and definitions. In airplanes, there is no sharp boundary between a conventional, tandem, and canard configuration. See the attached PDF. The configuration smoothly morphs from tailless, to conventional, to tandem, to canard, and back to the tailless.

To first order, the main requirement for pitch stability is that the front surface must have a larger CL than the rear surface, so a "conventional" configuration can easily have an upward load on the tail and still be stable, provided the tail is big enough (say at S_rear/S_front = 0.3 on the plot), and the airfoil Cm is not too negative.

This simple surface-CL stability rule doesn't apply to a hydrofoil with one or more wand-controlled surfaces. But the issue of whether a configuration is a canard or not is still just a matter of labeling.

Doug Lord

02-24-2009, 06:54 PM

Thanks very much,Mark-helps a lot.

alans

02-25-2009, 12:24 AM

This is an argument only about labels and definitions. In airplanes, there is no sharp boundary between a conventional, tandem, and canard configuration. See the attached PDF. The configuration smoothly morphs from tailless, to conventional, to tandem, to canard, and back to the tailless.

To first order, the main requirement for pitch stability is that the front surface must have a larger CL than the rear surface, so a "conventional" configuration can easily have an upward load on the tail and still be stable, provided the tail is big enough (say at S_rear/S_front = 0.3 on the plot), and the airfoil Cm is not too negative.

This simple surface-CL stability rule doesn't apply to a hydrofoil with one or more wand-controlled surfaces. But the issue of whether a configuration is a canard or not is still just a matter of labeling.

Mark your statements are true for aircraft that do not have their stability augmented with "auto pilot" gearings. The static margin analogy would apply to a foiler were the centre of thrust close to the centre of drag. The large bow down monent created by the sail CofP being well seperated from the foils necessitates the CofG being well aft of the nuetral point (NP as shown in your PDF). Stability can be reestablished, as demonstrated, by the helmsman throught an elevator as we did with David Lugg's int 14 or with a mechanical autopilot likage from a wand to flap. This latter proves to be extremely effective as this stability augmention improves the effective static margin by about 6 or 7 feet. It seems that at high speeds it is acceptable (stability wise) to move the CofG that far aft that you are sailing with a cL on the rear foil 3 times that of the front foil. However best performance will usually be achieved when the cL's of both foils are equal.

alan

alans

02-25-2009, 01:09 AM

Doug Lord

02-25-2009, 05:29 PM

Alan, what caused the pitch up toward the end of the video? Have you done a RC version with a rig? Damn good looking boat!

alans

02-26-2009, 01:35 AM

Doug

As soon as the tow line is released the bow rises before the front foil can respond and then with the drop in speed she sinks back into the water. No we are yet to sail her. The towing tests were the main aim of the test program to demonstrate that splayed main foils (30 degrees) worked without lateral problems. The configuration makes vertually no leeway and therefore minimizes ventilation problems.

alan

bgulari

03-02-2009, 11:23 AM

Bora Gulari

Here is video of sailing at the back of the bus with the main trimmed in hard

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH9iXgh3fpA

Doug Lord

03-02-2009, 06:03 PM

Sorry about that! Corrected...

alans

03-03-2009, 02:23 AM

Bora Gulari

Here is video of sailing at the back of the bus with the main trimmed in hard

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH9iXgh3fpA

Bora

A great bit of footage. I sailed 14's from the "rock" for nearly 20 years and we used to sail that same track many time just for fun, some times at 20 knots. I guess you were doing about 25. Do you know what speed you were actually doing? Having watched your video across water I know like the back of my hand I think the two man boat two on trap was more challenging and more fun!

sigurd

03-05-2009, 06:31 AM

Ancient Kayaker:
I got to admit I was as confused as S2 was. I guess if the real monofoiler ever shows up we will just have to call it the unifoiler. Of course it might turn out to have a perfectly good French name!

Jon Howes has made something he calls a monofoil. It has only one foil in the water. Very nice craft. I agree with you it could become confusing to call a monohull bifoiler a monofoiler.

When a thread gets to this point I just quit.

'bye

In case you are still reading: I hear you can put particular members on "ignore" in this forum - I have not tried it, I usually just scroll past the posts written by members who are always just antagonising.
edit: no, sorry, I cannot find any such "ignore" function. anyway the scrolling works fine for me :)

bistros

03-05-2009, 11:39 AM

Ancient Kayaker:
In case you are still reading: I hear you can put particular members on "ignore" in this forum - I have not tried it, I usually just scroll past the posts written by members who are always just antagonising.
edit: no, sorry, I cannot find any such "ignore" function. anyway the scrolling works fine for me :)

If you go into the Member's List area above, search for a member and select their profile, there will be two options in about the middle of your screen - Add to Your Buddy List - and - Add this user to your Ignore List.

Just click on the "Ignore List" option and then click on "Save List". Presto - their posts will be marked: "You have chosen to ignore <username>".

Click here to ignore me (http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/profile.php?do=addlist&userlist=ignore&u=18476). Once you have a URL to ignore someone, you can use the URL like any other link.

--
Bill

sigurd

03-05-2009, 11:52 AM

thanks! :)

bistros

03-05-2009, 11:55 AM

thanks! :)

Vel bekomme (although you may not see this now!)

--
Bill

sigurd

03-05-2009, 12:01 PM

i do! i have become good at skipping fast over text so i doubt i will need the ignore! i can usually tell in the first line whether it is worth reading, if not then i check one or two paragraphs further down to see if i am right.

Doug Lord

03-05-2009, 05:48 PM

Check out the Full Force site for prices etc. But notice the picture below with the foils RETRACTED sitting on a beach dolly! Not likely to see many Moths doing this.. http://www.fullforceboats.com/

Guest625101138

03-05-2009, 06:43 PM

Check out the Full Force site for prices etc. But notice the picture below with the foils RETRACTED sitting on a beach dolly! Not likely to see many Moths doing this.. http://www.fullforceboats.com/

Now that it getting closer to something I could see myself launching from the beach. Still a concern about hitting something a bit solid though when flying.

Gary Baigent

03-05-2009, 07:09 PM

Guest625101138

03-05-2009, 08:33 PM

hey Rick
Hit anything at speed in whatever you are sailing be it mono, multi, foiler or any other configuration - and invariably you're going to working late in the repair shop. Although admittedly, the higher the speed, the more quantities of epoxy and carbon will be required for reparation. Everyone knows this - it's not just the domain of foilers.

You clearly have not sailed in the same crowd I have. I know at least two salty sea dogs who lived on boats and got roped into joining the Sunday race fleet. Their response to a "starboard" call was simply to reply with a "steel" call.

These boats were on opposite side of the country at different times in my sailing experience but both skippers had the same attitude to sailing and similiar boats. Neither boat would come off second best after tangling with a container, whale, dugong or other flotsam.

It is clear to me that many modern designs have not adequately addressed this fundamental issue. I have experienced many groundings and consider it unavoidable. Sure you like to be traveling slow if the risk is high but that is not always the case either.

Boats can be designed to survive a heavy hit. I have experienced high speed groundings in a planing power boat. Even tangled with a decent log that caused minor prop damage.

The faster they go the better the design needs to be to counter the problem. I don't think the problem is given enough thought.

Doug Lord

03-11-2009, 06:37 PM

New(re-mixed) video of RS600ff:
http://www.inqbator.org.uk/Default.aspx?alias=www.inqbator.org.uk/rs600ff

Chris Ostlind

03-12-2009, 08:24 AM

Hit anything at speed in whatever you are sailing be it mono, multi, foiler or any other configuration - and invariably you're going to working late in the repair shop. Although admittedly, the higher the speed, the more quantities of epoxy and carbon will be required for reparation. Everyone knows this - it's not just the domain of foilers.

I love that you keep saying this, ignoring the facts of foiling's expense should the issue arise... and eventually, it will arise.

Take a quick look at the replacement price for a set of Moth foils, just for laughs. Now, look at the same replacement for a single daggerboard from a high perf beach cat. Everyone also should know this.... the cost is through the roof for the Moth compared to other boats for the same incident.

The higher the speed... (and haven't we been assailed by the higher speed issue since it arrived?) does make for bigger damage, so the numbers one sees on the Moth parts page are just the beginning of the horror to one's pocketbook.

You simply have to pay to play and it's not going away just because thinking of other things is more comfortable.

Doug Lord

03-12-2009, 12:46 PM

Chris Ostlind

03-12-2009, 01:13 PM

Despite the enormous dangers and burgeoning cost of all the smashed Moth foils the class remains one of the fastest growing dinghy classes around. And new classes like the RS 600FF,R Class, Tomahawk and inumerable individual foiler projects are tooling up to meet a huge demand for foils that are surely to be destroyed. What keeps these people coming back when faced with a such a sure demise of their investment?? Huh?!
Yes, it is,say it again-

Funny stuff, Douglas.

Fastest growing.. hmmm, isn't that a relative term? As in, compared to a relative percentage of the boats actually made to this point?

It goes something like this when you choose to use relative terms to boast about the growth of something.

Example: The Mormon (LDS) religion claims to be the fastest growing on the planet. (sound familiar?) Numbers worldwide?... 13 million, or so. Compare that to the numbers of followers of Islam at 1.3 billion and the Mormon claims look pretty darn puny. Geez, Doug, the Muslims have more babies in any given year than there are Mormons in total.

Your "huge demand" is all based on flimsy supposition... and you know it. There's absolutely no proof whatsoever, that there is anything like "HUGE" demand for any foiler... ever. Go get your head clear and look at the sales figures for a truly simple and rugged boat such as the O'pen BIC. Compare total foiler sales to something as innocuous as the Hobie Adventure Island SOT trimaran. Hobie introduced that boat two+ years ago and they had 500 units sold before the boat was even publicly introduced. Sales have continued apace since then. I bet that there are barely 500 foilers of all types in existence, if there are that many.

When you have your reality button engaged, you can get back to us.

And yes, $5000 bucks will always be a big number to swallow for cranked foil replacement. For that much money, you can just about buy a Hobie Adventure Island AND an O'pen BIC. Is that clear enough for you?

bistros

03-12-2009, 01:18 PM

Despite the enormous dangers and burgeoning cost of all the smashed Moth foils the class remains one of the fastest growing dinghy classes around. And new classes like the RS 600FF,R Class, Tomahawk and inumerable individual foiler projects are tooling up to meet a huge demand for foils that are surely to be destroyed. What keeps these people coming back when faced with a such a sure demise of their investment?? Huh?!
Yes, it is,say it again-

Doug, please take the red pill and you'll wake up in the real world, just like Neo did. You've been taking the blue pill so long, your whole grasp of the meaning of words is warped.

The Moth as one of the fastest growing classes? Don't think so. The are more Lasers sold in a week than there are Moths sold in a year. Yes, it has gained notoriety and is showing life signs, but it is hardly one of the fastest growing classes.

New classes? The more or less dead RS600 gets a set of foils added and it isn't burning any sales records up. Full Force aren't exactly getting to ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

R-Class boats are a local class in the southwest Pacific that have transitioned a few boats to foils - that doesn't exactly make it an international success.

The Tomahawk is a prototype being trolled through trade shows to see about interest - I doubt Ovington's have got three hundred on the build schedule. I'd be surprised if there are more than two or three in existence.

Innumerable foiler projects? Bet you could count them all on your fingers and maybe need a toe or two if you were being honest and weeded out the old, the never-repeated and the failures.

Foiling is cool, but the whole marketplace could not keep up to the number of Sunfish from the 70s and 80s still on the water today. Bet there are a hundred times are more Optis than foilers.

Take the red pill, Morpheus has been looking for you. I don't doubt your enthusiasm for one minute, but your grasp of reality is seriously in doubt.

Cheers,

Bill

Saying the same thing over and over again doesn't make it true. It just makes you look unbalanced.

Paul B

03-12-2009, 01:54 PM

The Moth as one of the fastest growing classes? Don't think so. The are more Lasers sold in a week than there are Moths sold in a year. Yes, it has gained notoriety and is showing life signs, but it is hardly one of the fastest growing classes.

Careful there Bill.

I own a little book called How To Lie With Statistics. It can be useful at times. This is a common way to make something less significant seem more significant.

If there were 2 modern Moths in the US three years ago, and now with foils there are 12, well that's a an increase of 6x. That's a pretty "fast growth" for a sailing class during that time period, statistically speaking.

Even though more Lasers might be sold every week than foiling Moths in a year's time, the Moth "growth" far exceeds the Laser "growth", on a percentage basis.

So something can easily be "the fastest growing" anything, yet still be insignificant compared to a total population. "Fastest growing sailboat dinghy class" can easily be insignificant compared to the total population of sailing dinghies.

bistros

03-12-2009, 02:39 PM

Careful there Bill.

I own a little book called How To Lie With Statistics. It can be useful at times. This is a common way to make something less significant seem more significant.

If there were 2 modern Moths in the US three years ago, and now with foils there are 12, well that's a an increase of 6x. That's a pretty "fast growth" for a sailing class during that time period, statistically speaking.

Even though more Lasers might be sold every week than foiling Moths in a year's time, the Moth "growth" far exceeds the Laser "growth", on a percentage basis.

So something can easily be "the fastest growing" anything, yet still be insignificant compared to a total population. "Fastest growing sailboat dinghy class" can easily be insignificant compared to the total population of sailing dinghies.

Agreed. Growth numbers need to be relevant in terms of the total market to be worthwhile, not just in comparison to the previous years position.

Thanks for pointing out my statistical thin ice.

--
Bill

steele m.a.

03-12-2009, 04:17 PM

I'm working on a monohull in Victoria that is assymetric when heeled ,
symmetric when upright.25' x 30' , 620 sq. ft. of sail .
markalfredsteele@yahoo.ca

Doug Lord

03-12-2009, 07:05 PM

From Simon Payne-great moth sailor:
'The Moth scene in the UK is not very active right now because it’s about minus six degrees, but it’s growing. My home club Hayling Island has got fourteen moths there now. We don’t have the depth of some of the Olympic sailors like Nathan and Charlie McKee in the US who are coming into the class quite yet, but that’s because team GBR is a pretty intense place to be right now.

'Nathan Outteridge is a professional sailor, and you can see how good he is out there. It’s wonderful for the Moth class to have people like Nathan coming into it. It’s a privilege for people like me to race against him. He’s a class act, and he’ll go far.

Five years ago the Moth class was full of people with beards tinkering in the garage and making stuff in the kitchen, and look at it now. It just makes you feel great that we’re one of the premier dinghy classes at the moment.'

Tcubed

03-12-2009, 07:40 PM

Steele, i do not understand your statement as i have difficulty imagining a monohull sailboat which retains its bilateral symmetry wrt fluid flow when heeled.

Doug Lord

03-12-2009, 07:42 PM

Steele, i do not understand your statement as i have difficulty imagining a monohull sailboat which retains its bilateral symmetry wrt fluid flow when heeled.
==================
Not only that: is it a "High Performance Monofoiler"?

sigurd

03-12-2009, 08:18 PM

probably more so than any of the others in this thread - the ones so far has had at least 4 water foils each

Doug Lord

03-12-2009, 08:27 PM

probably more so than any of the others in this thread - the ones so far has had at least 4 water foils each
---------------------------
Water foils? Hmmm....The most important thing about every boat featured so far on this thread is that they use bi-foil technology on monohulls. That is,they have just two lifting hydrofoils. That is the point of the thread,more or less......

sigurd

03-12-2009, 08:34 PM

four foils in the water... except the one with Howes' foils on it... It's almost just got three, in one of the pics. but you are right as well. nice thread btw

Doug Lord

03-12-2009, 08:39 PM

Thanks and thanks for your participation!

Doug Lord

03-18-2009, 06:46 PM

From the rclass site: ( www.rclass.org )
----------------
What's an R Class Skiff?
Extreme performance, light weight, skiff style, development dinghy class in the truest sense(see the rules for details).

Length 3.9m (max) 12.79'

Hull no minimum weight (typically 29-35kg( 63.8-77lb ) painted), 1.4m (4.59') minimum width

Construction Unrestricted (typically ultra lightweight Carbon/Foam)

Rig Unrestricted - typically two spreader pre-bent carbon spar

Working Sails Area is restricted 13m2( 139.9sq.ft.)- construction and rig plan are unrestricted - ie. wings, pocket luff, rotating masts are all acceptable

Kite 20m(65.6 ft.) circumference resulting in a 30-36m2 (322.8-387 sq.ft. ) surface area

Crew 2 (minimum)

Cheesy

03-19-2009, 07:39 PM

Doug Lord

03-19-2009, 07:49 PM

Isnt this the boat that you predicted wouldnt foil very well in light winds and would need more sail area?
=======================
Yes, if it was to have the same takeoff profile as a Moth does in very light air.
A good indicator of that is W/SA with W weight in pounds and SA sail area in sq.ft.
Moth,Mirabaud, RS600FF 2.558 or less
R Class Foiler approx. 3.13
---------
But in the area where this boat is sailed it's almost always windy enough that this really doesn't matter. It would matter in areas where you wanted to foil in the lightest wind or if you were racing a two person foiler that had a W/SA like the other boats....

Cheesy

03-19-2009, 07:56 PM

I know exactly where it sails. Interestingly, some of the future developments of this class go right against a lot of your ideas.....

Doug Lord

03-19-2009, 08:06 PM

I know exactly where it sails. Interestingly, some of the future developments of this class go right against a lot of your ideas.....
========================
Why don't you enlighten us all about how ANY of their ideas go "against" any idea of mine?

Cheesy

03-19-2009, 08:59 PM

because they are not my ideas/solutions

Doug Lord

03-19-2009, 09:04 PM

Oh, I see....
----------------------------------
Great R Class article: http://www.rclass.org/seasons/2008/foiling-fun-for-all-and-a-carbon-cook-up

Doug Lord

03-22-2009, 03:34 PM

This little tidbit was picked up on Luca Damics site ,posted March 9, 2009:
"Another interesting thing was talking to Julian Bethweite at Woolahra about the foiling 49er last Sunday. I have seen the powerboat prototype and the final configuration (at this stage) is a centreboard hydrofoil (no flaps) with a forward canard foil which will also act as a rudder sporting a small flap controlled by a wand. No rudder at back."
----------
This configuration has been tried many times and has yet to work successfully-but this IS Julian Bethwaite....

http://www.luka-damic.com/

Doug Lord

03-27-2009, 06:35 PM

Anybody interested in this subject should read the paper by Bill Beaver presented at the 19th Chesapeke Sailing Yacht Symposium. Though the paper is specifically about the Moth much can be learned that is applicable to
other bi-foilers. Here is a quote from the Summary and Conclusions section of the paper:
--------------
"--Aerodynamic drag plays nearly as great a role in upwind speed as hydrodynamic drag. Reductions in aerodynamic drag through smaller hulls, cut away tramps, faired tubing , etc. could well be meaningful.
--Higher is better. The hydrodynamic drag on the foils decreases with reduced immersion. Increased foil wave drag is not significant. The feedback control systems to hold altitude have improved markedly in the last year or two, allowing sailors to fly higher with less risk of crashing. Further efforts spent to reduce foil immersion will improve performance.**
--Existing rudder lifting foils appear too large. Experiments wth smaller foils may yet lead to improved performance."
=========
**I'm 100% convinced that a major improvement in racing performance can be
made with the adoption of a manual altitude control system with simultaneous
mainfoil/rudder foil control and easily adjustable mixing. The disadvantage is that it wil require much practice for it to become second nature-the advantage is that it will be slightly faster.
Also, on boats designed for it a manual system facillitates intentional jumping-just for the fun of it....

Chris Ostlind

03-27-2009, 07:09 PM

I'm 100% convinced that a major improvement in racing performance can be made with the adoption of a manual altitude control system with simultaneous mainfoil/rudder foil control and easily adjustable mixing. The disadvantage is that it wil require much practice for it to become second nature-the advantage is that it will be slightly faster.
Also, on boats designed for it, a manual system facilitates intentional jumping-just for the fun of it....

You don't see any serious discrepancy in the bold faced statement?

When something requires MUCH practice to get under control, that very process does not, typically, allow one to make definitive predictions as to "it will be slightly faster".

There must be a hundred different variables in the mix, the biggest being the sailor's eye-hand motor skills, coupled with an inherent potential savvy. Maybe you've never functioned at that level of sporting skill before, but there's no guarantee of anything simply because you slap on the flavor of the day, go-fast setup.

You build it, you prove it by kicking the crap out of everybody out there with that "slighty faster" potential after all the many hours of practice... and someone will sit up and take note. Breathing heavy in the microphone does not make for a done deal.

Sounds like you better get out to that shed, or Bill B is gonna get on the water with the gadget long before you do.

Doug Lord

03-27-2009, 07:26 PM

I've already sailed a manual system on my first foiler and on three rc test boats-it is doable and will allow the kind of crash free control that will allow a bi-foiler to fly higher as Beaver suggests. Others have also experimented with manual control including David Lugg/Alan Smith the R class guys and a Swiss Moth sailor(just recently). Not only is it potentially a faster way to sail a bi-foiler but it is a lot of fun-full size or rc.

Anybody interested in this subject should read the paper by Bill Beaver presented at the 19th Chesapeke Sailing Yacht Symposium. Though the paper is specifically about the Moth much can be learned that is applicable to
other bi-foilers. Here is a quote from the Summary and Conclusions section of the paper:
--------------
"--Aerodynamic drag plays nearly as great a role in upwind speed as hydrodynamic drag. Reductions in aerodynamic drag through smaller hulls, cut away tramps, faired tubing , etc. could well be meaningful.
--Higher is better. The hydrodynamic drag on the foils decreases with reduced immersion. Increased foil wave drag is not significant. The feedback control systems to hold altitude have improved markedly in the last year or two, allowing sailors to fly higher with less risk of crashing. Further efforts spent to reduce foil immersion will improve performance.**
--Existing rudder lifting foils appear too large. Experiments wth smaller foils may yet lead to improved performance."
=========
**I'm 100% convinced that a major improvement in racing performance can be
made with the adoption of a manual altitude control system with simultaneous
mainfoil/rudder foil control and easily adjustable mixing. The disadvantage is that it wil require much practice for it to become second nature-the advantage is that it will be slightly faster.
Also, on boats designed for it a manual system facillitates intentional jumping-just for the fun of it....

Chris Ostlind

03-27-2009, 07:46 PM

You've cut and pasted your own post from one hour ago? This does what?... make the things you wrote somehow more magically correct?

I wish I could do that and make it stick in my work. I could retire yesterday, simply because I said it enough times.

Sheesh.

Shall we call in the Moth foiler crew from SA to put down this vapid claim of manual control, once again. You rode around on that bag of bones idea over there and got your fanny whupped but thoroughly by the guys who actually do sail and design twin foilers. What is it, Doug.... a slow news day for you and now you are reaching back for a six month old doughnut to tide you over?

Tired claims and oblique references do not make for a substantive argument.

Doug Lord

03-27-2009, 09:12 PM

......this vapid claim of manual control
.
===============
How can you call manual control a "vapid claim" when you've never done it on model or full size? Very,very few foilers have but that will change because the quest for speed in development classes like the Moth will go after that last nth degree of speed. And, people who have NEVER SAILED A FOILER with manual control don't make particularly good advocates for the "aw hell it will never work" point of view.
I have foiled with manual control on both rc test boats on my 8 year old 16 footer-I know it works and I believe it can be mastered to a race winning level.
I think it will be used before long in the Moth class and not long after that in the R Class.

Chris Ostlind

03-27-2009, 10:35 PM

How can you call manual control a "vapid claim" when you've never done it on model or full size?

Yes, Doug, Vapid.... because that's exactly what it is right now. You know the truth here, my boy. Take a look around you and pay very close attention to the foiling boats that are in production, Essentially, you've got Prowler, Bladerider and the Mach2. Yeah there are lesser players but they are onesy/twosey outfits right now. Of these players, which production foilers are actually using a manual control system right this moment for their boats?

I know the answer if you are reluctant to look bad in spite of the boasting.

Try ZERO

Yep, that's right, this killer technology is batting exactly zero in the marketplace. Yet, the use of a manual control has been known for many years. Zero manufacturers who have the absolute best riders on their teams. Riders who would give their left stone to get an edge on their rivals. Not one major player in the bunch is interested in the manual system.

Now, I wonder why that is so? Hmmmmmm?

Very,very few foilers have but that will change because the quest for speed in development classes like the Moth will go after that last nth degree of speed. And, people who have NEVER SAILED A FOILER with manual control don't make particularly good advocates for the "aw hell it will never work" point of view.

Get over it, please. They know about it, it's been tested a lot by guys who have that zeal and the verdict is.... not interested. If you like, I'll go over to SA and get the quotes from the manual control thread and the midship wand thread. Remember that one? You know, the one where you said that it was going to be the salvation of the Moth foiling movement. Something very much like you are saying here with this bit of manual cotton candy.

So, make up your mind, will ya?

I have foiled with manual control on both rc test boats and on my 8 year old 16 footer-I know it works and I believe it can be mastered to a race winning level.

Well, the claims are still unsubstantiated as far as the 8 year old boat that nobody else saw foiling. And then wonder of wonders, the boat that could foil just stopped being sailed and then BAM! it was taken apart and shuffled off in pieces.

That manual control boat is your substance?

You speak as if this were a seminal moment in your experience and yet.... there's not one photo, or video clip of this majestic foiling event of which you speak. Not one. One would think that the whole thing would have been documented as if it were the world turning over on its axis, the way you continuously speak of it for reference.

Not one photo.

Doug Lord

03-28-2009, 12:00 AM

For those designers and experimenters interested in looking closer at manual altitude control here is a comment from Tom Speer ,post 355 of "Foiler Design". And I would like to hear from anyone with on the water manual foil control experience and/or experience with modelling it by computer or rc testing :
-------------------
" If you look at the conditions for stable flight, the forward foil must have a relatively higher heave stiffness than the rear foil, and the rear foil must cause a greater change in pitching moment with a change in angle of attack than the forward foil. This is why wand feedback to the forward foil and a fully submerged aft foil work so well together. The heave stiffness of the aft foil is virtually zero, so it does all the job of stabilizing the craft in pitch. The forward foil then is totally responsible for controlling the craft in heave.

Manual control of altitude via the forward flap makes sense, since that is the surface that really controls heave. But the big difficulty is having enough control power to handle both the dynamic change in lift needed by the control system, and being able to trim out the change in lift due to speed. With direct gearing between the wand and flap and the boat flying at a constant pitch attitude, the only way for the control system to trim out the increase in speed with lift is to deflect the flap upward, and because of the gearing between flap and wand, this means flying higher.

If the boat is trimmed bow down as the speed changes, then the reduced angle of attack will compensate for the speed and the boat can fly at its design height with the foil centered (on average). One way to get this pitch trim is with manual control of the stern flap. The speed changes less rapidly than flying through waves or even being hit by gusts. So pitch trim with speed makes sense for manual control.

It might be possible to get some automatic speed trim by clever manipulation of the hinge moments on the rudder flap. Aircraft use a device called a "down spring" to augment their speed stability. A spring with a low spring constant is used to apply a near constant nose down force to the controls. This has to be trimmed out with the trim tab. But the force from the trim tab depends on speed. So as the speed increases, the tab effectiveness increases and moves the elevator in the nose-up direction. This makes the aircraft climb, which reduces the speed.

The opposite could be applied to a hydrofoil. If the rudder flap were deflected upward with a spring, increasing speed would reduce the deflection. This would make the boat trim more bow down, reducing the flying height in much the same way as the manual pitch trim described above. You could also divide the rudder flap into two parts - one driven by the spring and the other under manual control.

Naturally, the spring force would control the amount of automatic trim change. It's better to get the force from deflecting a long, weak spring a lot, than by deflecting a short, stiff spring. This makes a bungee cord ideal for the purpose.
__________________
Tom Speer "

bistros

03-28-2009, 08:34 AM

Chris:

Doug is a very troubled person, with some serious reality issues given his behavior over the past few years online. His complete lack of social radar and non-responsive method of dealing with reality make him impossible to reason with, and a very frustrating person to deal with.

From history you know EXACTLY how Doug is going to respond to every situation. From history you know exactly what effect reason and logic will have on him - none, zippo, nada.

Doug has not surprised me with a single thing he's written in five years. The single event that did raise my eyebrows is that Doug did manage to get his emotional outbursts under control at Sailing Anarchy enough to be allowed to rejoin posting. I honestly thought that controlling his emotions was too much of a challenge for him.

Save your hairline and forget about him. I'm trying to. He is beneath you.

--
Bill

alans

03-29-2009, 06:24 PM

To clarify a point and add to the debate(s). When David Lugg and I were developing his foiled int 14, we dismissed using any sort of add on device to measure height because it was clearly outside the class rules. Hence, we went the manual route. From my manned and unmanned flight background I was very well aware that it was necessary to have the CofG forward of the CofLift of the combined foil pair(wing and tail plane) for the aircraft to be aerodynamically stable and for man in the loop control of an aircraft via elevator to be satisfactory. This criterion limits aircraft to a relatively small CofG range. Once autopilot control is introduced and provided it be designed correctly for each aircraft type then the allowable CofG range can be extended well into the unstable region. Modern fly by wire fighters are deliberately designed to be “aerodynamically” unstable. This results in both wing and tailplane lifting in concert and hence an improved aerobatic performance. Aircraft are traditionally control in pitch via the elevator; using the elevator to change attitude and hence climb rate at when at the height required level out, again using elevator control. It transpires that one way to fly aircraft is the technique used in flying gliders and that is to use pitch attitude to control speed (mg sin theta is normally many time better at providing thrust than the propeller) and engine power to control rate of climb. I get off the subject! There are of course some aircraft, which are canard controlled, and unstable canard is superior to unstable elevator control when it comes to aerobatics.
Stability is best understood by analysis of dynamic motion through differential equations, Laplace transforms and review of results in the complex plane or the frequency domain. When all the (4) roots of the denominator of the resulting transfer function are negative (i.e. in the left half plane) the system being analysed is stable. To achieve aerodynamic stability with a canard configured aircraft the forward flight surface is usually smaller than the wing and the CofG is somewhere near the leading edge of the wing. In developing the 14 this configuration was not further considered as we saw the incompatibility between the rig demanding a specific CofLateral resistance and the position that would be necessary for the main foil. In addition, in the early stage of developing the 14 manual control via flap was also ruled out in favour of a simpler engineering solution enabling control from out on wire on both tacks without having to graft a third arm onto the skipper. One outcome was that man in the loop control with an unstable configuration was not as difficult as in the aircraft case as the damping of any pitch perturbation is much better in water than in air and David was able to reduce the rudder foil area considerably from where we first started. Manual control will always necessitate more rudder foil area than automatic wand control via flap. There have been a few pilots capable of flying an unstable aircraft by they are rare. Another outcome is that manually flying the foiler was very exhilarating to the extent that the extra workload was not conducive to successful top end competitive racing.
The questions are can a foiler i.e. moth be manually controlled via the flap on the forward foil and is a canard system feasible i.e. large rear foil smaller front foil. The answer is definitely yes. However, before investing a lot of efforts in proving this consider first that the existing wand to flap control is, from a control system stance, extremely robust. Because it is automatic and robust it is stable over (compared to an aircraft system) a very wide range of speeds and CofG positions. For those considering canard or manual control or both, it is possible to answer the questions precisely with mathematical analysis and this is the way any aircraft designer would go long before cutting metal and trialling the hardware. You cannot expect to again achieve Fastacraft success with “suck it and see”” add hoc” methods.
Bottom line, I see manual control as a fun exercise but where class rules permit, automatic control as absolutely necessary for competitive racing. As far as canards are concerned, I cannot see a configuration that does not add wetted surface area and the two best ways of improving performance are to reduce all up weight, increase the span of the foils and reduce the total wetted surface area. Selection of foil sections and windage drag are secondary issues but become important as a class of foiler becomes or virtually becomes one design. On the question of all up weight, I think the international moth guys should consider weight correctors so that the heavier guys have some chance of winning in light to moderate conditions.

Doug Lord

03-29-2009, 07:10 PM

Thanks, Alan. I had such interesting results with my 16' foiler with manual control and with three different models that I think the "“suck it and see”” add hoc” method" holds some promise-at least for me on the new boat. The major change I will make is to add simultaneous control of the main foil and rudder foil with 100% adjustable mixing. I have a hunch ,based on the first boat and models, that this could make a major difference in terms of improving control and "feel". It is so simple to try that nothing is lost if it doesn't work as well as I think it can.
At any rate, the mathematical analysis of the system is beyond my skill set-and experimentation is not-we'll see.

sigurd

03-29-2009, 08:40 PM

the moth auto system seems robust but they do crash at times. i've seen vids where the front foil surfaces and ventilates and then crashes. A manual control override could be faster than moving your body - if this issue (if it is an issue?) cannot be fixed by more gain in the wand system? Or is the (perceived) problem due to no more AoA/flap range in the main foil?

Why does a canard system have more area?

alans

03-30-2009, 12:25 AM

Doug

I don't say suck it at see will not work ; this technique has not been applied to aircraft for near a 100 years. However S and S is much more fun specially if you strike gold. Go for It.

alans

Doug Lord

03-30-2009, 06:48 PM

alans

03-31-2009, 05:54 AM

Alan, just to help me understand more: a wand moves the mainfoil flap several times a second in waves-if you had an altitude control system that eliminated that flap movement would there be a significant reduction in drag?

Doug
The simple answer is yes, but once you are at speed the increase in induced drag is small and the "flapping" contribution is about 10% of the small number. What the best solution is, is a much more complex question? The answer can be found by running many hours of simulationor or many hours of sailing an instrumented boat either in a test tank or the sea. Reducing the gear ratio wand to flap will reduce the magnitude of the osscilation but possibly also increase the drag of both foils. The drag is also effected by the heavy motion of the water the foils are running through. For a longer wave maitaining a constant angle of attack relative to the water motion will be the lowest drag solution. In short chop the reverse will be true. It is a good thesis topic for a stability and control masters student. The solution will require independen control of height bias and wand to flap gearing in order to manage the wide range of conditions experienced.

Doug Lord

03-31-2009, 06:29 AM

Thanks,Alan!
===================
UPDATE: check out Alan's performance prediction program here: http://dougculnane.blogspot.com/2009/04/foiler-performance-calculations-from.html

Doug Lord

04-05-2009, 11:15 AM

The foiling 49er has finally flown under sail! More coming up....

bistros

04-06-2009, 08:57 AM

The foiling 49er has finally flown under sail! More coming up....

You just don't get it Doug. Once non-class association approved foils are installed to make it foil, it is NOT A 49er any more. The class association of owners democratically decide what is, and what is not a 49er.

Part of the "deal" in getting the world to invest in a one-design class is that the people who pay the money get to decide future directions. Just like the A-Class cats rejected foiling and the R-Class accepted it.

From what I've read, they've opted for front foil steering and have really changed the basic 49er into something very new and very different. It is great that the Bethwaites are playing with foiling, and they chose a 49er hull blank as their canvas - but it is NOT a 49er. Get it?

--
Bill

Doug Lord

04-06-2009, 12:36 PM

bistros

04-06-2009, 01:00 PM

Hows this: The "not a 49er" Bethwaite designed foiler using a Bethwaite designed 49er hull has just flown.
Comments he has made to me indicate he may not even be considering production of this boat as a "round the course" racing boat. We'll see....

Doug, this is one of the most rational posts you have ever made! It is important to keep the information you distribute and disseminate accurate. Loudly proclaiming news about a "Bethwaite Foiling 49er" gives the distinct impression that this is a sanctioned, democratically-approved development that could affect (crush?) the millions of dollars invested in 49er racing, club level all the way to the Olympics. Making sure people understand this is a one-off project by the Bethwaites, with no class association approval keeps things in perspective.

No one knows what the Bethwaites intend with this project as far as I know. I suspect that much like Frank's HSP projects it may be the first quasi-public step into a future foiler which would probably be bespoke designed for the purpose. There is very little evidence either Julian or Frank build Frankenstein-style boats based on existing ideas when they decide to get serious. I would expect a Bethwaite foiler to incorporate a rig designed for the foiling application, it's high speeds and need for reduced drag. Either the old or new 49er rigs are not optimal for the foiling application.

Again, thank you for the simple, rational response!

--
Bill

Doug Lord

04-07-2009, 05:46 PM

49er hull,49er rig=foiling 49er:
(pix by skiffman on SA)

bistros

04-07-2009, 05:53 PM

49er hull,49er rig=foiling 49er:
(pix by skiffman on SA)

Your rationality lasted one post. No surprise there.

This is NOT a 49er.

Doug Lord

04-07-2009, 06:13 PM

There is no way you could deny that the boat in the picture is a foiling 49er.
That is, it is a 49er hull with a 49er rig flying on foils designed by the designer of the boat. It is an experiment and is no threat to the 49er class-get over it!
---
Is this a Foiling I-14? I guess you'd agree the other boat is a Foiling 18, wouldn't you?

Boston

04-07-2009, 07:05 PM

Dam we have the dorkiest fights around here
we do the same thing over on the climate thread

Doug Lord

04-07-2009, 07:19 PM

From Julian Bethwaite on SA:
"Hi Guys, that was our second outing, probably up 25% of the time, first outing we where only up 10% of the time, maybe because the skipper (me) was 20+kgs heavier than Nathan (Outridge, present 49er WC) who is steering in these shots with my son Harry in the beak both times.

Harry steered also, think we may have got the highest speed with Harry steering, 2 sail reaching (there is a spin on board but you over run it way to fast and its a 49er sport (flat) spin.

Wind speed was mostly 10-12 knts, and we had a peak speed of 21knts (velocitek) averaged over 2 secs, lots of 20+s so we are pretty happy. On the first sail max speed was 16.7 in approx 14 knts of wind.

Lot of little things to do, may make a new front array, but its working far better than we had hoped at this stage.

Unlikely to go sailing/foiling again till after Easter, boat is being stripped down again ( approx 1 hr work) into a "real" 49er so Harry can train for Garda.

BTW, the rudder in the back, is just so we can get in and out of the mooring here at Woollahra, its removed as soon as we get free! As our confidence grows, we will despense completely with the old rudder or may a short stub rudder just when the boat pitches heavily nose up, may be nice at 25 knts to have some steering apparatus in the water. Lots of potential nose pitch downs, (nose dives) but its as safe as houses, you dont worry about it.

This, BTW, is a extrodinary succcess for Dad, who did 75% of this, by this, I mean make the arrays and wet sand the foils, huge effort. We will get him on the beast in a month or so, when we have better control! Not bad for a old bugger who turns 89 in a month.

He deserves the credit mor ethan anyone. Im a lucky boy,

Julian"

Doug Lord

04-08-2009, 06:45 PM

New pix from the front page of SA:
Also shown-Clive Everests foiler with electronic foil control and twin daggerboards in a "conventional" configuration:
----------------------
update: comment by Julian today on SA about the foiling 49er"
" Bora is correct re steering System, in fact we end up with poor steering because we underestimated the loads on horn.

The pitch is very stable.

Way to early to comment further, there is simply way to much to learn, next sail is likely to be Thursday.

JB "

Paul B

04-08-2009, 06:52 PM

New pix from the front page of SA:
Also shown-Clive Everests foiler with electronic foil control and twin daggerboards in a "conventional" configuration:

Where are the photos of the boat you keep saying you are builing? Where are the technical drawings of it that you claimed you were going to show us last month? What's up, couldn't con anyone into doing the work for you?

booster

04-13-2009, 10:58 AM

Hi!

This is a very interesting foiler. Has the design been developed further?

Regards,
Booster

sigurd

04-13-2009, 11:18 AM

Hi booster -

Which one do you refer to?

Dlord: What is a "horn"?

booster

04-13-2009, 11:46 AM

Sigurd!
I am referring to the design by Julian Bethwaite. The 49er with foils added. It was said to have been tow-tested. There is a lot of posts on the subject here. Perhaps I have missed some information. If one acually sailed it, it must have been more complicated compared to, for instance a Moth with foils?
Regards,
Booster

Doug Lord

04-13-2009, 12:41 PM

Booster, the foiling 49er has been sailed and continues to be developed-over 20 knots first few times out.
-----
Sigurd, I think what Julian was referring to in that PM was a control "horn": a piece attached to the rudder extending out from the rudder a bit where the control pushrod(or control lines) is/are then attached.

booster

04-13-2009, 01:03 PM

Thanks Doug!
It will be interesting to follow the development of this foiler.
Regards,
Booster

bgulari

04-13-2009, 03:08 PM

Doug Lord

04-13-2009, 07:10 PM

Here you go,Sigurd. You can see the lines coming off the foil shaped horns; click on the image to make it a bit larger:

Doug Lord

04-17-2009, 06:04 PM

From Gulari post on SA:
"Not sure I quite believe it but the Velocitek said 28.6 knts max speed.

Wind was between 10-13 knts. Big difference was the big fat bastard at the front hauled the main sheet on bloody hard as we came out, much tighter sails, just check out the forestay sag.

Longer more sustained flights, more in control, main foil was letting go occasional as we came right out.

Very quite, quite amazing feeling as it was wound up, and the deceleration was amazing, more so than Trilogy sticking its nose in.

Julian "

Doug Lord

04-19-2009, 02:48 PM

Interesting to note that there are now three twin trapeze foilers, three triple trapeze foilers, and two single trapeze foilers in various stages of development! Pretty impressive-and those are only the ones known about.....

Doug Lord

04-19-2009, 06:06 PM

Heres a little tidbit published by permission of Paul Roe:
--
Foiling L3 does Horizon Job
--------------------------
On Saturday 24th of January, the foiling R Class completed its first official race distance and did a horizon job on the rest of the fleet. Sean Milner and Dan Leech easily won the 2 lap Parsons Rock harbour race. Paul Roe and Jess Hix on TheVirtual were a comfortable second, but well over ten minutes behind. If it hadn't been for a couple of dramas on L3 the margin would have been much greater: they lost quite a bit of time rethreading the mainsheet on the first run when it went out through the blocks, and even more on the second beat when Sean had to swim 50m back to the capsized boat after falling overboard.

TheVirtual crew had a clean race and pushed the whole way, but the conventional R was totally outclassed by Sean and Dan on foils. After one lap L3 was just dropping its kite at the bottom mark as TheVirtual gybed at the Cashin Quay breakwater. We're now really starting to see the potential of the foils.

booster

04-20-2009, 07:24 AM

Doug!
I am not totally convinced about the 49'er with foils. There is no flat water under it, in the photo above. Pehaps they have to incorporate a horn in the design. This may have the possibility to satisfy the Weber conditions. And put the knuckle in the Cd-Froude diagram further to the right. One have to be carful, though, to not trigger the Strouhal frequencies with the horn. Reynold, on the other hand should be no problem. A slight modification to the sail-plan is probably needed at this speed. To fully benefit from the Kutta second-order vortices.
Regards,
Booster

Doug Lord

04-20-2009, 12:47 PM

Well, booster, they've apparently done over twice the wind speed and are close to the highest peak speed ever recorded for a Moth. Not too shabby.... And you've got one of the best development teams in dinghy design looking at this thing. Early days-but very impressive so far.

Chris Ostlind

04-20-2009, 01:24 PM

There's nothing impressive about this report at all.

One would expect that a boat with significant reduced wetted surface would seriously outpace the standard boats in the same class.

This is like a 40 hp 4 cylinder VW engined* sports car racing against a 160 hp 4cylinder Porsche engined** car with the same body. Both engines from the same basic design, but one having been breathed-on in a more than significant fashion.

Of course the Porsche powered car is going to kick butt on the VW version.

Want to know if these guys have it all going on....? Put another foiler in the same race and class them both differently from the standard boats as they exist. Allow the drivers to switch boats between races and let's see if the mentioned boat is still raging fast. My bet is that it is not when comparing apples to apples.

Yes, I get that this is a development class and stuff will happen that may make the boats faster. Is that the whole, simplistic reason why all of us go sailing? Can the rest of us afford to install foils on our boats at a USD$5-8K clip just to go faster? Want the answer to that, then look at the hotrod culture of cars....

The stuff to go faster has been out there for several decades, now and it still only appeals to a slim percentage of car enthusiasts. Everyone in the car world knows that a turbine engine equipped auto will absolutely shred a conventional piston powered machine, yet there are precious few turbines running around embarrassing the V8 crowd of car nuts.

So, why is that? Is going faster not all its cracked up to be? Has the cost/benefit quotient seen its better days? Is the hassle of maintaining the more exotic machine just too much for the average guy? Has the expense issue driven most of the followers away in favor of less costly, more driveable vehicles?

This is a non-issue that seems to be pushed by those who think it matters.

It doesn't

* one barrel carburetor, vacuum advance distributor, single stock cam, moderate cylinder compression, stock valves and openings, mild valve springs and stock intake and exhaust manifolds, with slightly enlarged and flow modulated exhaust and muffler.

** twin, two barrel carbs, mechanical advance distributor, aggressive cam shaft timing, high compression pistons, cylinders and heads, heavy duty valve springs, larger valves and openings, ported and relieved intake and exhaust manifolds, coupled with large diameter exhaust pipes and mufflers.

bistros

04-20-2009, 06:52 PM

Just for objectvity:

I believe that Frank Bethwaite is more than capable of making serious breakthroughs in foiler performance, especially if aided by his son Julian (and grandson Harry). These people were at the center of similar performance gains in skiff classes, and have both the engineering and physics skills to get the job done.

If the initial reports of speed are credible (and I think they are), getting 28 knots out of the new 49er rig is amazing on the test foiler platform. With a purpose built low drag rig, I would expect serious improvements perhaps on the order of 10-15%.

I would not be surprised in the least to see this team reach 30 knots within a year or less.

Again, for objectivities sake, I don't think this would be a serious candidate for a production boat. Julian's reports of massive deceleration problems make it a less than general-public safe ride.

--
Bill

Doug Lord

04-20-2009, 07:02 PM

The "deceleration" referred to is directly related to the altitude control system which will improve dramatically (as it has on the Moth) as time goes by. An interesting thing about the Foiling 49er is that with an upwind SA of 215 and approx. all up weight of 588lb gives a W/SA which is higher than almost every other current foiler except the R class.(lower is better in light air) The Moth,RS600FF,and Mirabaud are all about 2.5 or less. More than anything this speaks to light wind takeoff but watching the R and 49er in under 10 knots of wind will be enlightening.
I think(and hope) that the Bethwaites will do a second foiling 49er soon to help them make dramatic gains. Thats about to happen in the R class and they will sure learn a lot-and hopefully we'll all gain as a result.

Paul B

04-20-2009, 07:19 PM

Heres a little tidbit published by permission of Paul Roe:
--
Foiling L3 does Horizon Job
--------------------------
On Saturday 24th of January, ...

So the wannabe is posting an months-old article about someone else's project, yet still can't post the drawings or photos of his project that has been "in build" for years.

Can't get anyone else to do the engineering and drawings for you?

bistros

04-20-2009, 08:11 PM

So the wannabe is posting an months-old article about someone else's project, yet still can't post the drawings or photos of his project that has been "in build" for years.

Can't get anyone else to do the engineering and drawings for you?

Maybe I'm losing my mind, but I posted a response to you regarding the right word to describe our friend .. and that word was "sycophant". It looks like the invisible editing police are out, removing posts. I sure hope this site isn't getting all Dick Cheney / media control about what is posted.

If a post is removed, I would expect the courtesy of notification and provision of a reason. If this site is being manipulated and content being altered without poster's permission, I'll leave or start a competitive site without editorial oversight.

booster

04-21-2009, 05:22 AM

Doug, Paul B, bistros et al
The Bethwaits are doing good work on the 49'er. Doug's and Ernest's posts have qualities. Information is spread.
Regards,
Booster

bistros

04-21-2009, 06:41 AM

Doug, Paul B, bistros et al
The Bethwaits are doing good work on the 49'er. Doug's and Ernest's posts have qualities. Information is spread.
Regards,
Booster

Booster:

Along with some valuable information, much mis-information is spread by Doug Lord. His "work" lacks objectivity and balance.

Doug is controversial and his provocative, confrontational approach generates strong response from people - causing lots of page reads and clicks as people slow down to watch the car wrecks. Unfortunately, Doug makes up for his lack of real experience and ability with VOLUME, drowning out people like SimonN, Bgulari and other real experts who actually have serious experience at performance sailing.

I completely understand how many folks may come to believe Doug's posts - but with actual time and real experience on the water sailing performance boats much of what he says starts to look .... unbalanced. Doug's true value is that he does a lot of information consolidation from all over the Internet - saving some people the effort of doing their own research. The problem is that Doug's research only provides one side of the case - pro-foiling.

If you make the effort to check out Doug's sources, you will often find that things are very different than Doug presents - he edits and shapes his posts carefully.

Do the exercise yourself - and form your own opinions. Let the forum know your results.

Now watch how fast Doug complains about my suggestion to form your own opinion.

--
Bill

booster

04-21-2009, 09:58 AM

Bistros!
As I recall Doug and Ernest were early with there critics of the canting-keels of the Volvo Ocean Race last time. Some of the designers had assumed the hull to be infinitely stiff. This assumption imposed bending to the hydraulic pistons. Since some bearings only were designed to rotate around one axis. Moreover, Doug and Ernest pointed out that the base of the hydraulic system shall be as wide as possible. But as you say we cannot have desinformation. This is a difficult line to be drawn here.
Regards,
Booster

Doug Lord

04-21-2009, 06:42 PM

Booster:

1) much mis-information is spread by Doug Lord.
2) Unfortunately, Doug makes up for his lack of real experience and ability with VOLUME, drowning out people like SimonN, Bgulari and other real experts who actually have serious experience at performance sailing.

3) The problem is that Doug's research only provides one side of the case - pro-foiling.

4)If you make the effort to check out Doug's sources, you will often find that things are very different than Doug presents - he edits and shapes his posts carefully.

5)Do the exercise yourself - and form your own opinions. Let the forum know your results.

--
Bill
===============
1)This is absolutely false! I make a serious effort to find out whats going on in the development projects quoted in this thread-to the point of contacting the people doing the work. I talk to many of these guys on a regular basis and
not only do I learn a lot I try to pass it on to the forum thru this thread-and a lot of people think I do a damn good job of it.
2) This is worse than false-it is a deliberate lie: I have been sailing for 54 years now and have sailed and raced many types of boat from the gaff headed Fish class, to the Windmill, Thistle, Flying Dutchman, Windsurfer,Catamaran windsurfer, numerous catamarans and two trimarans and a cat of my own design. I've been involved in foiling for over ten years-first with rc boats including designing,building and marketing the worlds first production rc foiler the F3. I've done numerous model experiments that have led to my new experimental boat. I've got a few hours(including foiling) my first full size foiler-the first bi-foiler(that I know about) in the US. Not a great success but a great learning experience since it was designed over 10 years ago. I've had the great pleasure to work with Dr. Sam Bradfield in development work on his 40 ' Scat. And the second hydrofoil I sailed was one of his Rave multifoilers-which I sail to this day.
3) Again, not true -I make it a point to try to understand the negatives(both real and imagined) about foiling and where I can shed light on the FACTS.
4) This is pure malarkey since-as anyone who reads what I post knows-I try to quote the developers of these exciting boats directly-I let them do the talking. And again my sources for the information posted here are the developers themselves!
5) PLEASE form your own opinions-but PLEASE get the facts first! Thats the whole point of this thread-to provide the facts about these high performance monohull foilers. A very small group of anti-foilers attempt to disrupt this and other threads about foilers but if you look carefully you'll see that they almost NEVER post any facts-unless they make them up-they cannot enter into a discussion without personal attack and ridicule as their foundation. Too bad.....

bistros

04-21-2009, 07:04 PM

===============
1)This is absolutely false! I make a serious effort to find out whats going on in the development projects quoted in this thread-to the point of contacting the people doing the work. I talk to many of these guys on a regular basis and
not only do I learn a lot I try to pass it on to the forum thru this thread-and a lot of people think I do a damn good job of it.

Doug, your participation here and on Sailing Anarchy is done with an agenda - promotion of primarily foiling and other fringe high performance technologies. Your content shows this to be self evident. You do not foil, have not presented any evidence of foiling, and have not presented any evidence of having sailed in the past five years. Your sailing activities appear to be limited to the Internet.

Can you present any pictures of you sailing in the past five years? Evidence of Yacht Club membership? Any people willing to advocate to either of the above?

===============
2) This is worse than false-it is a deliberate lie: I have been sailing for 54 years now and have sailed and raced many types of boat from the gaff headed Fish class, to the Windmill, Thistle, Flying Dutchman, Windsurfer,Catamaran windsurfer, numerous catamarans and two trimarans and a cat of my own design. I've been involved in foiling for over ten years-first with rc boats including designing,building and marketing the worlds first production rc foiler the F3. I've done numerous model experiments that have led to my new experimental boat. I've got a few hours(including foiling) my first full size foiler-the first bi-foiler(that I know about) in the US. Not a great success but a great learning experience since it was designed over 10 years ago. I've had the great pleasure to work with Dr. Sam Bradfield in development work on his 40 ' Scat. And the second hydrofoil I sailed was one of his Rave multifoilers-which I sail to this day.

Your age is not evidence of sailing. I seriously doubt you sail at all. You posts regarding performance sailing are not representative of Portsmouth Handicap data in regards to fastest boats, and your obvious lack of around the buoys racing experience leads you to claim that peak speeds attained (Moth Foilers) are more relevant than performance across all conditions.

Models are useful tools for providing limited feedback on concepts, but not everything scales.

===============
3) Again, not true -I make it a point to try to understand the negatives(both real and imagined) about foiling and where I can shed light on the FACTS.

Facts are conclusions drawn from data generated in repeatable circumstances via experimentation and peer review. This data is generated in response to a thesis postulated documenting the issue and questions to be asked. Facts are not tidbits gleaned from Internet posts by individuals. You seem to support a theory that facts are found in blogs and forums.

Many of the things you represent as facts are just posts in sources like Rohan Veal's blog. This is anecdotal evidence - not facts.

===============
4) This is pure horsemanure since-as anyone who reads what I post knows-I try to quote the developers of these exciting boats directly-I let them do the talking.

People are perfectly capable of following links and reading sources themselves. When you quote other people's work, you have a habit of quoting only the sections that support your claims. Better to post links to the original person's work and let people draw their own conclusions rather than yours.

===============
5) PLEASE form your own opinions-but PLEASE get the FACTS first

Doug - what exactly is a fact you? How does it become a fact? Who gets to decide if a blog post is a fact?

People are perfectly capable of forming their own opinions about topics discussed here and elsewhere - and many people have the education and experience to make their own determination as to the quality of your content.

Doug: Some pertinent questions:

1) When was the last time you sailed a full size boat?
2) When was the last time you foiled a bi-foiler?
3) Can you present ANY evidence of this? This would include a Yacht Club staffer or director willing to vouch for you.

Chris Ostlind

04-21-2009, 07:06 PM

Unfortunately, Doug, literal truths to you are only facts when they support the things which you wish to champion. You do tend to ignore all other properly presented facts that do not support your precious arguments. This has been shown time and again as real experts in their fields have put forth their hard won opinions, only to see you begin flinging vitriol filled accusations in their direction. The observations by Bistros regarding your responses to Bora and Simon are classic examples of the above mentioned behavior pattern. These are two guys who would flat-out leave you in their wake should you have the sand to go out on the water against them. Yet, you refuse to engage, honestly, that which they have to say.

This is not only disengenuous, it's hovering very close to fraud.

The day you start to acknowledge the arguments of others through proper conversational skills, is the day you will begin your real journey. Up until now, you have only painted one side of the house in which you live.

I think that you can do much better. There's no time like the present.

Doug Lord

04-21-2009, 07:38 PM

1)You do not foil, have not presented any evidence of foiling, and have not presented any evidence of having sailed in the past five years. Your sailing activities appear to be limited to the Internet.
Your age is not evidence of sailing. I seriously doubt you sail at all.
2)Models are useful tools for providing limited feedback on concepts, but not everything scales.
3)Many of the things you represent as facts are just posts in sources like Rohan Veal's blog. This is anecdotal evidence - not facts.

=====================
1) What an absurd comment! I have no need to present "evidence" to someone who has shown a willingness to make absolutely false statements about me-regardless of the facts. Suffice it to say that my work and the numerous pictures of boats I have designed,built, sailed and foiled speaks for me. I would hope that no friend of mine would ever "vouch" for me as a result of the absurd comments made here(or on SA)-it is not necessary!
2) But foiler design scales remarkably well!
3) I use Veals site as just one of over a hundred sources of information-you are not in the real world when it comes to categorizing me,what I write, my sources, my experience and my knowledge!

--------------------------
see my gallery for few pictures of boats I have designed, built(one off and/or tooling),sailed and/or foiled over the years.

booster

04-22-2009, 04:50 AM

Well,
Seems that Doug and Ernest need some (limited) support here. Yes, we cannot have des-information and editing of others posts. On the other hand, as an exampel, the forgotten critical load-cases of the canting-keels were early discussed by Doug and Ernest. The "surging phenomenon" as well as the load-case when the boat falls down a wave with the canting-keel in its extreme position was dealt with. To this date I not sure of what "surging phenomenen was", but the falling down the wave is more clear.
Regards,
Booster

bgulari

04-22-2009, 05:00 AM

Doug Lord

04-22-2009, 06:51 AM

bistros

04-22-2009, 07:56 AM

I could add about 4 other doug invented terms if i cared to look back at all the times he told me I did not know anything. The one that always makes me chuckle is when he was pontificating about how l'Hydroptère does not generate any RM at all from being on the foils.

Oh well I do my fair share of not being able to communicate my thoughts but at least I dont tell people who are doing it that they are idiots

The interesting point here is that bgulari is the current US Moth Class foiling leader (and National Champion) - and has consistently placed in the top ten worldwide in international Moth foiler regattas. Oh, yes he is also a qualified graduate Aeronautical Engineer, with extensive composite fabrication experience. He provides product testing and review to Andrew MacDougall (KA Sails), Bladerider and many other performance sailing product developers. He's also been known to be a top Melges helm that is in serious demand for regattas.

Here we have a undeniable expert in the field that has taken exception to Doug's representations in the past.

Doug DOES provide a valuable information collection function - doing people's surfing for them in effect, but it would be far more beneficial if he let people draw their own conclusions rather than imposing his own "theories" as an "expert".

--
Bill

booster

04-22-2009, 08:42 AM

bistros

04-22-2009, 08:57 AM

Bistros!
True, but Doug and Ernest have a digging function as well. Remember the America's Cup in Auckland some yeras ago when the challangers started to "let" water come in to the boats, so the displacement was "undeliberately" increased. Doug and Ernest showed some style and onle referred to what Dennis Conner did years earlier on an R-12. Established designer's with expertise and knowledge were shakened by what was revealed. We all know what happened. The NZ had in a legel way increased to displacement by carringing watar outside the hull inside the second appendage allowed by the rules. The NZ realized to late that the challangers carried water inside the hull. In a last attempt the NZ boat was taken to shipyard and rapidly modified. The rest is history. The increased loads causing the boom to brake, the mast to fall down and water over the deck. The digging function by Doug and Ernest et al must not be forgetten. Still, we cannot have des-information and retyping of other posts.
Regards,
Booster

I've clearly acknowledged Doug's "digging" function. He seems to have an amazing amount of time to trawl the Internet searching out pro-foiling information. My difficulties arise from his selective presentation of that information, representing anecdotal evidence as fact when it suits, and dismissing other information completely.

Doug's mission to promote foiling and other fringe performance technologies is perfectly evident from his post history. His representation that he is expert in these topics is suspect - and his repeated dismissal of requests to provide proof casts further doubt.

I would be happy to acknowledge that Doug is an information collector par excellence. My opinion on his selection, evaluation and interpretation of that information is not so high.

Cheers,

--
Bill