16' Eagle FBL, an MPX Foiler-the Actual Boat

[Doug Lord]

I'm starting this thread because of my brother Frank and because of a gift he has given me that will allow me to do this boat in a hurry.(see the last page in this thread: High Performance Self-Righting Trimaran: The Test Model )
A bit about the project name: "Eagle" was the name of my brothers Windmill back in the days when we each had one and raced a lot. "MPX" is the name of a foil system that I have developed that will be the system used and proven(or disproven) with this boat. Because I have severely injured my back the boat has to be very light, easily handled(little to no crew movement) and easy to transport.
Further, most of the components will be made from existing parts as much as possible.
--Hull-Blade F16 from Falcon Marine(Matt McDonald)
--Foils same or I'll build-have the rudder foil,
--Mast-cut down A Class wing mast similar to a Saarberg "stiff" section from Matt.
--cross arms-probably a Forte 3.2" carbon section-4 -7' sections-hinged or plug in for trailering
-- amas- cut from 1.5lb styrofoam then covered with .025" carbon sheet that is already finished on one side; edges are then carbonated,
Tentative specs:
LOA 16'4"
Beam 14' 8"
Weight 170lb all up
SA 153 sq.ft. main and jib
-crew sits on side of cockpit and can move a sliding seat about 2' if required.
-two foils on main hull:
a. main foil uses dual wands connected to a flap on the foil, 5-7 degree angle forward with on the water adjustable angle of incidence.
b. rudder foil is a Moth mainfoil section and rudder is a Moth daggerboard section. On the water flap adjustment and foil angle of incidence adjustment-flap connected to extension tillers.
-possible screecher and light air geny.
---------
Should receive the funds late February or early March-will complete design in meantime.

Picture: Blade hull, from the bow, Blade F16-the new boats mast will be about 8' shorter than this rig and 70lb lighter:
click on image:

[Doug Lord]

Here is a description of how the MPX foil system works and what it is. One of the experiments that will be tried on this boat after getting her sailing is using a planing ama with and without a foil. Initially, however, the ama will be connected to the cross arm with a "curved piece" just like in the SRT model and the ama will be nearly identical to the SRT ama:

1) Max Pressure-the boat will be designed to have max RM before depowering at about 1.8lb. sq.ft. of SA(up to 2.4 in gusts-see below). After that the boat will need to be depowered. The max RM of an F18 catamaran allows it to sail in 1.8lbs pressure with two guys on trapezes-then they have to depower.
-
2) Heel control- the MPX tri uses a bi-foil system on the main hull. That is what allows it to fly the main hull in light air which is one of the principle advantages of the MPX system. The boat should fly the main hull in 6-7 knots wind. The main foil uses a wand altitude control system set so that the nominal altitude of the main hull reflects, approximately, a 8.5 degree angle of heel with the main hull at 1' above the water. The wand controls that angle as the boat goes faster. A funny thing happens as the boat goes faster:it was originally able to fly the main hull because of foil lift but as the boat goes faster the heeling moment reduces the weight that is required to be supported by the foils on the main hull. The main foil continues to be unloaded as the boat goes faster, reducing induced drag(drag due to lift) until the main foil is not lifting at all. In the meantime, the planing ama and/or the ama foil take more and more of the load until the boat is nearly 100% supported by the ama(planing and/or foil). An important consideration in all this is that though the main foils are relieved of their light air responsibility to lift the main hull they still perform an important function: pitch control. The only way the planing ama and/or foil can work properly is if the running angle of the planing hull and/or the angle of attack of the ama foil are controlled fairly precisely and that is exactly what the main foils do in heavier air when they are not lifting the boat. The prefered setup is a more or less "normal" ama fitted with a specially designed curved lifting foil. The curved lifting foils on larger tris can be designed to support up to around 70% of the boats weight with the reserve ama buoyancy controlling pitch. On this boat, the ama foil lifts 100% of the boat and pitch control is from the foils on the main hull. Sometimes, on the old ORMA tris, the ama would fly out of the water-that would eliminate the only pitch control the boat had- and a crash was likely. On this boat, if the curved lifting foil lifts the ama clear of the water nothing bad happens because the main hull foils are controlling pitch. A side benefit is that the ama curved lifting foil can be designed to fly the ama higher and higher as speed increases ,reducing wetted surface with the foil behaving as a surface piercing foil.
-
3) Gust response- this is a side benefit of using a wand-based altitude(sailing angle) control system: at the point where the ama foil is fully loaded and the main foil is unloaded and should there be a gust that wants to heel the boat the wand causes the mainfoil to pull down automatically increasing RM for the gust duration. This kind of response can be designed to allow a temporary increase of RM of up to 30% or so.

Pictures: MPX-12 model--MPX system with planing amas 12' LOA,
click on image-

[gypsy28]

Sounds cool, if you need a test pilot let me know

DAVE

[Doug Lord]

Checked on being able to use a Bradfield Osprey Foil as my main foil: no deal,
waaay too much money. Plan B coming up....

[Doug Lord]

Been looking at costs for masts, sails, tubes, foils etc. Just a few years ago I could have built every component-no problem. It looks like I may have to build the amas as cost to have that done appears to be way too high-same with the main foil and two curved foils. And ,damnit ,I'm not sure I can do it with my back problem. Very discouraging!

[Richard Woods]

There's a nice foiler trimaran on today's Sailing Anarchy

Richard Woods of Woods Designs

www.sailingcatamarans.com

[Doug Lord]

Thanks Richard, I'll check it out.
UPDATE: Richard, thats my friend and mentors Osprey-the thread is here: 18' Osprey Multifoiler from Dr. Sam Bradfield $60,000(Sixty Thousand Dollars)

[Richard Woods]

I should have guessed that. No need to guess the price though

Richard Woods

www.sailingcatamarans.com

[Doug Lord]

Originally Posted by Richard Woods

I should have guessed that. No need to guess the price though

Richard Woods

www.sailingcatamarans.com

----------------------
When I learned the price I was shocked-but I really shouldn't have been.
The workmanship is first class and the thing is relatively light. The foils are built in a really labor intensive way compared to Moth foils-they can be much lighter-if I get the ok (and still want to) Matt McDonald said he would build me a foil much lighter using the Bradfield molds-2500 instead of the normal 4000.
----
As I said earlier, my costs to do this foiler are substantially exceeding my first estimates and fast reaching a red line.

[Doug Lord]

Originally Posted by gypsy28

Sounds cool, if you need a test pilot let me know

DAVE

---------------
Thanks ,Dave!

[Doug Lord]

Some additional tid bits of comparative info/specs:

Tentative specs:
LOA 16'4"
Beam 14' 8"
Weight 170lb all up
SA 153 sq.ft. main and jib
-crew sits on side of cockpit and can move a sliding seat about 2' if required.
-two foils on main hull:
a. main foil uses dual wands connected to a flap on the foil, 5-7 degree angle forward with on the water adjustable angle of incidence.
b. rudder foil is a Moth mainfoil section and rudder is a Moth daggerboard section. On the water flap adjustment and foil angle of incidence adjustment-flap connected to extension tillers.
-possible screecher and light air geny.
---------
SA/WS(on foils)- 14.86/1
Weight/ SA= 2.61 ( with 230lb crew(gives weight leeway)-compare to Moth, C Class Cat, A Class Cat and Osprey here-Osprey "corrected"specs last post. These boats were compared with a 175lb crew: 18' Osprey Multifoiler from Dr. Sam Bradfield )
Note: that SA/WS for Eagle FBL is for a nominal foil loading at about 12 knots boat speed at the first moment the curved lifting foil supports all the weight of the boat. Because the ama foil behaves like a surface piercing foil as speed increases the wetted surface for this foil will decrease. Also note that at this point the main foils are no longer lifting the weight of the boat-they are strictly for pitch control from here on up speed wise.

[Doug Lord]

Just received a quote from Competition Composites(formerly Phils Foils http://www.fastcomposites.ca/site/ ) for the curved foils for this boat including trunks:
$1800 cores, laminated to the radius and section(63412) I specify,
$1600 carbon lamination of the core,
$900 , trunks that allow angle of incidence adjustment.
====
Total= $4300(canadian dollars-but there is very, very little difference)

These guys are the best that I know of-I'm not sure I can afford this though-since I drastically underestimated cost in my preliminary figures.
-------
Other known and estimated costs:
1) Hull-Blade 16' $1000 plus $1000 mods(est)-$2000 total. Falcon Marine( http://www.falconmarinellc.com/ ),
2) 28' new Forte( http://www.forterts.com/structural.html ) 2.8" tube for cross arms-$2044
3) Mast, repaired A Class wing mast, est. -$1100
4) Sails-$1600 Sails by Morgan( http://www.villageoutfitters.com/sails_by_morgan.php ) est.(high tec material)
5) amas(and "curved pieces"-see SRT thread) $2500-experimental- styro and carbon, Rockledge Architectural(Sharon Dixon)( http://architecturalfoamandart.com/ ) and Falcon Marine.
6) Main foil/Bradfield mainfoil,daggerboard and trunk $3500-Falcon Marine.

Total including curved foils above: $17,044

For that I get an extremely fast small tri with better Sa/ws numbers than most small boats including the Moth. The only small tri I know of that can say that. And we all know how things change in building but I'm fairly certain of my weight estimates and there is built in slack.

[Doug Lord]

Just received this e-mail. I had written to Phil Brander(Blade hull designer) to try to get a profile drawing and hull sections so I could do detailed drawings of the new boat. Apparently, I can "reverse engineer" the sections but can never make any drawings public. This also means I can do absolutely nothing on this boat while I am waiting. The combination of this and the unanticipated high cost will probably squash this project for now since it is essential that I am able to publish drawings down the line. So, this probably means I can't use this hull since any development of the project would infringe on Branders intellectual property-which I don't want to do-and apparently no license is possible outside of the Blade Catamaran. It's a great hull and suits my purposes perfectly but instead of getting into a potential situation that could compromise the future of the project I'll design my own hull-if I do the project at all- which looks very unlikely.
The e-mail from Blade Catamarans:

Hi Doug,
good luck with you project, would be great to see how it turns out, keep in mind the Blade hull was designed to a specific set of efforts, it might not be fit structurally for your design.
The foils were never drawn, and purchased via AHPC or FormulaCatamarans or VW. I hope you understand but we cannot release hull sections, it is intellectual property, if you reverse engineer it for your own purposes it is another thing but you should not make any drawings public. We will look-up the CB positioning along the rocker, this is something we can send over.


Best regards,
Blade Catamarans

[idkfa]

I honestly don't see why you can't publish the drawings, "IF" it is, you develop them from reverse engineering. You'll need to state that on them, that they my not be accurate.

If one were to make a copy, a hull from them, then there will surely be an infringement.

Also I'm sure he would not like them published, but aren't plain old pictures copies?


If I listen to a song and write down the lyrics and publish, and NOT reprint from the CD jacket. Then have I violated any IP laws? Singing the song publicly, that's a whole other ball game.

Where is my thinking flawed? Can one have protection against reverse engineering?

[Doug Lord]

Originally Posted by idkfa

I honestly don't see why you can't publish the drawings, "IF" it is, you develop them from reverse engineering. You'll need to state that on them, that they my not be accurate.

If one were to make a copy, a hull from them, then there will surely be an infringement.

Also I'm sure he would not like them published, but aren't plain old pictures copies?


If I listen to a song and write down the lyrics and publish, and NOT reprint from the CD jacket. Then have I violated any IP laws? Singing the song publicly, that's a whole other ball game.

Where is my thinking flawed? Can one have protection against reverse engineering?

===========================
It's an interesting area but one I don't really want to play in. If the guy was enthusiastic that I use his hull it could be made to happen. He doesn't know me from Adam and is interested , primarily, in protecting his interest. I really don't blame him-it's just that I was under the misconception that the Blade design had been surpassed in cat design and was as available as the the hull at Falcon Marine is. I was wrong. So be it. I'd rather use a hull of my own design anyway but I probably can't afford to do the project now anyway.