No Foilers in WSL

This is the new, proposed big cat for the 2009 World Sailing League One Design being led by Paul Cayard, Russell Coutts and Euro Sports marketer Joao Lagos.

Nice, expanded design from the big multis racing in Switzerland.

Pay close attention.... No banana foils and no T-foils, as described in the proposed design. This makes for a very interesting, as well as powerful, comment from the best match racing sailors in the world as to the suitability of lifting foils for high speed multihulls.

Since this series is being drawn-up from a clean sheet of paper, there would be some very distinct decisions as to the lack of foils for these boats when all the guys involved know all about their current and past use. Apparently, Cayard and Coutts also rejected canting keel equipped monohulls for these events.

I'd love to hear the comments

 

Foil Assist

I think it's a bit early in the development of big foilers to have thought the WSL would select a full flying Hydroptere type design as the basis for the WSL. But it's not too early for the use of foil assist which has been well proven on ORMA trimarans and on at least one production boat. Rudder foils have also been well proven.
I was only a little surprised(given the first post of this thread) when Paul Cayard wrote back today saying the boat would use curved daggerboards- similar to those on the ORMA 60's-
to generate vertical lift. I wouldn't be surprised at all if a decision to use rudder foils(maybe molded as an integral curved unit) is made down the line.
The success of both curved daggerboards and rudder foils for "foil assist" is well proven on multihulls.
I want to thank Paul Cayard for his informative reply!

E-mail message

From: paul@piratesracing.org(Paul*Cayard) Date: Sun, Feb 11, 2007, 1:58pm (EST-3) To: lorsail@webtv.net ('Doug Lord') Subject: RE: 70' Cat
Thanks Doug. No T-Foils but I think the daggerboards will be curved to create vertical lift.
Paul Cayard
Cayard Sailing Inc.

 

Technique

Like all good days out fishing the flats... have patience and eventually the prey will rise to the bait.

Thanks, Doug.

 

interesting

I don't know either Cayard or Coutts personally, though I've been closed to Coutts a few times. I'd say he is not the kind of guy who wants to make experiments.

So here we go. People wanted a class of fast multihulls, and obviously, reliable and (reasonably) simple as well. As you point out, they took a lot of inspiration from the Decision 35 class currently racing on Lake Geneva. An aggressive, but fairly simple, design (which wasn't w/o some flaws, w a couple masts breaking in light conditions in the early days).

Foils? Well, I see foils emerging here and there on light monohulls (the Moth, a couple experiments w 18-footers), but I have not yet seen any on multihulls. Why would these guys have elected an option involving something that does not work yet, resulting in budget explosion, and unreliable boats? It's just plain common sense to me.

As far as i'm aware, the only serious foil multihull project on Lake Geneva is going to be the Hydroptere.ch, a joint project between Hydroptere and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) - the aim of this being to produce a flying multihull in the 35 foot category - but not before maybe 5 years.

I personally don't have a camp - whatever produces a faster boat, is best. But certainly when you're deciding on a new class of boat and you want to make it simple, you don't go for pure experimentation.

Look at the America's Cup class boats: they're too narrow, too heavy, and way too slow. An IMOCA 60 goes about as fast if not faster upwind, and nearly twice as fast downwind. Does it therefore "prove" that light displacement, wide and flat hulls with water ballasts are a poor design? Not at all. People made a choice that they thought would produce the best racing boats, not in terms of pure speed.

 

Maybe this is not the right way

Hello all,

For my two cents worth, and lets remember they are opinions only, I don't care what these guys race cause it doesn't matter. I can go back 20 years, to Formula 40s or Formula 500 and see the same thing - telly rights, greater exposure and from where I am it is the same.

I don't believe making sailing more explosive will make it more popular. Making it more accessible may. The Hobie 16, like the Laser and J24 make supreme level sailing available to the average guy for not much money. They are all popular and all have sailing performance as only one of the design criteria.

Russel Coutts and co make money from sailing but I am not sure of they switch people onto it. For me I would love to see us develop a multi racer in the same mould as the Etchell 22 or J24 - fast enough for racing but able to be used as a sailing school boat, an afternoon racer, a family weekender (just) and a world series racer. Multihuller racers seem intent on speed but the most successful race boats are poretty slow (Laser etc). The cruisers worked out that speed was only one reason why people like our boats but there are more important ones (space, usability, heel, privacy, deck area, lack of roll, shallow draft etc).

Farrier hooked it with the F27. It was expensive compared to the Etchells but is the best any multi designer has done so far in getting a design to appeal for all over amenity. Then again even he can't get it cheap enough.

So my vote for a great boat to watch on TV goes to a simple one design, slow (so they can get close and bump each other) smallish, trailerable folding multi (so they can fit on a trailer ) with lots of sailors. If people watch golf then this has got to stand a chance. If no one wants to watch don't worry - we don't need our sport validated by couch potatoes watching.

cheers

Phil

 

Foil Assist

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Antoine, the kind of "foils" I was referring to and that Paul Cayard said would be used on the 70 footer are similar to the lifting "banana foils" on ORMA 60's which are well proven and carry a substantial portion of the displacement when the main hull is flying. Foil assst has been proven on other multies besides the ORMAS- on Formula 16 cats where rudder t-foils aid the boat upwind and downwind- and on the Catri Tri-and others.
Foil assist is NOT experimental; it is a well proven technology that Cayard said( 2nd post) would be incorporated on these boats.
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Phil, seems to me that if these guys wanted slow boats they might have picked a leadbelly. Since they've picked a large multihull I'm sure they considered the importance of speed in their concept particularly if these boats are to be one design. I would think that a state of the art design would be important so that the boats are not out-classed almost immediately by more sophisticated development.
Whether this will be a successfull concept is really and open question but I personally think it has a better chance starting with an advanced design. You have a good point about the F40's and I really don't see what these boats will offer that they didn't...

 

I'm sure there were lot's of considerations when putting the WSL package together. But I doubt if any of their thinking was technology driven.

The whole thing is a 'circus' and entertainment. They are primarily concerned with producing a spectacle on television that will sell advertising. After that, thier next concern is packing up the big top and moving the circus from town to town. I bet that the shape of these boats and their choice not to use heavy lead keels is controlled entirely by their analysiis of the load carrying capacity in weight and volume of an Antanov heavy lift aircraft.

 

BINGO!