Where are the catamaran innovations?

[Fanie]

Let's say, free thinkers enjoy breathing the fresh air out front of the madding crowd. And you don't belong to the latter, do you mate?

It all of course depend on how many are out in front. If enough is out front that becomes the best to hold back a bit... to escape the madding crowd

[Fanie]

All this is a testament that the statement "foils are the way of the future" is not too far off the mark!

Dough, I agree with Chris. While many people will have an interest in foils, I very much doubt it will become the majority or the most popular. There are too many directions of interest, just see how many people still prefer mono's over multi's, and even though it doesn't stand to reason to you and I it is the way it is and it is always going to be like that. That it is going to have it's fans is a given, for sure.

Foils are associated with speed and racing, and I can assure you every one of us over 97 years of age is already not looking foreward to foils

Originally Posted by Fanie

Dough, I agree with Chris. While many people will have an interest in foils, I very much doubt it will become the majority or the most popular. There are too many directions of interest, just see how many people still prefer mono's over multi's, and even though it doesn't stand to reason to you and I it is the way it is and it is always going to be like that. That it is going to have it's fans is a given, for sure.

Foils are associated with speed and racing, and I can assure you every one of us over 97 years of age is already not looking foreward to foils

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Thats ok Fanie-I think you're both underestimating what has already happened-not just what is about to.....

[sigurd]

Fanie, change your association to seakeeping then. One of the reasons for a long boat is the nice-ness of the pitching motion. If you are for one reason or other constricted in length, I think a lot of pitch damping can probably be done with lifting foils? To accomodate the sedate 97year old crowd, I think it is perfectly possible to build a slow hydrofoil boat too! Doesn't have to fly to be useful, at all. You can always put your old Ford in reverse if it goes too fast!

Good,Sigurd! Been done FOR YEARS with anti-roll foils on big ships and power yachts.
Check this out if you think t-foils are just about racing and speed: http://tamethesea.com/default.aspx

[sigurd]

Which reminds me, when I was on one of my first fishing trips on a large ring-net (what ever is the english word - big floating net for small fish) boat, I got the task, in inclement weather, to hang out the "slingre-lodd", a metal ring hung from each gunwale, dipping in and out of the water, to dampen roll.
I also changed the distilled water on the propellor bearing, once every shift, for a while. It was the captain himself who freed me of these tasks eventually, since his cabin was right next to where the slingrelodd hung.

[sigurd]

Here is a link to shuttleworth pertaining to cats, tris, seakeeping, pitch damping, even foils are mentioned.
http://www.john-shuttleworth.com/Art...itFertalk.html

[Gary Baigent]

Chris,
Amongst the waffle I pick out the main drift of your argument and that is the major disadvantages are never addressed by foil exponents. Well the only disadvantage I can see is that first you have to accept that all appendages underwater are foils - and the main disadvantage with truly lifting foils is that they can hook things and break, just like any underwater appendage and that includes keels, canting keels, anti-leeway boards and rudders as well. Look at how many underwater foils Mini-Transat, Vendee Globe and Volvo boats have? I can see no more disadvantages with these types of foils than with the various forms of lifting hydrofoils. They can all be a problem but it is a universal problem with all sailing craft - and one that everyone lives with.

Well said, Gary!

[johnelliott24]

Regarding "foiling as the future", I have to admit that I sailed as a kid and am now just getting back into it in my later years -- so I am a complete beginner. For most of my life I have been building road racing cars, not boats. But I did have the great experience of having my neighbor, as a kid, be the lead designer of Dennison the first large hydrofoil, (I believe). He would take me out when I was six years old in his little prototypes. We'd hit logs sometimes and that would be the end. Since then hydrofoils have not taken hold, and that was many years ago -- your doubts are well supported.
Exploring how to make foiling practical, my boat "Precarious!" uses leeboards for foils, similar to Hydroptere except that mine are real leeboards that swing back and up. The idea is that they are simple to operate, beach, etc... and they can hit logs, run into kelp, etc... You can sail with or without them and when you want them you just swing them down. Their angle of attack is set with a simple eye bolt that you can screw by hand. They remove from the boat with one nut that is imbedded in a wood handle (so they are hand tightened and the nut can drop into the water and float).
The boat also rigs very rapidly. I have not timed it but I think I can go from disassembled, on the trailer, in the parking lot, to sailing in 15 minutes. My goals are not top speed, but simplicity and to be faster than my Tornado in any wind condition. If Precarious! can do that then she will be a lot more fun than the Tornado in all respects. (The Tornado is a real pain to rig and not very good in chop or light air.)
The Trifoiler is fantastic, but rigging is complicated and it is not made for light air. If we can solve those problems and add foiling then we might have something that is of wider interest.
Precarious!2 is finished and waiting to be sailed. I'll post some pictures when she hits the water to get some feedback from all of you. Thanks.

[catsketcher]

Hello all

At the risk of getting in the way of an earful I have to agree with Chris. Speed - not just foilers - does not seem to be the way most people want to sail. Most people still sail monos - they suit people's needs, most people sail slow monos because they people's needs best. After a 100 years of skiff sailing in Oz skiffs are dying and most classes are only sailing in clubs where they are subsidised. Yet Lasers have huge fleets. Speed is not the problem.

I think all sailors would love a go on a foiler but that many would not like to own one. At least that is what I hear when we see the foiler Moths around here - it is "wow! - now when does the Laser race start."

Sailboarding killed itself when it went from easy tough long boards to a quiver of short boards. Sure wave jumping looked great but most people voted with their feet and the scene died. Kayaking has done just the opposite as it has gone from fragile glass boats to rugged, heavy slow sit on tops - that are selling really well. I think Chris is right to tell any prospective planner that any large volume boat will be compromised - it will probably get filled with stuff and that is heavy. Considering how light foilers should be it is only proper that he should tell the proponent that the boat will likely not foil at all.

Responsible foiling proponents should be conservative in their imaginings of the future and need to make sure that newcomers have their dreams firmly planted in reality.

cheers

Phil Thompson

[Fanie]

I can see where the cheating wrt foils started. I have nothing against foils Sigurd and Dough, I have a set of them on my outboard as well. Gets the boat on the plane easier when it's filled with fish

One must distinguish between foils for power boats and foils for saiboats.

That they have an advantage in the case of a power driven boat is a given.

Sailboats is a different matter, the water isn't forced from a concentrated area over the foil like with a prop, the only thing that makes a foil work is when water moves over it, ie speed in the case of a sailboat.

If you want stability, get a multihull, mono's are already handicapped with tons of lead, now you guys want to add a metal ring hung from each gunwale. That sounds desperate enough already.

If you're in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging. I'd say you're digging the hole just deeper and deeper

The difference between a daggerboard and an underwater foil is the daggerboard can be trimmed up, not the foil. If there is any kind of obstruction the foil is going to get cought in it. Even if a daggerboard gets caough in ie a net, it can still be trimmed up to go free. If the same happens with a foil you may have to get the diving gear out.

If a prop does get cought in something under water it can mostly be freed by reversing the prop direction and on most sailboats one can trim the rudder.

[sigurd]

Yeah - the banana or "V" foils can be lifted though, and those that are not through hulls.
The metal ring and distilled water were jokes they liked to play on newcomers.

If you view Mr. Ostlinds post #58 in the narrow vein of a response to John Elliott,whose comments about foils on traditional boats may need some further study-that's one thing.
But in fact, he goes much further-decrying foils for any use ,at any time. He blasts some guy he refers to as "Mr. Takes a Lot of Heat" for daring to suggest that a hydrofoil could be developed that would have mass market appeal-a "Peoples Foiler"-if you would. And suggests that the use of foils in any wider arena than they are now is preposterous.
He goes on at length about foiling problems presuming, in his inimitable style, that these problems have not occurred to foiler designers. His presumption in that regard was well summed up by Gary Baigent in his post above when he said:"I can see no more disadvantages with these types of foils[underwater foils on mini-transat, Vendee Globe and Volvo boats] than with the various forms of lifting hydrofoils."
Ostlind says that "the technology has been around for a very long time now. It has not compelled the boating public to demonstrate an overwhelming desire to run off to the boat store." That comment completely ignores the facts. The Hobie trifoiler and Rave were nearly the first,if not the first, sailing hydrofoils ever offered to the boating public. In history. That's like looking at the automobile when the Model T came out and saying cars would never amount to much!
His comments, as is his wont, also ignore the incredible new foiling technology brought to sailing in the late 1990's. No thinking person can ignore the revolution in sailing dinghies being made by the implementation of this technology in AT LEAST 5 current dinghy classes as well as the numerous designed-from-scratch bi-foiler projects currently under way.
Bi-foiling applications from Kotaro Horiuchi's bi-foiling trimaran, to a bi-foiling cat, to the 26' Mirabaud are expanding every day.
But it doesn't stop there: Ostlind frequently mentions ferries that used to be hydrofoils that are now cats-but he fails to note that many of them use hydrofoils between the hulls. He neglects to mention new technologies like DSS(Dynamic Stability Systems) that use a single sliding foil to increase stability or the new technology using retractable t-foils for roll AND pitch stability augmentation.
And then there is "foil assist" proven from the I-14, to the Stealth beachcat to the Catri Tri and ORMA raceboats to increase speed and/or seakeeping ability.
In as many threads as I have looked with wonder and appreciation at the progressive developments in the applications of lifting foils , Ostlind has decried them with comments not based on fact but gleaned from suppositions he has made from a very small data base or invented completely.
If you study this phenomenon you can see that there is an incredible technological revolution going on.
Who amongst us, 10 years ago, would have thought that an 11' MONOHULL could beat every CAT and monohull under 20'-or even come close??

[Fanie]

I have nothing against speed. I just don't think foils are going to become the standard thing to have on your boat. They are already a class on their own but mostly for racing.

On power boats there are numerous advantages. In AU is a passenfer ferry I saw once (I think) that runs on foils, if it is still there. Gives a comfy ride and the crew get to offload the passengers much sooner.

However, even despite the advantages, not all new power boats are now made with foils, most are not.