Foiler Design

Originally Posted by Lorsail

The boat is not sold but because of time constraints I have not yet flown the thing. There are some small nitpicking problems to be corrected but generally I believe the boat will foil and be fairly fast. Time will tell.
The aeroSKIFF™ is the prototype for a two person monofoiler designed to be able to be sailed off of inland/intercoastal beaches. In the first series of tests in light air it sailed very well as a sailboat. I expect the same results as a foiler.
As a foiler this boat (and foils) are designed to be able to jump for the hell of it: The skipper will be able to overide the wand and /or use manual control to physically cause the boat to jump clear of the water and safely re-enter. At least thats the plan. I believe it's possible and could be a lot of fun....

You might find more time to finish your project if you spent less time on the internet stating the same things again and again. Not to mention the time wasted with useless TMs and Pat Pends.

Let's hear no more about jumping until you lift off at least once.

At least I sign my name to my comments. Are you so unsure of yourself you need to hide? Unable to engage in a proper discussion because of some disease?
I feel sorry for you.....

[NiklasL]

Who is at present owner of the Monofoiler "Dancer"?

/Niklas

I am....

[Paul B]

Originally Posted by NiklasL

Who is at present owner of the Monofoiler "Dancer"?

/Niklas

Is it correct to refer to this as a foiler if it has never foiled?

It's certainly a wanabe foiler; it is designed as a foiler and equipped with foils. It started life as a foiler on a piece of paper not as just a sailboat. It is designed to fly and it will fly...

[NiklasL]

I am very impressed with the new little prototype (www.microsail.com)Dough! It must have taken ages to make it work though it still is small! Maby I should not obstruct you from working with the boats. Hope you make a lot of progress!
/NL

[National3434]

Guys, please withdraw your claws, sign your mails and help me understand what is happening in this Neil Pryde marketed foiling windsurfer.

See http://neilprydemaui.com/itemDetails.php?id=48 for the full sales pitch.
I have attached a pic of the foiler in action and a picture of it on the beach. (will this appear in the message I wonder, look on the URL for them if that is easier).
The foil system seems similar to that used on the Air Chair, a kind of wing and tailplane arrangement. But to have resolved all the forces and achieved stability seems quite an ...achievement. It ought to be rather draggy and of course the fact that it can fly does not neccessaraly mean it is any faster than a planing board in the same conditions. Certianly looks good.

[Wardi]

This development is interesting and has been publicised for around 18months or so. It started out as a basic Airchair foil under a sailboard but looks from the photo that they have lengthened the distance between the foils, presumably to give better longitudinal stability, making it easier to balance, keep flying straight and faster, less twitchy etc.

The problem is that height control is completely up to the skipper moving body weight. Clearly it is possible to sail the thing but it is not easy to get really top speeds and sail in all conditions.

Miller has provided foils for this development in the past and proposed using a surface sensing canard, but it appears there is more interest in making this a "fun" machine on which you can "whoop & holler" than a speed or racing machine.

It will be interesting to see how it really performs!

I got lucky about four months ago over at the Caleema site at Kelly Park on Merrit Island(near Port Canaveral).
A guy had made his own board-very wide- and added an "air chair" foil to it. He was able to get about 15 seconds air time max before coming back down but the board was never really down. It literally skimmed the tops of the waves and had a noticably different motion (no pitch induced slapping of the waves) than the other boards. He had about three hours practice at that point. He said the flight sensation was incredible-quiet with complete control. You have to "get" the technique according to him. Speed compared to other boards was faster by a small margin than most of the boards with a couple of guys faster than him even when he was flying. About 30 boards sailing that day...
It was an awesome spectacle! The guy never crashed once-he would sort of drift up(good altitude) and back down.The only foil board I've ever seen and really made an impression on me.
From a design standpoint altitude was strictly the riders abiltiy to control pitch aided by the design having the little tubular extension with a small rear foil.He said athwartship balance was not an issue. The main foil is delta shaped with the tips sort of turned down. He could get a more or less steady altitude of one foot to eighteen inches. Pretty cool..Very inspirational!

[boogie]

hi guys,

i have been following the hydrofoil windsurfer project of Rush Randle and Kevin Ozee for quite a while.

it is certainly interesting and kind of works. but to be honest there are a lot of things that need to be sorted out with their configuration.
they only have very limited experience in the field of hydrodynamics and they seem to be going more along a trial and error path, rather than getting some professional help and do some research. they further hold a patent for their single strut configuration which they are trying to sell licences for and are willing to defend in court.
nice way to choke any efforts of other competitors to bring the sport forward...

the foils and strut they use is from solid machined aluminum. the foils itself look more like plat plates with rounded edges... it still flies though.

according to Kevin the maximum speed they reach with their current set-up is close to a normal freeride windsurf board. control at higher speeds is what's holding them back.

they have gained a bit of control by shortening strut to 70cm and lengthening the tail which increases the distance to the stabilizer foil at the back for more longitudinal stability.
but IMO there are huge gains to be made by changing the current configuration a bit more radicallly.

the configuration they have now is inherently unstable.
with a certain angle of attack on the lifting foil the strut is raked forward and the foil is sitting in front of the strut. the smallest defection of the strut and the foil amplifies the disturbance. i think that is the main reason why they have to use those solid aluminum parts.

i've got all te parts together now to build a [non commercial] version of my own.

cheers
boogie

[GDelerm]

Hi everybody,

My name is Gérard Delerm and I am French. I try to work on a windsurf with hydrofoils.
http://gerard.delerm.free.fr
My design is close to Rich Miller’s one.
I have still a long work to do because I have some problems with drift forces on the rear foil strut.

Boogie quote :
"i've got all te parts together now to build a [non commercial] version of my own."

Good luck Boogie. Give us news please.

Gérard

[ErikG]

Well Ian is neither that old or very "grand" but I guess he does qualify for the title as he was the first to foil a dhingy .

I met Ian in a cold and grey Stockholm last sunday. Time passed quickly as we only had about two hours to chat, but it was inspriational to say the least!
Ian showed a number of pics of his various moths and different foiling configs over time. Very interesting indeed! So now I'm filled with inspiration and hope to complete my moth design in a few weeks. Wether it'll all work... well that's what it's supposed to be for, learning and developing.

Now I just need to decide if Im going to buy a burvill mast and a KA sail or not before the hull is done... If I buy it before it's done, I'll just have to complete it don't I?... Well it's an academic question at the moment as I don't have the cash right now.

Some time has passed since the intense passing of ideas culminated here quite some time ago. I still have yet to hear of anyone actually succeeding using anything other than the Ilett config... Anyone?

Ian Ward has had a lot of firsts including first to fly a two foil dinghy ect but unfortunately (you can't have everything) he was not the first to fly a monohull dinghy(monofoiler). That honor belongs to a guy back in the 70's (I think) who put a three foil surface piercing foil set on a 470. Pictures in "Icarus-The Cat That Flys". Loaned my book to a friend so I can't look up the guy's name..

[ErikG]

Sorry, I must have gotten that part wrong
But he was the first making a "centerline" foiling system on a dinghy wasn't he?