Moth on Foils: 31.1 knots (35.8 mph)

[DGreenwood]

In Mr Ostlinds defense---he makes no claims to making quantum leaps in performance sailing. That is the domain of Mr Lord and so he deserves all he gets. Sort of?

Originally Posted by DGreenwood

Doug
The moths are cool...they aren't going to revolutionize sailing. Hell most of the sailing comunity still thinks the bulb keel is revolutionary.

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D, the Moth foiler has started a revolution in monohull sailing that has seen a small monohull beat much larger skiffs not to mention A-class catamarans and others. The bi-foil technology has demonstrated that sailing on just two foils is not only possible but is the fastest way around a course in the Moth class upwind and downwind in a large range of wind and wave conditions. The low takeoff speed(and getting lower) of the Moth foil/rig system has opened the door for a foiler that can be used in most of the conditions found around the world surpassing multifoilers like the Rave and Hobie trifoiler in that respect. This technology has opened the door for others in the I14, 18, RS 600, and soon in sportboats and larger. Numerous people worldwide are working to apply this technology to an easy to sail(on and off the foils) Peoples Foiler. Applications of the technology in foil assisted versions to change the sailing characteristics of a wide range of sailboats is possible.
It is, most certainly, a revolution in sailing.

[DGreenwood]

Originally Posted by Doug Lord

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D, the Moth foiler has started a revolution in monohull sailing that has seen a small monohull beat much larger skiffs not to mention A-class catamarans and others. The bi-foil technology has demonstrated that sailing on just two foils is not only possible but is the fastest way around a course in the Moth class upwind and downwind in a large range of wind and wave conditions. The low takeoff speed(and getting lower) of the Moth foil/rig system has opened the door for a foiler that can be used in most of the conditions found around the world surpassing multifoilers like the Rave and Hobie trifoiler in that respect. This technology has opened the door for others in the I14, 18, RS 600, and soon in sportboats and larger. Numerous people worldwide are working to apply this technology to an easy to sail(on and off the foils) Peoples Foiler. Applications of the technology in foil assisted versions to change the sailing characteristics of a wide range of sailboats is possible.
It is, most certainly, a revolution in sailing.

Yeah but Doug...the question is: Can a fat guy wearing red pants and a blue blazer while smoking a cigar and drinking a single malt scotch take his prissy big haired wife out for a sail on Sunday afternoon on a Moth? No?...well your screwed then. They are toys for guys like you and me. They are not going to radically change sailing for the general populace for a very long time.
Note: I did not say never...I said that about carbon masts and wing keels and I have learned my lesson.
How many guys on the planet can sail one? Can you?

[Chris Ostlind]

Hey Wet, the point, which you apparently missed, but can glean from reading through the archives, is:

Doug has relentlessly spewed on behalf of all things foily for more than, ... let's just say it has been a long time now. It's his answer, along with any other flavor-of-the-month high tech solution, to what ails the boating industry.

The knock on Doug is simply because he has taken the liberty, at every chance he gets, to blow really hard on his horn of foiling hyperbole. This time, in his eagerness to scream it from the rooftops once again, he has actually eaten the message due to faulty use of yet another high-tech solution and his overeagerness to be the dude who scoops the planet with the news.

I didn't say the instrument mis-use was Doug's fault; just his willingness to act as a dupe for the foiler guys while they flog each other with performance claims. His issues are separate from the GPS gaff. I also gave him credit for getting it out there publicly, such as it was.

If you like, you can call it the anti-hype that keeps things on an even keel, so to speak. Hell, you can call it anything you like.

Could you imagine the response if some huge Naval Architect started shouting, "I've found the key to the future of sailing" And then, less than one week later, he says, meekly.... "Oooooh, my bad... My assistant forgot to carry the one in my calculations. There is no such key. In fact, once you do the math correctly, the result I get is actually worse than where I was last year"

Oh no, wet, nobody's gonna thump Mr. NA for that faux paux. You are, however, free to buy into anything Doug says as many times as he says it. Or, as he un-says it, as the case may be. Do you know the story of the little dude who ran around shouting, "The sky is Falling"?

[quote=

How many guys on the planet can sail one? Can you?[/QUOTE]

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I'm too heavy for a Moth but I have sailed my own two foil foiler on foils-not too satisfactorily. And I'm going to be building the new ,improved version down the line.
There are HUGE area's ripe for improvement with this technology-like having retractable foils(M4) buoyancy pods for ease of low riding,"shiftable" foils etc.
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The fact is that the application of this two foil technology in both full flying and foil assist versions, in monohuls AND (sorta)multihulls has huge potential to change the way people think about sailing and speed under sail as well as what they sail.

[DGreenwood]

I have a question for you Doug.
How long have foils been around and what is the difference between the foils then...and the ones now?

[Vega]

Doug, do you know about Thomas Jundt and his Australian 18ft on foils?
The boat went at 22K at the first trials .

Some videos and links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhebg...elated&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAol7...elated&search=

http://www.google.pt/search?sourceid...omas+jundt+aet

Regards

Vega, thanks, I've corresponded with Thomas and he has a thread right here to which I've contributed. Thomas, and a few other guys-many with help from John Ilett and Fastacraft- have proved that this bi-foil technology can be applied to different types of boats. It's just a matter of time before larger boats use the same technology.
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DG, foils have been around for a long ,long time as I'm 100% sure you know. The major advance made by the Moth pioneers was foiling on just two fully submerged foils. That took even seasoned hydrofoil sailboat designers and sailors by surprise-two of which told me personally that a two foil hydrofoil sailboat was impossible. Of course, an experienced Moth sailor and foiler said last year that there could be no foiler bigger than a Moth that could foil(first) and then amended that to say "foil upwind". Proven wrong.
Before 1999 all foilers that I know about had either three or four foils.
So, the major difference between "then" and now is: fewer foils. Add to that very improved technique which has allowed the foiler Moth to be among the highest pointing small dinghies. Another area of vast improvement is in low windspeed takeoff.
In the other thread you portrayed yourself(if I understood correctly) as being very interested in high performance sailing and in helping projects involving high performance sailing get started.
Have you tried a Moth foiler,another monofoiler
or any of the multifoilers? Are you(or have you been) involved in any foiler projects that you care to talk about? Would be interesting to read your comments.....
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Major omission between then and now: carbon/epoxy which is probably the greatest "enabler" of the modern foiler.

[DGreenwood]

I am not a foiler. Interested but only as a bystander and avid supporter. If I were 20 years old I am sure I would be right in the middle of it. Hell I doubt I could get one flying for even a second. I certainly am not up on them enough to contribute anything technical to this crowd.
My time is spread thin enough right now anyway..

Recently I have been squandering all my time on Open class boats.

And yeah...carbon has changed the whole sailing world.

[gggGuest]

Originally Posted by Doug Lord

So, the major difference between "then" and now is: fewer foils. Add to that very improved technique which has allowed the foiler Moth to be among the highest pointing small dinghies. Another area of vast improvement is in low windspeed takeoff.

Some other things that need to be considered.
Firstly the best Mothies are world class boat handlers. Up there with the full time Olympians - indeed some of them have been exactly that. Talent is probably worth 20% of the final speed, and where Rohan and Simon hit 25knots I'd be lucky to get to 20. In some speed sailing circles the importance of raw sailing talent is grossly underestimated.

Secondly the Mothies are really the first to consistently balance the boat properly, Previous foil implementations tended to be very much about the one guy sitting in the middle and let the foils sort out roll. trifoiler and Rave for example. Well that's an awful lot of extra work the foils are doing, and that has to be drag.

Thirdly the Mothies are *exceptional* at very light weight structures.

These get us to the first really successful Moth sailing implementation, Bretts 3 pointer. There were two more jumps to come.

The bifoil configuration is the most obvious one of course. Two surface piercing foils instead of three, less drag of course, but also better handling in waves, a bunch of advantages.

But the really critical one is technique. The windward heel . Why is this critical? It means that there is no great sideload on the surface piercing foil, so the drag is down again.

So there are a whole lot of features with what the Mothies have achieved that really are a major advace on what had been done before...

[Jon Howes]

A tentative question:

This is not my area, but having been induced to look around this forum this thread is getting interesting. It occurs to me that conventional, ie, non-foiling monohulls with moth-like performance could be sailed entirely without the provision of rudder surface below the aft foil if a yawl-like rig is used, ie, the mizzen becomes the (aerodynamic) rudder and, as long as the boat is slippery enough to travel at a good fraction of the wind speed no water rudder is needed.

If this is applied to a foiler with a submerged foil on the daggerplate/centreboard and the rudder horizontal surface is made into a planing surface, ie, a ventilated foil running on the water surface so that it does not create sideforce then this principle may work here as well. This should give slightly lower trim drag, even if it doesn't it would at least be fun to play with; blasting around the harbour with only a couple of sheets in hand and no tiller. It's not a Moth, is it an interesting possibility?


Jon.

[Stephen Ditmore]

Jon:

The parallels in the work of Rich Miller and Eugene Clement might interest you.
Rich Miller hydrofoil sailboard: http://www.exigent.info/miller.pdf
Eugene Clement Dynaplane: http://www.dynaplaneboat.com/ and http://www.proboat-digital.com/proboat/200510/ (page 164)
Both are using a forward planing surface based on supercavitating foil research forward and a submerged hydrofoil aft: inverted "Y" (R.M.) or "V" (E.C.).
Though Clement used to work for the U.S. Navy, I think he now lives there in the U.K.

For more on various hydrofoil concepts see Foiler Design. The nice thing about the Moth class is that you can go ahead and build it, and tinker. Fastacraft, building on the work of Ian Ward, has made the two T foils with sensor wand work. But one could do it other ways and still have a legal Moth.

Also, I like the yawl rig with traveller tied into the steering system concept. The very high aspect rudders on America's Cup boats (and finding their way to other classes) stall easily.... so even with a rudder, this sort of assist might help. Even more rad: a Walker Wing Sail as a mizzen (with the ability to lock down on center to be a steadying vane when at anchor). For a big boat, imagine a Maltese Falcon type DynaRig mast forward and a walker wing sail aft...
http://www.symaltesefalcon.com/image...gn_concept.htm
http://www.lusas.com/case/composite/wingsail.html

Whatever you envision, maybe you should join the club and name it "Dyna______" .... ya think?

[Jon Howes]

Stephen,

Thanks for the links, interesting reading, especially the Dynaplane link.

This thought is strongly related to a characteristic of my "other" project. That two foils, if expected to provide the ability to generate sideforce to keep a boat under control, will, sooner or later, find a situation where one of them cannot do this (waves for example) and the boat may wipe out. Air is a much more reliable medium so both this suggestion and my main project try to use only one hydrodynamic surface to resist the rig loads and do everything else aerodynamically.

The Moth rules state: "The boat shall carry only one sail when racing, with the total sail area being not greater than 8.00 m2." so it can't be a Moth, just have to call it something else. A Bug?

Jon.

[DGreenwood]

Not a totally new concept(as you pointed out a yawl is exactly that) but an interesting one. One that you are the most likely candidate to answer.
Leaving out the considerations of damage by USO (unidentified semi-submerged object) what would be the advantages as an efficient control surface. Would the less dense of the two fluids offer up a greater amount of control for the drag it produces? Would an aircraft style rudder begin to become innefficient at typical angles of heel quicker than one in the water. Would you need to have two smaller air rudders angled outward to have the same control.
What about the difference in the angle of attack that an in the water rudder is seeing compared to that the air one would see? Isn't the quality of the flow around an in the water rudder going to be considerably better for many reasons?

[Stephen Ditmore]

Originally Posted by Jon Howes

so it can't be a Moth, just have to call it something else. A Bug?

The Dynayawl, of course!