Moth on Foils: 35.9 knots(41.29 mph)

Discussion in 'Sailboats' started by Doug Lord, Apr 11, 2006.

  1. frosh
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    frosh Senior Member

    Foils thrashed by planing boats!

    Doug, thanks for the update about the speed acheived by the English International Moth recently. Did you know that a planing vessel designed in Australia achieved a speed in 1993, 77% higher than the 26.3 knots you report to us. This was "Yellow Pages Endeavor". Within the last year a planing vessel under 9 foot in length piloted by the Irish born Finian Maynard, (hull at least 2 feet smaller than the Moth) exceeded the speed of the foiled Moth by around 86%.
    By any stretch of the imagination a 77% and then a 86% improvement needed to equal the best of the planing sail craft is still a long way off for the foiler Moth or any other foiler, including Sean Langmans new mega foiler project! Come on, give credit to where it is due, foils are not the only way to go fast! :cool:
     
  2. Doug Lord

    Doug Lord Guest

    Foiler Moth

    Frosh, I did not attack or try in anyway to diminish the achievements of others in the speed sailing world! I was celebrating a remarkable achievemnt by a STOCK production foiler Moth. For a "sit-down" singlehanded skiff dinghy under 13' with such small sail area it is worth celebrating.
    When you look at progress in this class the speed last year started out below 22 knots and now is almost 27-huge progress in the speed sailing world in about one year.It should also be pointed out that the Moth foiler has beaten numerous small boats around a course in conditions that suit them both including A class cats, Formula windsurfers, I14's, IC's,F18cats, and 49er's while matching speed with a Tornado cat off the wind in one incident. None of this means a lot by itself but taken as a whole is indicative of nothing short of a revolution in sailing. A revolution NOT limited to the foiler Moth!
     
  3. gggGuest
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    gggGuest ...

    Whether the foiler will prove to be a good platform for ultimate speed is another issue of course: I have grave doubts, but the Moths are sensational at the speed ranges in which they operate. I wonder at what point they will start running into the cavitation issues that have been problematic for YPE? They've certainly got an awful long way to go yet.
     
  4. frosh
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    frosh Senior Member

    Will a foiler ever hold a speed record?

    I feel that the International Moth has made a tremendous contribution to sailing technology and the sheer excitement of sailing. This applies also to earlier incarnations even going back to the 60's with pocket luff rigs, ultralightweight construction techniques and now narrow beam hulls and hydrofoils. My strong belief is that it is unlikely that a hydrofoiler will ever hold an outright speed sailing record. The Moth has shown great efficiency in being able to convert a limited amount of wind power to a lot of boat speed. However records do not have wind limits and so in conditions that are appropriate for record attempts, there is no shortage of power available. So it is with power boats, where a relatively large amount of power is available compared to sail craft, that hydrofoils generally do not feature on the very quickest craft. :)
     
  5. John ilett
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    John ilett Senior Member

    The moth probably holds the record for foiling in the least wind and they can sail at double the wind speed in 10 knots wind.

    Also a moth is not designed to break speed records as they are course racing boats, so upwind is important as is light wind.

    A moth designed purely for speed may well do over 40 knots knots in 20 knots of wind but it would not likely win any races.
     
  6. casavecchia
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    casavecchia Senior Member

  7. boogie
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    boogie Member

    i believe the current A class and D class record holders are foilers, so they hold an outright record against other craft. :p
    just not THE outright record...

    http://www.sailspeedrecords.com/500.html

    cheers
    boogie
    cheers
     
  8. frosh
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    frosh Senior Member

    Hydrofoils not so slow!

    Hi Boogie, I stand partially corrected. However there seems to be a barrier to exceeding around 44 knots which has been well reported already. :)
     
  9. Doug Lord

    Doug Lord Guest

    Broken "barriers"

    Sam, it seems to me that ANY sailboat from windsurfer to foiler to Yellow Pages and it's successor has a problem at around that speed. Every one of these boats still must develop lateral resistance and as far as I know they're all using some type of foil or foils to do it.
    It will be interesting to see what the Veal/Dovell/ Langman group have come up with to achieve their target of 50 knots. One thing Rohan Veal mentions on his site(see previous post) is the idea of ejecting the "normal" foils at a certain speed to be replaced by supercavitating foils. I kinda feel that may be a smoke screen but who knows-there are some brilliant people working on this problem.
    ------------
    But the little Moth-subject of this thread- remains the king of low speed and around the course foiling-almost nothing else under 20' appears to come close in 8-15 knots of wind.... And ,by the way: it's about two weeks since the last Moth record-better get ready for a new one!
     
  10. alans
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    alans Alan

    John is correct 40 knots is within reach with a "Moth" specifically setup to sail in 20 knot winds, a 70 kg crew, extended wings and smaller foils. But it will not win races even in 15 knot winds
    alans http://www.highspeedsailing.com
     
  11. frosh
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    frosh Senior Member

    Moth doing 40 knots?

    Alan and John Ilett, I do agree that a Moth could be configured to go quicker than the 26 knots already achieved in the UK recently. Maybe 40 knots is possible in theory with more RM (I assume much larger wings) and smaller more refined foils.
    However how likely is that the sailor could exert sufficient RM to maintain sufficient stability both laterally and longitudinally to complete a 500 metre run at a 40 plus average.
    The Macquarie Innovation is theoretically capable of 50 knots but the rig disintegrated at around 45 knots.
    The Moth is unproven at these sorts of velocities with its accompanying shock loadings!
     
  12. alans
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    alans Alan

    frosh, one of the things that excites me about foilers is that their design yields to aerospace design methods and techniques. Inaddition their operating apparent wind angles make cat rig soft sails a satisfactory option. The fuild dynamic forces, the static and dynamic stability and structural loads can all be computed with reasonable accuracy. It transpires small is good when it comes to managing the loads. There is some indication on my web site of the processes involved and an indication to structural loads that occur.

    alans
    http://www.highspeedsailing.com
     
  13. Doug Lord

    Doug Lord Guest

    Holy Smoke: 27.9(32mph!!)

    Incredibly, the Moth speed record has gone from the low 20's a year ago to Rohan Veals new record of 27.9(32mph). Last increases posted here were on 4/11/06(March 11) and 5/5/06(May 5th). Way to go Rohan!
    ------------------
    THANKS!!! to Jeff for changing the title of this thread to reflect the latest record-all future Moth records will be posted here.
    -----------------

    From Rohan Veal(Note both the UK guys and Rohan use the Velocitek 12 channel GPS speedometer)

    E-mail message

    Sender: moth-bounces@moth.asn.au From: rohan@moth.asn.au(Rohan*Veal) Date: Sun, Jun 11, 2006, 6:26pm (EDT+14) To: Int-Moth_UK@yahoogroups.com Cc: james.boyd@thedailysail.com, moth@moth.asn.au Subject: Australian Moth Mailing List - New moth speed record - 27.9 knots!
    sorry to do this to you sam, but it is time to up the anti and aim for 30 knots now.
    don't worry, i didn't believe it when i saw it either but i checked my jocks afterwards and they were well stained. I was told later on that there was steam coming off the foils as we were sailing on a heated lake and the rooster tail was throwing up hot water in cold air. Quite a site apparantly
    BTW - the 10 second average on this run was 23.3 knots in about 20-22 knots.
    -r

    ______________________________________________
    Australian Moth Mailing List
    moth@moth.asn.au
    www.moth.asn.au
    http://redback.adroit.net/mailman/listinfo/moth
     
  14. DSmith
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    DSmith Junior Member

    ?????

    ?????
     

  15. frosh
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    frosh Senior Member

    Thanks for the bad news Doug, you have depressed my day! (only kidding). It seems that unlike the stringent criteria other craft have to use such as average over a 500 metre run, (for the outright sailing speed record), these Moth records are transient bursts as the the 10 second average is almost 20% lower. Even the 10 second burst represents a little over 100 metres.
    Is this your understanding as well, Doug?
    Still, it is a fine achievement, but not accessible to 99.9% of active sailors. :)
     
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