New Swiss Foiling Machine

[Jundt]

Originally Posted by bistros

30M = over 100 feet!

There has been little substantive discussion of the development in the previous thread. Lots of guess work and assumptions though.

I would imagine that language is somewhat of a barrier. By American standards I'm bilingual, but I will admit freely that my language skills are far better in English - especially on detailed technical topics. I'd be willing to bet if we were a German forum the quality from Jundt et al would be more substantive.

YES OF COURSE WE DO NOT WANT TO "GAIN" WEIGHT BUT RATHER *REDUCE" IT

Originally Posted by bistros

Key points that beg more enlightenment:

1) Why the forward main foil placement? Every design issue is a compromise, and a discussion of the issues and the trade offs would be enlightening. I would imagine the maneuverability would be reduced as the distance between the foils increased.

WE HOPE FOR BETTER PITCH STABILITY IN FLYING MODE
OUR MACHINE IS NOT A MOTH, THINGS ARE'T AS EASYLY EXTRAPOLATED...(4 TIMES THE WEIGHT !)
LAKE HUGGING IT WILL BE DIFFICULT TO TACK BUT MAYBE ALSO HAVE BETTER BALANCE WITH THE BIG GENOIS UP

IF NO GOOD WE CUT A TUBE AWAY AND PUT IT BACK WHERE IT WAS

Originally Posted by bistros

2) The space frame does provide a very strong structure for foiling, but it did remove the design from being a sailboat and into something else. Even with a minimal hull/skin grafted on at a later date, we are no longer in Kansas, Dorothy.

I CALL IT A PLATEFORM FOR EXPERIMENTATION (AND IT IS PROPERLY ENGINEERED AND STRONG .: I HAVE A STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING COMPANY IT HAD TO LOOK LIKE A CRANE...)

Originally Posted by bistros

3) Is this an attempt to raise the foiling bar beyond what has happened in the Moth? If so, I don't see the potential to better the Moth's time around a race course. Hydroptere need not worry about this one, so all out speed isn't the target. What IS the target? What are they trying to prove? Is the target lifting 200+ kilos all up weight out of the water and getting it above 20 knots?

WE RACE DAY RACES ON THE LAKE AND GO FOR THE OVERALL MONOHULL (SIC!) WIN

AND OVERALL PERSONAL FUN DURING THE FEW OURS WE CAN GET AWAY FROM THE ROUTINE DAYS

Originally Posted by bistros

4) Is there an intent for the Space Frame Foiler to compete with 18 foot skiffs? Has this been designed to be debatably close to the European 18' skiff class rules?

NO

Originally Posted by bistros

5) What future do they see in this design? Is there an intent to create a development class for racing? Do they have a public design brief?

NO

Originally Posted by bistros

6) The development has been sponsored by a private bank. Congrats to the team for getting sponsorship. What are the sponsor's expecting in return? This question is more for others seeking similar sponsorship for their own projects. I don't think the sponsor's target customers are obsessed keyboard cowboys sitting on the Florida coast.

THEY LIKE CRAZY PEOPLE

Originally Posted by bistros

I applaud the experimental development effort being done for no reason other than because the challenge is there.


Cheers

THANK YOU VERY MUCH
THOMAS

[antoineb]

Thomas (the engineer behind the project, who just posted answers to various questions) is probably too modest to say it, so I will: in its first race on a lake, namely the Bol d'Or du Lac de Neuchatel, in Switzerland, organised by the Cercle de la Voile de Grandson, the prototype foiler "Mirabaud LX" took 1st place in "monohulls", 17 minutes ahead of a (modified) 18-footer on a course lasting about 5 hours. The first "normal" monohull was a 42'' racer another 20mins behind.

Mirabaud LX was also only about 20mins behind the last multihull of the 32'' class Ventilo 32 (there's a very active and competitive fleet of these boats in French-speaking Swizerland).

This was in spite of very light airs which for the most part (1) prevented the "LX" from flying, and (2) made it a very tiring work for the crew to keep the boat on it's mini "hull".

So all in all, a pretty impressive achievement. And clearly if they have more wind in their next race, they might be able to (1) get further ahead of other monohulls, (2) possibly start mixing up w the fast multihulls.

Well done!

[antoineb]

...during a boat race on Lake Geneva, this past week-end.

Distance was a go-and-back course over Geneva-Rolle-Geneva, a mere 16nm (29km) each way.

Due to very very light winds especially on the way up it took us 13 hours (so a mere 2.4kn of average VMG), of which 8 hours to go up (so a mere 2.0kn). This in spite of us arriving in the top 20 percent of the monohulls (w many giving up).

We were often not far from Mirabaud LX and so could admire it, and could admire the battling spirit of its crew, doing their best to keep the boat straight (it has tiny safety buoyancy devices on the wings, to keep it from tipping over when stopped or in very light air, but each time they touch the water it obviously causes additional drag).

At the end of the day, Mirabaud finished in 13h23min, i.e. behind us in 13 hours on a Luthi 870 (a very nicely designed boat with modern sails), and they were also behind the 1st normal 18-footer (12h39).


Now that they've shown their determination and stamina over two boat races in very light airs, i.e. as far away as possible from the ideal conditions for their craft, it would be really really nice to see them hit winds high enough to allow them to fly, at least on part of the course. Just to have some fairness to the daring engineers ;-)