Foiling radio control trimarans

Discussion in 'Multihulls' started by PerthMini40man, Jun 9, 2016.

  1. PerthMini40man
    Joined: Jan 2014
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    Location: Australia

    PerthMini40man Senior Member

    INTRODUCTION

    I am starting my own thread here to record our developments to date for our Mini40 and One Metre trimarans. We have had many failures, but after three years of trial and error, we have the confidence that we have what we describe as a "sports boat" concept that lets us build boats with a high degree of confidence that they will foil.

    We are still at the "Wrights' Brothers" stage - we have got airborne but have a long long way to go yet. We have two significant issues to overcome:
    1/ Foiling upwind is very difficult (but not impossible)
    2/ foiling off the foils when flying at speed

    Most of what I am going to populate here is not new, but it will be one place for recording our work.

    Based in Perth, West Australia, we sail the boats at a place called Austin Lakes, an hour's drive south of Perth. The reason for chosing this lake is that is man-made, is deep enough for boats to float upside down until within about 4 metres of the shore, and has no trees round it, so we have uninterrupted wind, and are close enough to the sea to get the Fremantle Doctor in the summer afternoons.

    The boats are build by Dave Burke, who in his younger years built and raced International 14 footers successfully. This blends with my own experience of designing Merlin Rockets in the UK in the 1980s, the most famous design being Canterbury Tales.

    We have tried catamans, we have tried wand-controlled T foils, we have tried unstayed una-rigs. We have achieved a top speed of 28.8 kmph recorded with a GPS tracker. We have capsized many many times. We have watched our trimaran cartwheel up the beach and over a fence. And we have had a tonne of fun!
     

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    UpOnStands and Corley like this.
  2. Doug Lord
    Joined: May 2009
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    Location: Cocoa, Florida

    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    Foiling RC Tri's

    Great idea! You should post some of your best videos and/or a link to your you tube channel.....
     
  3. PerthMini40man
    Joined: Jan 2014
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    Location: Australia

    PerthMini40man Senior Member

    Early Beginnings

    We started off with a Nightmare Mark VIII trimaran kit from rcsails.com inThailand, way back in 2009 when I was living in Shanghai. The need for a T foil on the rudder was the first early lesson after some spectacular and frustrating cartwheels in relatively light winds.

    The rcsails.com boat kits are excellent to get people into the Mini40 class. The Nightmare, and their own Firedragon design are good all-round designs with ample buoyancy in the floats to let the skipper get out of some difficult situations.

    We are lone multihullers in Perth - everyone else here thinks we're nuts - so as a consequence we quickly looked towards the chellenge of foiling for entertainment, as opposed to designing boats to be quick round a conventional race course. If we had a racing fleet here, we would not be where we are now with our designs. I was inspired by a photo taken by Mike Dann of his Ghost Train foiling at Gosport, and simply wanted to do the same. It's taken a few years to get there!

    The photo here is Mike's Ghost Train
     

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    Corley likes this.
  4. Skyak
    Joined: Jul 2012
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    Skyak Senior Member

    Do you race windward leeward?

    It would also be very interesting to know the angles of the foils in all axis if it's not a secret.
     
  5. Doug Lord
    Joined: May 2009
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    Location: Cocoa, Florida

    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    I accidentally discovered this video from Ian where he says it will be his last for a while. He's going to work in Manilla and doesn't know how long he'll be gone......
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egDXz7pQgIo
     
  6. Corley
    Joined: Oct 2009
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    Location: Melbourne, Australia

    Corley epoxy coated

    I purchased a Boxster off Ian some time ago and have only just for a variety of reasons managed to get around to putting it together. I bought platform only so will need to get rig, sails and radio to get it sailing. I set the main hull up on my bench and following Ian's instructional .pdf have started gluing the beams on. I have a tripod mounted self levelling laser which I'm using for the work. I found the process easy with the laser but wonder about the saddles method and whether some sort of simple laminated chainplate with a pin or captive bolts might be more straightforward or perhaps a simple beam pocket for the crossbeams. Anyway this is the method that Ian chose to run with and it works and there is no doubt that there is plenty of bonding area available to spread the load with the saddles system. The construction of the parts and finish is pleasing. I went for white painted hulls and clear finished carbon on the beams, shroud/forestay saddles and T rudder. It all looks very flash indeed.
    18620458_1700286586666057_5467186735001302088_n.jpg 18670794_1700285816666134_8775360313840415150_n.jpg 18697977_1701078583253524_8073606665547517949_n.jpg
     
  7. Doug Lord
    Joined: May 2009
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    Corley, could you tell me what the chord and thickness of the lower part of the main foil is? Good luck with the boat!
     
  8. Corley
    Joined: Oct 2009
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    Location: Melbourne, Australia

    Corley epoxy coated

    I only went with one set of foils so no doubt they vary between types. On the set I went with the chord tapers from 57mm to 50mm at the tip. And thickness from 6.5mm at the foil root to 4mm at the tip.
    SANY0454.JPG
     

    Attached Files:

  9. Doug Lord
    Joined: May 2009
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    Location: Cocoa, Florida

    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    Thanks!
     
  10. Corley
    Joined: Oct 2009
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    Location: Melbourne, Australia

    Corley epoxy coated

    A bit more assembly work today so now she looks more boat like with the central saddle glued in position on the rear beam and the floats mocked up in position ready to be glued on.
    SANY0456.JPG
     
  11. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    Corley, are the foils and hulls carbon?
     
  12. Doug Lord
    Joined: May 2009
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    Location: Cocoa, Florida

    Doug Lord Flight Ready

  13. Corley
    Joined: Oct 2009
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    Location: Melbourne, Australia

    Corley epoxy coated

    I think he was experimenting with the Z foils for use in heavy weather. I didn't get a set as the standard ones seem to work well over a range of conditions as long as you adjust the rig size.
     
  14. Corley
    Joined: Oct 2009
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    Location: Melbourne, Australia

    Corley epoxy coated

    Hulls are a light epoxy/glass layup. Beams, foils and T rudder are carbon.
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2017

  15. Doug Lord
    Joined: May 2009
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    Location: Cocoa, Florida

    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    Thanks!
     
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