What is going with Hydrofoiler SCAT (experimental boat) ?

I suppose some of you know the answer: Wherer is the experimental boat SCAT today ? It is a hydrofoiler which was designed by Nigel Irens, built by MULTIHULL TECHNOLOGIES INC for Prof. Sam Bradfield and his company HYDROSAIL Inc. .

"SCAT" is a 37 foot long and 37 foot wide hydrofoil sailing trimaran. This vessel is the result and the conclusion of prolonged and extensive testing of it's prerunner the foiler EIFO.

The (officially) websites are down:
- http://www.multihulltechnologies.com/scat.htm
- http://www.multihulltechnologies.com/eifo.htm

An evaluation of the boat was done in 2003 by Ron Barret
http://www.ronbarrett.com/Scat.htm

Constellation Yachts still has some photos of the building process:
http://www.constellationyachts.com/scat.htm

Impressive speed as documented in an old video of 2007...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG1KEJPhl9Y


Is the boat still sailing ? - Where is it now ?

 

She was sold to the US Navy and cut in pieces and shipped......

 

******... ashaming. I suppose this boat now gets dirty and full of mudd is sleeping in a backyard anywhere on a military area.

If such "smaller boats" (beside Alain Thébault's world record seeting Hydrophtere) would be better known within the sailing community I suppose more people would be interested to sail such hydrofoilers.

These beautifully flying Tris are not scaring (me) compared to the fragile foiling racing catamarans. We need more SCATs on the water.

 

Dr. Sam, the Flyer Cubed and the foils for SKAT

Dr. Sam Bradfield and I were friends and he was quite an inspiration to me. No more so than when he ordered one of my large Flyer Cubed trimarans to use to test the foil system for the 40' SKAT. Amazingly, the foils used on the model scaled up directly with no mods made due to "scale effect" or any other effect. The foil sections were a bit different.
I designed,built the tooling and built two Flyers and took them over to demonstrate for Dr. Sam. He bought one that day!

Pictures, L to R: 1) 40' SKAT, 2) Flyers one and two sitting at Sams place. You can see him in the upper left corner and get an idea how big these RC boats were, 3) Flyer Cubed #2 flying with Dr. Sams SKAT foil system,3) #1 sailing in his little basin at Melbourne, Florida.
click-

 

Happy man, you

We nee such folks, pre-thinkers, risk takers, pioneers indeed. But not these crazy ones. Sam's boat worked very well. There is no doubt about. It doesnt look "too old fashion" as these two pics show the under water ship during the launch and taking off for the Miami to Nassau Race.


I'd prefer to sail this Scat 37ft instead of any other Trimaran in that size. It is just the way as it has to go into the future. A logically consequence.

I have organized yesterday a profiler in USA to research about where the boat is now. The US Navy bought only the hull without mast/sails. They wanted design a motorized "drone". - Lets see what happened with... I am waiting to get more details and will report.

100% I have the trust, that the Scat concept has a future... more than ever in the past. Its safe sailing, not this crazy foiling like we know from America's cup cats.

We would get many, many sailors around the globe who loved to buy a Scat and have this speed experience. Such boats nowadays can be built low cost. I think maximum 400,000 US dollars for a brand new 37 ft. hydrofoiling Scat, all inclusive. And not wasting huge money for this insane expensive 3-3.5 million US Dollar expensive Gunboat.

Sam offered the foil set in the size of the SCAT (and up to 40 footers) for 30,000 Australian dollars (= 21,118 US dollars) in total:

• A high aspect ratio carbon-fiber tapered T-foil lifter
• Adjustable flap control surfaces
• Aspect Ratio: 7.34 to 1
• Dimension: 7.5 ft lifter span tapered lifter, 16.25 in. center, tapered to 8.25 in. at the tip, 14 ft. high dagger with a 22.31 in. chord
• Weight: 360 lbs

Am I right that the built Scat had a foiling (T-) rudder system astern (as shown in the concept 3D model in yellow) to keep the boat stable and avoid nose diving ? Like Sam did it with the 18 foot Osprey...


Are there anywhere some plans about how Sam wanted design the interior of Scat ? Kind of floor plans would be interesting to see what Sam's intentions had been for the farer future, beside Scat was an "experimental boat".