18's--still mostly seahuggers

It's hard to understand why you apparently believed that when I referred to sailing trimaran foilers, it wasn't a reference to Raves and RC foilers. However, thank you for admitting that you've never claimed to be an expert on foiling.

You have said previously that your MonoSkiff was sailed a few times and had significant issues foiling. If you encountered significant issues when just sailing it a few times then think of how many other issues, including many yet to be discovered, await anyone who tries to campaign a foiling 18 Foot Skiff, which must be launched once or twice each week through difficult access, raced hard in choppy water among crowds of pleasure and commercial craft, and suffer inevitable high speed crashes. Maybe you could then consider that people who (unlike you) are definitely experts on foiling and on Skiffs have decided it's impractical.

 

My aeroSkiff had some issues because it was a revolutionary foil system-never having been done before in the history of mankind. Given its technology it wasn't a surprise that there were some problems-the surprise was how easy they were to solve, how well the basic system worked-and how much I learned with that boat.
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I doubt that any foiling "experts" have decided that foiling the 14's and 18's is impractical-the real experts built working foilers in both those classes!! I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the two classes adopt foils as time goes by in light of the tremendous technical advances that have been made and are being made in foil design , production and cost containment.

Foiling 18s:





Foiling 14:

 

What are you claiming here? Surely not that you built the first foiling dinghy, you've said previously:

aeroSKIFF http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?/topic/91406-aeroskiff/&do=findComment&comment=2308375

So not that. What was so revolutionary that you can claim no one had ever done it before? Does any aspect that you claim was "revolutionary" (and therefore by inference not only original but significantly different and better than anything that had come before) survive in modern foilers?

I think anyone looking at your foils and comparing them to the modern T foils of say Moths, would be struck by how dissimilar they are.

You say the basic system worked very well, yet you've also said:

aeroskiff 16 https://www.boatdesign.net/threads/aeroskiff-16.35741/#post-424340

But I'll leave it to others to read the threads and make up their own minds.

In regard to:

Indeed, experts did build foiling 18s and 14s, but you somehow refuse to accept that these same experts contributed to banning foils in those classes because they would have resulted in boats that were even more difficult to sail and much more expensive, which could well be summarised as "impractical" and certainly not in the best interests of either class.

 

My boat did foil poorly because of a linkage problem that was simple to fix-after which the system worked well. It was hard to takeoff in chop because the rack arms were too low- and the bow shape was a drag in short intercoastal chop. It used manual control of the mainfoil flap for the first time on any bi-foiler as far as I know(designed and built 1999-2002). David Lugg used manual altitude control(about 1999) on his 14 but moved a flap on the aft foil. The basic foil concept of the aeroSKIFF was outstanding. The foil shape and partial span flap were unique at the time and contributed to the ease of handling-which made flying with a bent linkage and the other problems possible. As far as I know it was the first bi-foiler designed and built in the USA. It was surely the first bifoiler with manual control of the main foil anywhere. You might be aware that at that time many of the truly uninformed said that flying manually was impossible. Two Raves were converted from wand altitude control to manual control of the mainfoil flaps and were faster than the wand equipped boats.(about 2oo4-2005)
Mirabaud experimented with manual control at about this same time frame.
And maybe you realize that in 34(2013) and 35(2017) the cats were flown using manual control of the AOI of the mainfoil(rake was controlled) . Also add the Super Foiler and probably the TF10, NZAC 75, G4 and Eagle 53 to the list of manually controlled foils though the G4 and 53 will have full auto systems available.
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I don't believe the "experts" contributed to banning foils-that's just nonsense.You could say they acquiesced since they were outvoted. Foils worked and given the improvements made to foil technology since then(16-19 years!) - they could be used again with the help of a few "experts"--and that just might happen.
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Memorable quote from JG Baker, Designer and Builder of the Monitor foiler in the 1950's:
" The main need is to lower the wind velocities required for flying in order to increase the opportunities for high speed travel."