Evolvement of foiling sailboats over the last 70 years

Comment from Tom Speer and a partial comment from John Perry in the Artemis thread:

======================================

 

You do if you're trying to prove you can sail directly down wind faster than the wind. Using momentum to achieve it momentarily through a gybe is not "sailing DDW" any more than carrying speed through a tack is sailing directly upwind.

 

I watched the video again, and you're right that it makes it sound like that's what they're claiming, and the animation looks like that too. I don't believe they actually are, though. I'll bet all they meant was that they could make their way upstream, and were just being vague about how they would do it.

 

Any chance of keeping discussion of the Artemis video on that thread? I am getting very confused...

Let's stick to vitriol and pettiness on this one...

 

Sounds like fun to me!

Every type of foiler has drawbacks that we ought to be able to harp on mercilessly.

 

To the extent that it's about the evolution of foiling, it's on topic. ;-)

Speaking of videos and incredible claims… in the following video at 10:20 Dylan Fletcher, helm and skipper of the British SailGP team (F50) says they were out in "6–7 knots of breeze doing 20–21 knots upwind". If that was close hauled, it resolves to a VMG directly upwind greater than wind speed, perhaps double. Pretty solid evidence, even if anecdotal.



I'd like to see some data though to put it beyond doubt.

 

I'm usually pretty skeptical of quoted wind speeds, but he mentioned that the Moths weren't foiling, so 6-7 knots could be fairly accurate (assuming average or better skill levels for the Moth sailors).

 

In looking over the last 70 years, this is certainly one of the high points of experimental development-ridiculed as "impossible" by many:
Foiling Optimist https://www.boatdesign.net/threads/foiling-optimist.57559/

 

A single boat is a "high point" to be compared to other high points such as the development of the planing sailboat, the trapeze, the wing, alloy spars, carbon spars, sandwich construction, venturis, effective buoyancy, popular small craft, fibreglass, flexible spars, self steering, autopilots, electronics, the huge advances in safety gear, the development of the inshore cat, the development of the offshore cat, the development of the tri, the invention of the windsurfer, the shortboard, the funboard, the waveboard, the wing mast, the wingsail, the offshore One Design, the fin keel offshore racer, the assymetric spinnaker, the mass production boat, the invention of the kiteboard, the development of hiking/trapezing racks, the design of the Catalina 22, Laser, Sunfish and Hobie, the arrival of round the world races, etc etc etc? Really?

How often do these foiling Optis actually sail? What makes them such a high point? Sure, we know that conventional seahugging dinghies can be fitted with foils and will foil in some conditions. Some of us (although not you) have actually done it. It's interesting and sort of fun, but hardly one of the high points of the last 70 years.

By the way, if dinghy foiling is so great and do accessible, why don't you do it? Old Lasers are cheap. You claim expertise in foiler design and construction. Other people have got an OZ Goose (like a Puddle Duck Racer or brick boat) to foil with wooden foils, so lack of cash is no excuse. Why don't you get out there and do what you say thousands of other people will do?

 

The foiling Opti is a high point in the development of foiling sailboats-and the Chalmers team are to be congratulated. Both versions of the foiling Opti have contributed to the history of foiling sailboats.
---
I've designed , built and foiled my first full size foiler years ago and have designed several rc foilers one of which was the first production RC sailing foiler in history. I've designed and hope to build a new fullsize singlehanded foiler using the revolutionary Fire Arrow Foil System-versions of which have been used on Maserati, Gitana 17, Macif and Banque Populaire-and probably on the new Sodebo. Most of the key elements of the foil systems on all these boats were first used on the Fire Arrow Test Model in 2014 and have since been used successfully on Maserati ,Gitana 17 ,Macif and Banque Populaire.
-------------------------------
See the full specs on WOLF here:
High Performance MPX Foil/Self-righting Trimaran-The Test Model https://www.boatdesign.net/threads/high-performance-mpx-foil-self-righting-trimaran-the-test-model.36058/page-191#post-847811 post 2854



================================
Gitana 17 Flying on the Most Advanced Trimaran Foiling System Ever:


Fire Arrow Doing Exactly the Same Thing:

 

How important were GPS and chips? The modern foiling hype began with Moths being sailed by skill and experience, not electronics.

How many people who have got their knowledge from forums like this one have gone on to develop the frontiers of foiling? Wardii, AMAC, VPLP, the A Class experts etc are not to be found here. Apart from Doug Halsey, people who actually regularly foil appear to be absent.

The other part of the puzzle is getting many foilers to match their speed with the hype,and to match the hype with boats on the water. The biggest database of foiler versus non-foiler performance in cats is probably that of the many races analysed by World Sailing's Small Catamaran Handicap Rating System (SCHRS). When the first foilers arrived, they were rated at 7% quicker. Now they are rated at just 4% quicker for full foilers, and about 1.5% quicker for C foil types. Four percent is about the same speed boost for a small cat as adding a spinnaker. Putting assys on cats didn't cause a revolution so why so much hype about foils when they only offer a similar boost?

AC type foilers may well get much more than 4% advantage, but the point is that such advantages do not appear to pass on to "normal" boats, even extremely complex and expensive ones like the Nacra 20. Moths get a huge boost from foils, but they are arguably a special case due to their size and shape. The other dinghy foilers don't seem to show much evidence of superior all-round speed, if any, In fact, some seem to be slower than the same boat with the lower drag standard foils most of the time, although they are fun in foiling conditions. Their speed is not particularly high even when foiling, and you don't need air bags.

 

You have not foiled "a conventional seahugging dinghy fitted with foils". You have therefore not had the experience and therefore to put their development up with things like the introduction of the modern cat,the modern tri, fibreglass, dacron and windsurfing is hyperbole.

You claimed here you sailed the dinghy monofoiler on foils once or twice. That was years ago. If it was so good, why haven't you done it since? You have no wife or kids or job to hold you back, as I understand it. you were offered a subsidy to go to the Moths so you could have a go. You could surely have travelled to a Glide Free test, or in some other way sailed a foiling dinghy like you reckon other people should.

If it was all so amazing,surely you should be practising what you preach.Foiling is cool, no doubt, but to claim that fitting foils to a couple of Optis is up there with the major advances of the sport like the adoption of the trapeze is utterly over the top.

By the way, Doug, if the foiling Opti is such a great idea, where are the fleets of them? Where are the huge fleets of foiling Lasers and Aeros? Where are the fleets of RS600FFs that came and died? If after about 12 years of development a breed has NO fleets or racing, as appears to be the case with foiling optis and other conventional dinghies with foils retrofitted, how can it be seen as a huge leap?

 

Do you have references to those statements?

Neither video shows more than a few seconds of very unstable foiling. The newer foiling Opti's foils are very similar to Glide Free foils and needed 15kn of breeze to get foiling. The foil design looks like something from more than 70 years ago. Compare that to the F50s doing +20kn upwind in 7kn of wind, performance that may be beaten by AC75s.

I think it's an interesting experiment and good luck to the students who did the work. But a high point? Not really.

 

------------------------------------------
No such false claim was made regarding the Foiling Opti's.
What I said was: The foiling Opti is a high point in the development of foiling sailboats-and the Chalmers team are to be congratulated. Both versions of the foiling Opti have contributed to the history of foiling sailboats.
---===============================================
CORRECTION:
In post 86 I made the "claim" that the foiling Opti's were a high point of experimental development which I subsequently rephrased to state that the foiling Optis are a high point in the development of foiling sailboats.
However, the foiling Opti design and development program is, in my opinion, a high point in experimental sailboat development.
See pdf below:

 

========================
More than "a few seconds"!!(carbon version) Not so unstable for the very first time on a new, experimental foiler!
Both videos show something that was highly experimental. The video's were taken of the very first time the boats were sailed on foils and , of course, neither skipper had any experience with a Foiling Opti! Carbon skippers comments: "This was amazing. This is what sailing should be all about in the future."
Carbon version-sailing early 2017:


Standard version-May 2018: (foils added to a class legal boat) --