35th Americas Cup: Foiling Multihulls!

Why not just use the electricity to run propellers? Even Formula One banned automatic height adjustment. The thrill of sport is largely in the fact that it is carried out by humans, not by electronic sensors.

It's interesting to see how little impact the AC is having these days. A few years ago lots of people were claiming that the modern AC would lead to a massive shift towards multis, the death of classes like the TP52 and grand prix monos, and a rise in the popularity of the sport. There doesn't seem to be the slightest evidence of any such reactions.

 

Yeah , right,

And electronic injectionsystem and combustion is replaced by manual controll.
Although the foiler sailer idea comes from 1950, I find the hydrofoil a big revolution for AC. The idea is initiator for the rise of several foiling classes like CG32, A-cat, Quant and not to forget Nacra 17 foiling class which became olympic. Since the cup gave hydrofoiling world wide promotion, it became hip.


Because VOR 65 didn't went to side foilers like Imoca, there is not one confirmed team for the VOR 2017/18. While there is restricted entry to the Vendee globe of 27 that this month reached the limit. more then 10 imoca boats and their skippers are not permited to particpate.

A somewhat cooled down enthiosiasm for TP 52 and RC44 is to be explained by the rise of the foilers I believe.

And why not use electronic controll in foilers and wings? Hydraulics is expensive, not easy to maintain, energy ineffecient and heavy. And less reliable then fly by wire.

 

35th America's Cup on Foils---Oracle

Team Oracles Test 45: notice anything different about this UptiP foil?! Photo by Sam Greenfield

 

The issue is that the "rise" of the foiling classes isn't actually very big - more hype than reality. Despite heavy subsidies, the GC32s have only 8 teams. the Quant is not a class. The A Class is doing well, but the fact that classes like the singlehanded Taipan 4.9 (pretty much a one-design version of an old A) are doing well indicate that the A may be partly benefiting from a move towards singlehanders as well as the move to foils.

The Nacra 17 is in many ways a significant flop - one year they didn't build a single new boat! In contrast, the "cooled down enthusiasm" for TP52s saw nine new TP52s in 2015 - that seems to mean that there were more new TP52s than there were GC32s racing. The Moths got just 12 boats to their US nationals, it seems there's about 12 at Italian regattas, about 30 in Germany - these are amazing boats, but NOT big fleets.

Foilers may be hip and fun, but only a tiny proportion of sailors are sailing them and there may be major problems for sailing if there is a huge and growing gap between the boats that most people can sail and the sort of boats that get hyped by the media. Windsurfing went through the same excessive concentration on boards that most people couldn't sail years ago, and now many of the top people in the sport say that it was a huge blunder. What happens to the sport when the cost of being competitive in a "hip" class rises so much? How many kids or young adults can afford a "hip" foiling Moth or cat? What happens to the people who cannot afford to sail a "hip" class? What happens to the huge numbers of sailors from places like the British lakes, the US midwest, Long Island Sound, the Alster or Adelaide, where the conditions don't suit foilers?

About 20 years ago, lots of people were saying that in the future most people would sail skiffs and water-ballasted boats - that was wrong. About 15 years ago, lots of people were saying that in the future most people would sail canters - that was wrong. The foiling "revolution" is now over a decade old, and there are only about five places in the entire world where you can find a club fleet of flying monofoilers, and probably only about as many places where you can find a club fleet of flying foil cats. I've run some rough calculations a couple of times and it appears that for each single active racing foiler in the world, something like $1.5 million has been spent developing, building and promoting foilers. Foilers have benefited from the $1.5 billion or whatever the AC cost, the couple of million lost in promoting the Bladerider, and apparently several million thrown in by the GC32 people and others like the Quant people. In contrast, strong disciplines like dinghy sailing, windsurfing, ocean racing and kiting grew from grass-roots participation. If foiler growth is so slow even when vast sums are being spent, what will happen if people stop throwing money at promoting foilers?

There are some classes and types that are getting strong and growing fleets that are being completely ignored in a move to promote a type of sailing that is wonderful, but is way too expensive and inaccessible for the typical sailor to get involved in. We know from the two biggest surveys ever carried out about the marketing of the sport that people do NOT think it's boring - they think it is too expensive, too hard and too complicated. Given that fact, why should we promote such an expensive, hard and complicated (although wonderful) area of the sport so much?

None of this is saying that foiling isn't fun, fast and fantastic. It's just that the promotion of foiling as 'the future" seems to be excessive, and one-dimensional. It's as if sailing just promoted big-wave windsurfing or International Canoes (to use two disciplines I love) - it would look spectacular but it would turn most people off the sport.

 

Foiler Excitement

The "Foiling Revolution" has only partially begun since almost 100% of all foilers produced to date have been boats designed specifically to increase speed.
The most important, and probably widespread, part of the revolution are the foilers that are about to be introduced with a focus on ease of sailing and/or comfort like the Exocet 19 foiler tri and Fly6 monofoiler and others.
Many people have labored under the presumption that foils only benefit the speed of a boat when in fact they can also increase comfort and improve handling in tough conditions.
Another major aspect of this part of the revolution will be the boats , like the Quant 23 foiling keelboat, that are designed to start flying in as little as 5 knots of wind. Light air foiling capability-especially in the US- will have a profound influence on the popularity of foiling since it will drastically open up the wind range where people can expect to fly.
The factors of ease of sailing, comfort and light air foiling have not even been introduced to the market yet and are bound to increase the excitement about foiling.
The Revolution is still in its infancy and the level of participation is bound to grow as the full spectrum of foiler design becomes available to the public.
You ain't seen nothin yet!!

 

Merely repeating what you were saying 10 years ago doesn't really count as evidence-based logical argument. As you say, 'the factors of ease of sailing, comfort and light air foiling have not even been introduced to the market yet" so therefore whether they can actually be achieved are completely unknown.

Sorry, but your track record on predicting the people's foiler boom is not good. You were telling us that the mass-market foiler was about to be born almost a decade ago. Not only that, it was going to be something that would jump (and land safely) and you were going to do the jump testing. How's it going?

As an analogy to a foiler, let's look at Formula Windsurfing. A Formula board can get planing very, very fast from about 6 knots of wind in ideal conditions, giving it a similar speed advantage over a conventional board to the speed advantage a foiling mono has over a comparable non-foiler. The foiling cat probably has a lower speed advantage over a non-foiling cat than a Formula board has over a typical windsurfer in 6-10 knots. And yet despite a vast performance advantage in fairly light winds, Formula windsurfing remains an esoteric and small niche market. On a typical mid-season weekend at a windsurfing mecca like Garda, perhaps the most popular windsurfing spot in the world, I saw about four full-bore FW boards and several hundred "conventional" slalom and B&J type boards. Raw speed gained at the cost of increasing complication does not sell in big numbers and often drags down the rest of the sport and discpline, just as it did with windsurfing and cat sailing.

To go back to a point I made earlier - when we have proof, from the two biggest surveys of sailing's image ever made, that non sailors are turned off by sailing's cost, elitism and inaccessibility, how can it be good for the sport to project an image of the costliest, least accessible end of the sport? When the sport's expense is a major problem, how can it be good to make it more expensive by promoting craft that need such sophisticated foils?

It's interesting to see what Greg Ketterman is designing now. His Hobie sailyaks could be doing great things for the sport if only we could start promoting that sort of boat instead of stuff that 99.9% of even the most experienced sailors cannot and do not use.

 

Foiling Revolution

Introducing the factors I mentioned above -and that are being adopted by some companies now-is a game changer. Years ago I said there would be a foiling revolution and there is and has been for years.Imagine an 11' monofoiler being the fastest sailboat under 20+'! Imagine the America's Cup on foils! Imagine a 60' trimaran setting a world speed record on hydrofoils and another proa setting the world speed record under sail using a single foil. Imagine a 60' trimaran flying on a single main foil like Gitana has! Imagine a monohull keelboat on foils! This and more has already happened and we're still at the very early stages of the most profound changes to sailing in more than a hundred years.
Introducing the factors I mentioned earlier will take foiling to levels dreamed of by only a very few people-and it is happening now-it's not a question of when.
If you want to continue this why don't you start a thread about foiling so we can leave this thread to the America's Cup-and the revolution that it is part of.

PS- I predicted that a foiler could be designed that would be easy to handle, take off in light air and be very comfortable*-and rather than one "Peoples Foiler" it looks like there may be numerous boats that fit that category-multiple "Peoples Foilers". The depth and breadth of this revolution appears like it will be much greater than I envisioned-I certainly never thought that one of the first steps would be America's Cup foilers!
*and that happened in June of 2015 with the Quant 23 Foiling Keelboat(bottom picture).

 

Your Op said "So lets begin the discussion of what could be next and follow what Larry tells us will be next. For the the time being lets speculate on the boat, the course, the venue ,the technology. Then as things develop lets discuss the developments."

The issue in my post seem to fit under "developments" and 'what could be next" so it seemed OK to bring them up.

By the way, all the "imagine" stuff has been happening, and the number of people in the sport seems to have been dropping. And anyone could have said similar things about different technology at many times in the past, such as "imagine a 7 foot windsurfer being the fastest sailing craft in the world" or "imagine the American's Cup in a giant scow (Reliance)".

For this to have been 'the most profound changes to sailing in more than a hundred years", there would have had to have been less change between 1910 and the last of the pre-foil classes (say around 2005) than there has been between the last of the pre-foil classes and today. That is clearly not the case.

In 1905, gaff rig, cotton sails, wooden spars and planked boats ruled. In 1905, there was no ocean racing as we know it. In 1905, there was no safety technology as we know it. There was no windsurfing, no cat sailing, no trimarans, no production cruisers, no mass production boats, no widespread one design class, no planing dinghies as we know them, no carbon, no real amateur-built classes, little if any sailing for the typical wage earner. There was little racing in many countries, little if any junior sailing, almost no liveaboard cruisers, no cartoppable boats, kitesailing, etc etc etc. The world sailing speed record concept was unheard of and the fastest recorded speeds was probably the 14 or so knots recorded by big cutters like Satanita or the big schooners.

In 2005 we had already had carbon Formula 40s, Marstrom 20s and Tornadoes, Nomex GP 18 Foot Skiffs, 48.7 knot windsurfers in The Trench, windsurfers sailing 40 foot surf, ORMA 60s flying across the Atlantic singlehanded at 35 knots, we had kitesurfing, IACC boats bringing new nations and even new continents into the Cup, the G Class racing around the world, and Laser world title fleets restricted to a "mere" 1500 sailors*. We had carbon Hungry Tiger Moths beating FDs, vast fleets of Optis, popout plastic boats, and a sport that had increased in popularity hundreds of times- since then the sport has been shrinking in many places. To claim that there has been more profound change in the 10 years since foilers arrived than in the previous 100 is completely against historical fact.

Here's a simple test. Go to a sample of popular sailing spots. Take away all the classes and types of sailing that were created between 1905 and 2005. See how many craft and sailors are left. That will tell you whether that era created a more profound change in the sport than the 700 or so active racing foilers have done. To put those numbers in perspective, about 750 examples of just one conventional dinghy (RS Aero) were sold in nine months. Without any billionaire backing or publicity, the Aero alone will probably put more bums on boats than all the foilers in history.

PS; Q- if world outright speed records are so important, why does almost no one know who holds the world outright speed record in major sports like cycling or swimming?

A - Because in popular sports, people know that records created by esoteric gear are not really very important.

PPS - I brought this up because it relates to the question of limiting technology, like electronic controls, as part of sport. I'll leave it for now.

 

35th America's Cup on Foils---Oman

The first ACWS(Americas Cup World Series in foiling AC45f's) racing of 2016 will take place shortly in OMAN:

February 27-28 2016- Muscat, Oman

 

That about sums it up. The most popular boats are those that are accessible, forgiving and reasonably easy to sail. At an off–the–beach regatta a couple of weeks ago (admittedly in a coastal area with lots of channels and sandbanks), the biggest class was Hobbie 16s, a 45 year old boat. The only foilers were 2 local Moths.

Foiling AC boats are amazing to watch, but as relevant to average punters as F1 racing.

Thanks for some great posts and good reading.

 

Foiling For The People!

The excitement engendered by the Foiling Revolution is one of the most positive developments in sailing ever-particularly when it is realized that many new types of foilers will soon be available that will make foiling accessible to everyone without being an AC type athlete. In fact some of the fastest ,most exciting foilers are already available at relatively low cost. The newer, easy to sail foilers starting with the Quant 23 can be ordered now-and are just the beginning of a range of foiler designs aimed specifically at people who want comfort and ease of handling with their foiling.
And the excitement that started with the Moth, AC 34 and the 72's, will continue to grow as more and more foilers designed for fun, comfort and ease of sailing become available.

AC 72:

 

I think Doug's right about it being a revolution, but he's underestimated how long it will take for it to unfold. At the moment, we're still only seeing the leading edge of the action with high costs and designs which are still a long way from where things will end up. The biggest expense is with the foils, but it's possible to fly on straight foils that are relatively easy to manufacture and which will be pretty cheap once they are made in large quantities (and when the design stops changing every five minutes). Keeping the weight of the boat down is important for taking off in lighter winds, but it's not essential for the masses to spend a fortune on achieving this at a slightly lower wind speed than the extremists who are prepared to put tens of thousands of dollars into everything. What's really holding things back though is people's general lack of money to throw at anything - wealth is being redistributed around the world, but we've also designed a system where we have to throw a hundred thousand dollars down the toilet to buy a fake education in order to get a job that pays a little bit more than pocket money, and then we're in debt for the rest of our lives and can't afford to play. Without the interest generated by foilers, sailing would be even less on the radar than it is.

 

35th America's Cup on Foils---Oman

More details from Jack Griffin on the upcoming racing:
http://www.cupexperience.com/blog/2016/2/americas-cup-world-series-oman-details/

 

35th America's Cup on Foils!

Here's a link for those interested in the new AC 50 Rule and the AC 45 Rule:
https://www.americascup.com/en/rules.html

An interesting thing about rudder adjustment:
1) the AC 50 rudder rake(foil angle of incidence) may be adjusted thru a 3 degree range while racing.
--
2) the AC 45 rudder rake may be adjusted thru the same range but not while racing.

 

Evidence?

And also, where is the evidence that sailing being "on the radar" as an extremely expensive, inaccessible sport is better than being "off the radar" but being thought of as less difficult to get into?

Furthermore, where is the evidence that sports that are "on the radar" (as demonstrated by high TV ratings etc) are more popular than those that aren't? The simple facts show that many of the most popular sport are pretty well "off the radar" compared to some high-profile but much less popular sports.