Where am I being "anything anti-Doug"? I've made lots o positive suggestions - I even gave him links on how he could actually prototype is "trapwing" for under $1,000. The reality is that Doug has destroyed many threads on foiling with his spam in many forums. He has never produced anything that works at scale (models have all sorts of scaling factors that allow inferior solutions to function through essentially brute force) and in this forum he has had multiple threads redacted for his vitriolic and personal attacks on me as well as others. If I was critical of one or another minor terminology, that would justify the term "nit picking" - but Doug consistently posts stuff (like "Heave is ride height control" ) that experienced folks like High On Carbon and Bora Guliari and others point out is simply wrong. (HoC has indicated to me that after the C class event, he has to focus on RL issues and can't take the time to stay on top of Doug's misrepresentations).
Since this forum has folks like Zain (see the thread on solar powered boats) and others showing up, that sort of mis-representational spam can and is harmful. And the personal attacks Doug makes while seeking the shielding of not being held to account is a bit much
As for my thoughts for the Phantom team - as I pointed out to Doug, I was at the Paris boatshow (with a press pass, that's how ignorant I am
) - and have discussed the project with Alex Udin since then. The questions and suggestions I made are really for Mr Udin.
what I think is that foiling is very exciting - but it is not easy to sail. Not for the average sailor. Its a bit like the 49'r or RS 600 - The 49er was considered by many as "unsailable" and too unstable to make it competitive - so much so that the first time one was sailed consistently without captsize in front of a crowd of experienced skiff sailors the sailors actually got an ovation.
Of course since then we have seen that it is possible to not only race them, but that techniques like "hooking up on the wire" have become de rigeur to be competitive. But as someone who campaigned a 49er, I can tell you that if you put an average skiff sailor (which is already above the average sailing skill) into a 49er in 12+ knots of breeze, they are unlikely to be able to send it around the course without swimming.
I think the same applies to foiling: If you buy a set-up moth and have decent skiff skills, by all accounts you can foil in a straight line on your first sail in 12 or so knots. But sailing in 15+, or even making it around the course without swimming (much less doing foiling gybes) will take hundreds if not thousands of hours of practice (what Doug doesn't realize is that to have the skill of a Gulari or Outteridge or Cammas requires sailing 200+ DAYS per year, not 200+ hours)
And that's just not within reach of the average sailor. Hence you see the popularity of classes like the Contender - or the 470, both boats that require that level of commitment for top performance, but which are much easier to sail than a Musto or RS 600 or I14 or 49er.
And the same applies with foiling vs. non-foiling.
Now a cat with L boards and a wand - I think it would be more stable than the Flying Phantom solution. But also yet more expensive. Because precision mechanics and light weight are the expensive things in sailing. And for the Phantom you need 1.5 of those (some mechanics in the AoA control) - but for a wand controlled boat you need everything the Phantom has, plus TWO control systems that are more expensive than what a Moth carries.
Remember that on a Cat, you have to be able to retract the weather board or you are going to be going enough slower due to the excess drag, that normal archemedian hulls will beat you (that's what the C-class had concluded the previous iteration) - and having a wand control mechanism that can deal with a retracted board is way more complex mechanically (read expensive) than on the moth where the foil is fixed.
As has been pointed out elsewhere, what foiling does for a Moth is to allow a takeoff speed at around 8 knots of hull speed - which is already planning mode for the hull. Whereas an 18' cat with its higher RM and longer hull can easily get into the lower range of Moth speeds without needing foiling.
That means that your benefits are much much lower (remember that 3rd overall at the C Class worlds was an old Archemedian boat) and because you have double the gear and much more weight to fly, your costs much much higher.
Sure at the Grand Prix level you will see this continue to evolve and develop but as something accessible to the avg sailor? I don't think so.
