Flying Phantom F 18 Catamaran

Discussion in 'Multihulls' started by Doug Lord, Jul 13, 2012.

  1. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    Flying Phantom

    The following video shows the excellent heave stability(achieved with an excellent ride height control system) and pitch stability of the Flying Phantom-absolutely rock steady:


     
  2. Doug Lord
    Joined: May 2009
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    Flying Phantom

    Interesting article in The Daily Sail about the Flying Phantom: http://www.thedailysail.com/dinghy/13/65735/0/foiling-phantom-to-go-into-production
    According to the article, rudder rake is not adjustable.

    Excerpts-
    Following the Groupama team's development work, Sail Innovation is now going into production with the Flying Phantom One Design, which Udin hopes will bring foiling catamaran sailing to the masses in the same way as the Moth has done on one hull.

    The rake control for the daggerboard may take some getting to use to, but the boat is otherwise aimed at being relatively simple to sail and to provide average mortal cat sailors with the opportunity to get a taste of America's Cup technology at a substantially cheaper price point. The boat is clearly interesting Cup teams, as one has already placed an order for some.

    Picture from The Daily Sail/James Boyd:
    click-
     

    Attached Files:

  3. Baltic Bandit

    Baltic Bandit Previous Member

    Folks go read what High On Carbon has written about what "heave" is vs what our friend Doug Lord is saying it is. HoC co-designed, built and raced a foiling C Class cat.

    "heave" is not "ride height control" rather it is right height stability. The two are interrelated but the are different.

    And of course a promotional video is going to show "rock solid stability" - the Hydros video showed the same thing, so did Groupama's. and yet when sailed "in anger" neither was nearly as stable.
     
  4. Doug Lord
    Joined: May 2009
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    Flying Phantom

    e-mail I just received from Phantom International:

    At the end of the show, Phantom International sold 15 Flying Phantom units and received fifty expressions of interest with 80% of applications outside France. Therefore and very soon , the Flying Phantom will fly over San Francisco Bay, on Lake Geneva or along French coastal areas.

    The coming weeks will be focused on: the production of first customer units, sailing sessions for optimization and preparation of Düsseldorf Boat Show that will be held in January from the 18th to the 26th.

    Alex Udin
    "After three years of intensive Research and Development, selling 15 boats at the French Boat Show for the first public presentation and exposure is a fantastic news. The idea is really to democratize the foiling and flying boats like America's Cup ones. Of course, the Flying Phantom is a sport boat like any sport catamaran such as F18 and then the target is sporty sailors. Expression of interest are coming from America's Cup teams, professional sailors, multihulls specialists but also from amateurs looking for new sensations.
    During 2014, the Flying Phantom will be racing on the international catamaran circuit, an in the mean time the objective is to create a One Design class European tour and American tour.

    The whole Phantom International team also wishes to thank all the support and interest received during the launch of the Flying Phantom at Paris Boat Show.
    We will keep you informed of our progress and get back to you very soon to present the 2014 calendar and schedule".
     
  5. Baltic Bandit

    Baltic Bandit Previous Member

    Doug - please stop wasting Mr Udin's time. He's trying to build a business and you are never going to buy or sail one of these boats. Please leave the man to his work
     
  6. Doug Lord
    Joined: May 2009
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    Flying Phantom

    Updated info from the "Sail Innovation" website:

    After 3 years of intensive development and thank to the help of some of the most renowned sailors and multihull specialists, we are proud to present the first FLYING PHANTOM production boat.

    The concept is based on design work Martin Fischer has done over the past years on foils and the expertise of Franck Cammas and Groupama Sailing Team.

    The boat is not just a modified F18 but it is entirely designed to foil, the only common part is the shape of the hulls. The Flying Phantom is wider (3m) and lighter (165kg).

    After an extensive of different foils and rudders configurations, we came up with a combination of "L" shaped foils and "T" shaped rudders, providing pitch and heave stability in full flight but also being competitive in light winds.

    The carbon / honeycomb / epoxy hulls in combination with a carbon tapered mast built in an autoclave result in significant weight reduction, the increased total beam improves the stability while foiling.

    Foiling cats are the future of our sport and offer new sensations and previously unknown performance levels, foiling from 7 knots of wind and able to reach more than 30 knots above the water.


    The revolution is on, realize your dream, fly above the water !
    =========================================

    Specifications


    Design team: Martin Fischer

    Development team: Alex Udin, Franck Cammas and Groupama sailing team

    Class: One Design

    Length: 5,52m / 18'

    Width: 3,00m / 9.8'

    Weight: 165kg / 363lb

    Mast: Tapered / Carbon autoclaved / 9,5m / 31.16'

    Appendices: T-foil rudders +L-shape foiling dagger boards carbon autoclaved

    Hulls construction: Carbon fiber / honeycomb sandwich / epoxy

    Main: SI VXM Carbon Technora membrane / 18sqm with mast / 193.6 sq.ft.

    Jib: SI VXM Carbon Technora membrane/ 5,5sqm / 59 sq.ft.

    Gennaker: SI Polyester / 24sqm / 258sq.ft.

    Max speed: + 30 knots



    Price: 28 260 Euros ex tax
     
  7. Doug Lord
    Joined: May 2009
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    Flying Phantom

    Quote from "Mr. Clean" on SA, Flying Phantom thread today:

    Posted Today, 10:31 AM

    Hate to throw fuel on a fire, but Martin Fischer told me quite specifically on camera that the Flying Phantom shocked him with how easy it was to get up on the foils and sail around. The entire point is to make it easy.

    -----
    Martin Fischers comment is most significant considering his multihull expertise and role in developing extraordinary catamarans.
     
  8. Baltic Bandit

    Baltic Bandit Previous Member

    Doug you are spamming
     
  9. Tom.151
    Joined: Jul 2009
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    Tom.151 Best boat so far? Crowther Twiggy (32')

    Give it a rest BB, you're getting tiresome.
     
    1 person likes this.
  10. Baltic Bandit

    Baltic Bandit Previous Member

    Tom I went to the Paris Boat show. I've talked with Mr. Udin. I've seen the actual boat, I've seen the Groupama boat. None of this is true of Doug. And you are saying that my finding Doug's spam tiresome makes me tiresome? please.
     
  11. P Flados
    Joined: Oct 2010
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    P Flados Senior Member

    BB

    Doug can be tiresome with re-posting the same info over and over. However, I have no trouble glancing over it and it is not really bothersome. Also, please note that many of us like it when Doug finds (or digs out) foiling related info and shares it with us.

    However since you asked, I will chime in and say that your version of tiresome bothers me much more than Doug's. It is the "anything anti-Doug attitude" over and over again. Much of the time you are just nit picking and or you twist things around.

    I will bet that the vast majority of the readers do not even notice the times that you may have a valid point on Doug's favorite threads since we all assume that you will say anything to try to make Doug look bad.

    I find many of your posts much more interesting when you are actually talking about sailing and not in what appears to be your "attack mode".

    You do seem very interested in foiling cats.

    At his point, it would seem that the improved ability to push hard on downwind runs is a big plus, but upwind foiling may or may not be worth chasing at this stage.

    Do you have any constructive thoughts about the Phantom team or the other teams who are trying to make a reasonable full foiling cat package available to the sailing public?

    Or do you think that despite what we see at the top, the technology is just not good enough and standard products should probably just try to get the most out of foil assist mode?

    What do you think about the potential for a cat with L boards and some amount of wand controlled flap. If the boat is set up to be "almost stable" without a flap, would not the addition of a small partial length flap have the potential of converting an experts only boat into a boat that many more of us could handle?
     
  12. Baltic Bandit

    Baltic Bandit Previous Member

    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.
     
  13. idkfa
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    idkfa Senior Member


    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXSgZCDVWOM
     
  14. Baltic Bandit

    Baltic Bandit Previous Member

    Well that's the point. You can do the foils on both hulls, but you go slower
     

  15. Doug Lord
    Joined: May 2009
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    ---------------
    Thanks idkfa! The Hobie trifoiler and the record breaking Longshot used feelers sticking out front to independently change the angle of incidence of each main foil. This resulted in the foils creating all the righting moment for the boat so the crew could sit in the center. A variation of this system using wands to move flaps on the main foil is used on the Rave, Osprey and Skat and served the same purpose: to allow the foils to create all the RM for the boat.
    It seems as though the new Phantom type foil system might be better in light to moderate air but the Hobie/ Rave system has proven extraordinarily fast in strong winds. And these systems are far easier to sail than a boat with twin trapezes since the crew doesn't have to move(and you can sail singlehanded). It was thought for a long time that this kind of system was no good in light air but that's been proven wrong with the Osprey that takes off in 6-7 knots of wind.
     
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