new and for sale: electric hydrofoil

Discussion in 'Boat Design' started by yipster, May 17, 2012.

  1. yipster
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    yipster designer

  2. intrepid71
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    intrepid71 Junior Member

    I like the marriage of electric power and hydrofoils. Its a great idea if they can get enough power to get up on the foils. I thought the serrated edge of the hydrofoils was...interesting. I am skeptical whether it actually offers an advantage. They said something about animal mimicry but I can't think of animal fins that have a bumpy leading edge. The trailing edge maybe in some instances.

    As with all small boat hydrofoils, the depth of water required is a big drawback.

    Otherwise I wish they made the craft itself look a little more like a boat and less like a left over prop from Star Wars.
     
  3. Submarine Tom

    Submarine Tom Previous Member

    The guy who put it together put the foils on the wrong sides!

    I see it comes with a dink holder, oops, typo, I mean drink holder!
     
  4. Jeremy Harris
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    Jeremy Harris Senior Member

    I think the animal mimicry bit is referring to the leading edge of humpback whale flippers, that are also covered in little bumps. I'm not wholly convinced they make an appreciable difference on a plain foil, but a few people have copied the shape for fins, rudders etc, I believe.

    The Torqeedo motor they are using has a fair bit of power, so it should work OK, but endurance is likely to be fairly limited. My guess is that it'll be the sort of craft that you ride around on for half an hour or so, then have to recharge for a couple of hours before taking it out again. Probably not a big limitation for the fun and recreation market, where with a couple of interchangeable battery packs and a source of charging power on the beach you should be able to get enough fun out of it.
     
  5. messabout
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    messabout Senior Member

    Looks less like an animal and more like an angry bug of the order coleoptera (beetle). The foils look vicious. More's the fun
     
  6. intrepid71
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    intrepid71 Junior Member

    I was completely unaware of this, but you appear to be correct. Humpback flippers do have the bumps on the leading edge and apparently they can offer an advantage according to recent research. These fellows are pretty cutting edge.

    On the topic of range, they are claiming 100 km. That's seems fine for a very small boat.

    The big issue in my mind is whether this design has actually been proven to get up and go on foils. 5 hp is not much power to make that happen and that hull doesn't look like the most efficient shape in the world when its wet. This may just be a computer-rendered pipe dream with a mock-up.

    That said , hydrofoils seem like a good way to take the best advantage of the modest power available from motors and batteries. I would love to see some video of it running.
     
  7. mydauphin
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    mydauphin Senior Member

    It is a pipe dream by someone that has never seen a hydrofoil work. These foils have no lift where it needs it the most in the middle. As it yaw a little it may just total fall over. Getting this thing to fly straight is going to be a major problem.
     
  8. Submarine Tom

    Submarine Tom Previous Member

    There's a reason there's no video...
     
  9. BATAAN
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    BATAAN Senior Member

  10. DCockey
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    DCockey Senior Member

    The design and claims would fit in well at some (non-engineering) design schools.
     
  11. intrepid71
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    intrepid71 Junior Member

    Well given that they are taking deposits, apparently they are confident they can get it to work.
     
  12. mydauphin
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    mydauphin Senior Member

    Do they even have a scale model that works?
     
  13. messabout
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    messabout Senior Member

    The taking of deposits merely implies that they are taking deposits. I think that is what Bernie Madoff was doing too.
     
  14. DCockey
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    DCockey Senior Member

    Or optimistic.

    The Gizmo article linked above includes a new wave of educated designers with no understanding of the word "cannot." I've learned that knowing what you don't know can be very important.

    Quadrofoil website: http://www.matrisdesign.com/quadrofoil/en/ Click on the Quadrofoil tab to see "Technical Data" and "Technology". Looks like a design school presentation to me.
     

  15. Jeremy Harris
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    Jeremy Harris Senior Member

    Although I have reservations about the practicality of this thing, and even whether it will actually work at all, I have been surprised by the no understanding of the word "cannot" brigade a few times, so tend to try and not be too sceptical.

    I do firmly believe that people who do stuff like this should wait until they have a working prototype before taking people's money, though. To accept deposits on the basis of a mythical concept seems unethical, to me.
     
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