Foiling small cat launched at Annapolis boat show next month

The first foiling small catamaran that you can tow behind your car will be at the Annapolis boat show next month. , Nor'Banks Sailing, has the US distribution and is located in Duck, NC. See https://www.norbanks.com/norbanks-announces-us-distributorship-for-the-foiling-catamaran-whisper/ It is manufactured by White Formula in the UK. See http://www.whiteformula.com/WhiteFormula_UK/Whisper.html

Specifications: LOA 6.20m/20ft 4in, LWL 4.20m/13ft 9in, Beam 2.40m/7ft 10in, Weight 78kg/172lb, Sail area: Mainsail 12.6m2/1365ft2, Jib 3m2/23ft2, Spinnaker 14m2/150ft2

It can foil in 5knts but is best at 6 to 8 knts so well suited to light wind conditions. Its speed is about 25 knts when foiling. It is much easier to sail than a foiling moth.

Price in UK £20,000 inc VAT and about $36K here.

Videos at:

Thats actually pretty cool, I see they use the same trailing arrow for foil control that I developed several years ago, first boat I've ever seen using it (other than my TI ). I prefer that design over all others because it works well even in rough water.
$34k for the boat is a lot of money though, way beyond my pocketbook.

I think I like this design (with T foils, and trailing arrows) over the Hobie quadfoiler design (I have no idea which would be superior)
FE

Everyone at work now knows what I want for Christmas.
Just need to convince the Mrs.
I mean it's the right colour and all.

Hope you registered copyright on the foil design Bob.

_________________
Cheers, Brian in South Australia
Tandem Island -

Bob, rough water with gusts still seems like a major challenge since it seems impossible to avoid a capsize due to the speed. The trailing sensor may not catch it in time.

At the same show next month Gunboat will announce their foiling version the G4 a much larger luxury cruising foiling cat at 40 feet. This spring it had a spectacular capsize which you can see on YouTube below where half the crew is submerged. It seems that no sensor or even release of all the sails in time can avoid it. This may limit the success of foilers for the recreational sailors because of the inherent risk. Only sailing in flat water in light wind conditions seems safe.

In another foiling cat, the Nacra 20 CFS, it has strong warnings in its PDF brochure which would scare off most buyers I think. See page 6 of this pdf owners manual that includes emergency oxygen tank, helmut and impact vest at http://www.nacrasailing.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/FCS-MANUAL-B.pdf

Perhaps someone can invent a better way to avoid this problem.

Bobco: funny you should mention that (the crashing thing), I had a horrendous crash with mine, when just a big wad of fishing line took out my foil, I went from 20 to zero in under a second I swear, and nose dived. That same month a friend of mine hit a sand bar with his Trifoiler (pretty heavy damage either way), I suspect thats why they all wear helmets on the Trifoilers.

Changeman:

No I didn't copyright anything because I didn't think it was worth anything to anyone. There is a huge difference between designing something that works, and selling something commercially sellable in volume of any kind, and affordable. Look at how much money and effort was put into the Trifoiler only to sell a couple hundred boats (a pretty small specialty market, with an extremely narrow performance window). The entire industry in my opinion is pretty stodgy and locked into all that one design stuff from the 70's (all just my opinion of course).
The market is so small and locked into certain things in a death spiral IMO. I don't foresee that trend changing anytime soon, it's all really cool stuff, but I'm just not envisioning them selling ten thousand of these things at $36k ea. At that price I'm just not seeing more than a few dozen being made (who on earth can afford it), if they had figured out a viable manufacturing process and been able to come in at $6k, I would jump up and take notice.
For me it's just a hobby (somethin to occupy my mind) and nothing more.
I suspect the only ones who take notice of this stuff are the ones who design and built such things and appreciate the design challenges and have huge respect for what we see here.
First off being able design a 20 ft boat that only weighs 175 lbs is huge, however designing it to be trailerable (under 8 ft wide) in my opinion compromised the design too much, I would have designed 12-15 ft wide but like he describes in the video, that additional structure to make it telescope in and out for transport would have added quite a bit of weight (now their kind of stuck). You can see in the video the two guys trapped out on their tippy toes in very light winds even with the boats tiny sails, personally I would have designed with a wing main instead (but I'm into wings), with F18 size sails it would take a half dozen guys trapped out on their tippy toes just to sail in moderate wind( the boats too narrow IMO), but A for effort. They could have left the flares, but just transition that over a carbon tube (oh well, it is what it is now).
I would have instead of designing in lay up carbon fiber (which is extremely expensive and labor intense), I would have figured out a way to injection mold the hull with carbon fiber IML, with my specialty plastics (still in development) so you can pop a hull out every 60 seconds (vs what i'm assuming to be many days of intense layup work and baking). One has to realize to injection mold such hulls would be several million in tooling, so it would only be viable in mass quantities ( there are several small dingys made this way now, but without the high tech materials, and without the carbon fiber IML). I'm a manufacturing guy and would much prefer to pump out 1400 hulls a day vs 10-12 (via rotomolding, or .25 hulls/day via layup), plus the injection molded carbon IML hulls would be 3x stronger and 1/2 the weight vs roto- molding. I'm hoping someday somebody figures out how to mass produce a viable design for the masses that everyone loves ( so they can sell many at an affordable price via state of the art manufacturing (well thats my dream anyway). Not goin to happen anytime soon (just sayin).
In my humble opinion the only guys out there with the wherewithall (if thats even a word) are the guys at Hobie, but they would need the desire and a for sure market (like they did with the Islands, (pretty dang brilliant).
All just my opinions, and my two cents, fun to think about though, we all have dreams, I just happen to dream big (lol). What I want vs what I can afford are in two separate universes now.
Obviously I don't think like anyone else, and all my comments should be taken like a grain of salt.
FE

Bob, speaking of 20 to 0 in a second, watch this sailor literally flying off the Nacra 20 FCS due to the momentum change. The way he rose into the air makes me wonder if he was still strapped in on the wire. Not the kind of boat you take your grandmother for a ride.

The beauty of the TriFoiler's dynamic leveling system is that it reads the water forward of the foils, not at nor behind them. The ride is almost perfectly level at all times. No pitch control problems whatsoever.

Tom,

That makes more sense since anticipates the waves to come. The foiling kiteboat at http://project.kiteboat.com/ also uses that approach. It routinely flys across SF Bay at over 30 knots at great stability. See it below:

Bob, I hope there is a possible compromise somewhere but I guess the versatility of the island doesn't lend itself to getting anywhere near a fast tri or cat. I gave up on a Nacra, so much fun, a real buz but too much work for someone with my ageing fitness.

You're right, too expensive, too limited market for the white formula.

Maybe in the future, Hobie will offer wing sails as an option which will give us some extra speed without the difficulty of foils.
Nonetheless, enjoyed watching all the videos.
Cheers,
Brian

I agree about finding a sailing experience consistent with our age and fitness. But I still believe there will be a design that would allow the average to foil so I keep looking for it since I would enjoy flying in light wind. Here is a design that seems to be almost there - the stunt S9 at http://www.s9team.it/home.html. That S9 website says the S9 is made of standard US hulls and other parts: "All the essential parts are manufactured directly from us hulls, rudders, daggerboards, beams, masts, sails, stainless steel and aluminium fittings and accessories,so this gurantee a lot of spare parts." So perhaps one can buy the plans and assemble it here.




S9 is a small experimental 14 foot cat with one sail for one sailor with forward sensor that costs about 9K euros. It looks promising. Below it is foiling upwind:




Here is another one man small foiling cat Exploder. See cat sailing news editor trying it out:



Bobco