Just saw a picture of the two newest sailing hydrofoils preforming. Great new radical design with retractable outrigger foils. Can’t wait to see them in action in a video. Looks like they might be capable of 40 to 50 knots, but I have not heard the skinny yet.
Cheers!
I thought the old design could retract as well, but just in vertical displacement, not the newer swing-up design? The new foils look like they move quicker, as well as being able to swing more completely clear of the water, both should help them be faster and quicker to come up on foils. Fun stuff, even if it’s not real sailing any more (fight me!).
The first race (NZ vs. Italians) went off, at least there was footage today on YouTube. The NZ boat won, mainly because they rarely had the hull touch the water, even when making end-of-leg 180 turns. Pretty impressive, keeping a boat foiling all the time. 40-50 knots pretty consistently on downwind tacks in 15-20 knot winds.
Cool! I’ll have to watch it. Thanks!
Hopefully the English will get a handle on their foiling issues and there will be more than two boats in the challengers series.
700 meter lead after the first leg was insane. Italians never had a chance… up by 3:14 at the finish.
Have to look at the America - UK race tomorrow…
As the arch-nemisis of Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties would say, “Curses, foiled again!”
Holy cow. That’s fast. Kiwis maintaining 35-40 knots in a 12-15 kn wind…
I had no idea these boats had gone to two outrigger foils until I saw this just now.
And then they lift one out to fly on just 1!
Day 1 (Dec 16) 4 races: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne-covgb3ao
We see several times what happens when the hull drops into the water - like molasses.
Day 2 had a close call right from the start as the US and Italians jockey for position at the start line - each earn penalties.
This is really cool.
Well, the rudder is also a foil, though smaller it looks like. But yeah, basically flying along on two points of contact. The US boat nearly capsized, and I thought maybe they’d snapped something, but maybe it was just a hiccup on the controls…still they made it a tight race.
wow INEOS Team UK cleaned up in the first two races of the Prada cup.
Interesting piece on the behind the minor rule changes.
Ouch!
Team USA capsizes on the last leg of Sunday’s race.
Serious hull damage visible in a later video
There is a video of the hole in the hull (about the 2:25 minute mark is when you can make it out)
Its a pretty big hole for something about 6 tons.
From an interview with Terry Hutchinson
You look at the boat speed when the boat was accelerating through the trajectory of the turn, and we were going 47 knots or something. There’s transverse structure inside the boat and then there’s a longitudinal structure. And when you look at the boat in slow motion, it popped quite a wheelie. The leeward foil came out of the water and we got a reasonable amount of bow-out altitude up. And when the boat slammed down, it’s fine if it slams flat on its keel. But when you land on the side, on the flat panel, basically the structure inside the yacht just guillotined the panel and out it came.”
Found some stills, looks like they had a good go at breaking it in half. Doesn’t look like it was a hard landing on the water, but apparently it was sufficient.
The missing piece
Nothing Duct Tape can’t handle… 
Uh, it’s gonna leak without some silly putty in there for good measure.
53 knots going downwind! How is that possible?3
and other articles. Hard to wrap your head around, but it’s been proven.
In thinking about this, gliders fly faster than the wind too and are powered by the kinetic energy effect of gravity using their air foils.
These vessels are gliders too, just a different medium.
Interesting point, M^2. My neighbor is a light plane and glider pilot, though now he just flies RC gliders. He was mentioning that the record flight duration (time aloft) was 70 hours for a 2-person glider; really they are limited by food and water supply, along with sleep deprivation. I guess the altitude record was over 76,000 ft. set just a few years ago, that’s higher than reported altitudes for the U-2.
