http://team.abnamro.com/web/show/id=111901

Click on the vid: "A Skipper Becomes..."

There is nothing that can compare to the experience of being on foils.

Now thats cool looking! Could you put a couple of those on a cat and make it fly? Gives a whole new meaning to "Wild thing".

Clayton

Yes but a trimaran seems to be the best configuration.

The Hobie trifoiler easily beat the foiling moth at the Weymouth speed trials last year.

Its a shame that both the Hobie trifoiler and the Windrider Rave have been discontinued.

Gareth

A Rave can still be ordered from the new company. Dealers are listed here:
http://www.windrider.com/

A Rave can easily hit 35mph; design limit is 45mph. The Moth can hit speeds which any cat can do but the thrill of flying is like comparing sailing a monohull to flying a hull on a cat. It's a different exhiliration; kind of like a flying carpet. A Rave can easily hit 35mph; design limit is 45mph.

A new company bought the tooling and assets for the Rave and the other Windrider tri's. A Rave can be ordered to be built. The new company was formed by Windrider enthusiasts and is located in Plymouth, Minnesota.

I want a foiler, I'm tempted by the moth, but the moth seems really hard to sail. Plus you have to tip it over to launch it and carry it on shore so as not to damage the foiling mechanism.

The Rave and Trifoiler seem way too complicated. Plus the Rave is way to heavy at 600lbs.

Have you seen the Rave's main beam up close? Its like something off a oil rig.

Heavy and complicated = not good in my book.

Someone needs to build a simplier,lighter weigh foiler that can be beached like a cat.

Actually, 600 lbs. would be a Rave-and-a-half. The Rave weighs only 400 lbs. For comparison a Melges17 scow which is a foot longer than the Rave and extremely light for it's size with carbon fiber sticks weighs 300 lbs.

The main beam is 5"o.d. made of T6061 aluminum as is the rest of the structure; the same metal found in your everyday jetliner. The entire structure has to be as light as possible but very strong to withstand the high forces on the frame and rig at foiling speeds.

The Rave's foils are retractable so it can be beached.

Get him Dean!

There's no doubt foiling is the craziest feeling in sailing, I took a buddy on my Rave, and he was blown away, and he got some good runs in on his first time driving. For sure the tripod arangement is easier, but outlawed in Moth class. I have seen a few cat mods with flip down foils at the bows and an additional center rudder with foil at the back. The Rave is a bit heavy, but while demoing the first time in San Diego I watched my buddy hit a sandbar at full speed, almost flip it over the bows, come back to the beach with one ama crumpled up, and by the next day the plastic had straighted itself out, so it has good real world sturdiness. One time I launched it off the back of one swell into the face of the next one, and went so far under water it was getting dark overhead, and the boat just kept on going! ( man that bilge pump is handy. The Moth with foils has to be the toughest boat in the world to sail as the tiller also twists to control the rudder foil pitch. But as noted the major drawback has got to be no surf lauching. Nothing like charging into the lineup on a big wave day...

Somewhat related to this topic:

I spoke to someone last summer who wanted to take the middle hull of a windrider 17 tri (non foiling version) and make a mold for a fiberglass hull out of it. Modify it by putting on a centerboard, then taking beachcat hulls and putting lifting foils on them like an Orma 60' and stick an inter20 rig on it.

Sounded crazy but I bet it would rocket.

I don't know, the size of the rig would probably be too much with the way the apparent wind builds. Another foiling story, you really realize how small 16' is when you are doing 30 kts and a grey whale surfaces in front of you...

The Trifoiler has a couple of things going for it. First is that the boat is a great foiling boat. Second is that Greg Ketterman designed a trailer for it. I used to test drive the boat before production and I was able to set it up alone in about 45 minutes. It is not the quickest boat to set up but with two it could get down to about 20 minutes, as I recall. The trailer had a lot to do with that. There were supports to hold things while rigging, it was a work of art.

I was hoping to see a hydrofoil catamaran by now. I saw the drawings of it and it looked really interesting. The concept was to make a 16 to 18 foot boat that no other could beat around a regular triangle course, in all wind conditions. I will have to look into the status of that.

Later,
Dan

One problem with the Trifoiler is with the forward type sensing wands, it really doesn't like choppy conditions...

How did we get here again?

I thought the same thing until this day with 2' chop.
Anyway, it appeared to me, even with the chop extremely fast.

from 2000 H16 Worlds Guadeloupe winds 15.
I was the quickest thing out there on a choppy day off the beach.

another pic

Deja Vu, Jake! I fell off my chair laughing.

FOILER MISCONCEPTIONS:

1. "They only fly once in a while." Reality: They fly more often when you're not carrying freight/passenger. The amount of flying time on the water is directly proportional to the prevalence of 7-10mph available wind when singlehanding.

2. "The Rave is heavy". Reality: It weighs 400lbs. It's heavy if you forget to remove the trailer from the boat before pushing off from the beach. That weight is comparable to a lot of cats.

3. "The Tri-Foiler can't go in a chop." Reality: Look at the pics of the Hobie Tri-Foiler above in this thread. (You're welcome, Matt.) When the Rave is up on the foils, it flys above the chop. Chop don't matter until it's up to a height where only a lead mine boat would bother to tread.

4. "They take forever to setup." Reality: If forever is an hour, my workday typically runs about eight forevers. I am paid each week for forty forevers worth of work. I'm underpaid.

7. "They don't sell well." Reality: They don't sell well. The owners are a reclusive bunch, anyway, and couldn't care less after they have their baby in the garage.

14. "They're fragile." Reality: A foiler has to withstand much, much more load on the foils, rig, and frame than any other boat design. (For all that strength the weight is pretty low.) Consequently, they have to be bullet proof but inherent idiot proofing has been a problem. The foiler multihull designers have been at it since the '70's, so they're about as right as they are going to be. For many owners, the foiler was their first sailboat or first multihull. Extrapolate that scenario to it's inevitable conclusion.

18. "They're slow when not flying." Reality: With three T-foils and three hulls in the water...duh. Live with it, buy that optional A-sail, and/or get another boat to use when the wind ain't blowin'.

21. "They don't make 'em anymore." Reality: The Rave can be made by request. The TriFoiler may be, too. I dunno. Call 'em and ask them if they mind taking your money. It never hurts to ask.

[color:"blue"]Jake:

This thread is about flying boats. Where else are we going to go?[/color]


By the way the trifoiler has been on foils in 4 to 6 foot seas. There is a bit of a concern when you see a big swell coming at you and it is over your head. You can slow down and take it anyway you can. With 2 to 3 just keep the pedal down it works pretty nice. Refering to the pictures in Guatelope seems that the foils were not adjusted properly. I think the boat should be sitting higher out of the water. I remember thinking that when I saw it sailing. I was there but did not sail the Trifoiler.

Later,
Dan

I wasn't terribly clear but I was referring to the reference that foilers don't handle chop well. We beat that horse to death about 6 months ago and among other similar replies talked about some upgrades that were available for the Rave that made it handle swell and chop better than it already did. I was just trying to give Dean a chuckle.

Bill thanks for putting me right on that, i've just emailed the new Rave guys
Interesting quote from a clever guy on the boat design forum


Seems to back up number 3

Gareth