Foil for Fun

We’ve seen lots of full foiling cats recently, even Icarus was foiling 30 years ago. But still full foiling in cats is only experimental and has not been successful in Course Racing against traditional ‘floating’ cats.
The only exception to this rule might be ETNZ, but they still have to win the LV to prove the concept will work in any wind condition, they are looking quite good but Artemis has a word or two on this. Not even mentioning Oracle ‘reverse lift’ bareway disaster.

The great flying Tiger photos distributed by Search Magazine are just great fun, they even report 32knots! But take a look to those huge foils. Those foils could lift Artemis AC72 without much effort! But any chance that conf would be competitive in the 5-12 knot range in course racing? It is a one chance bet as the Tornado Code Zero was at Beijing, that ended with total failure.

More refined solutions have arise with Fischer S + L rudders foils on the MayFly, Flying Phantom and now the GC32 . Dario Valenza is giving the concept a new try in the Paradox A, but is going to be a tough endeavour, as if you cannot still fly consistenttly on the Phantom, and the GC32 is still to airborne, achieve an overall performer  with an underpowered ACat is ‘madness’ right now.

Full foiling as we’ve saying here for a while is right now for special projects like the Hydroptere, WhiteDragons and many others. We all like these projects, and I will continue to publish and promote them, and along the  “Fischer Conf”  they are the base for future efficient foil course racers, but right now don´t hold your breath waiting for a magical solution for Course Racing.
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1st Image, the Tiger losing its windward foil due to a dyneema failure, this was sent to me yesterday by Search Magazine to explain why they only have one foil. Below, initial Tiger conf before testing.