This flap is mechanically connected to a wand that skims the water’s surface to monitor the ride height. On the T-foil system, a moving flap attached to the trailing edge of the horizontal foil alters the amount of vertical lift that is generated.
When the boat slows down, more foil is lowered into the water, increasing the lift. As the foil breaks the surface the amount of lift is reduced and the boat finds its equilibrium. More speed generates more lift and raises the L out of the water. With the Cup-style foils it is the L configuration that provides the self-levelling control for the ride height of the boat. Instead of using a set of L section daggerboards to provide the vertical lift, as is the case with the Cup boats and production foiling cats such as the Flying Phantom and Nacra F20, Price used the T-foil concept that is used in the International Moth.
While the motivation to fly was the same, Price’s starting point was fundamentally different. “But it was clear that I wasn’t going to get a ride on one of those machines, so I set about designing a foiling cat of my own.” T-foil concept “Like so many other people I was blown away by the America’s Cup foiling cats and wanted to have a go myself,” Price explains. The foiling cat started life as a personal project for Ron Price, who is a regular 49er sailor and a senior lecturer in naval architecture at Southampton Solent University. White freely admits that it was not his company’s design that has led to the new production boat. But it was this design that impressed us and made us think that the time was right.” “We’ve been thinking about producing a foiling cat for years and there’s no question that the last America’s Cup spurred everyone on. “The Moth is tricky to sail, while the current production foiling cats are too expensive for most people. I count myself in that, too,” he declares. “Look at the amount of people who want to sail a Moth, but can’t. A lifelong cat sailor and double world champion in the Tornado class, his sailing and industry achievements place him in a position of high authority when it comes to multihulls and production boatbuilding. “If you can sail, you can foil this boat,” says Rob White of White Formula, a company that has a long list of internationally successful production catamarans to its name, including the Dart 18, Spitfire, Shadow, Shockwave F18, Sprint 15 and many more.īut perhaps you’d expect him to say that. This, claims her builder, is only the start. She turned plenty of heads at Southampton and London and attracted a great deal of interest at the Paris Boat Show – indeed, so much interest that just a few months later 27 boats had been sold to customers in six countries, from the USA to New Zealand. The Formula Whisper is an all-carbon production version of the 20ft hydrofoiling Solent Whisper prototype that did the rounds at several boat shows last winter. But this new production cat could change all that and bring foiling for the club sailor a step closer to reality. Unless you’ve mastered sailing an International Moth recently, the chances are that you have yet to try foiling. This was clearly not just an interesting new design, but one that could turn out to be the turning point for performance sailing. In just 20 minutes my perspective had changed. Until then I hadn’t realised how much of the time we were doing exactly what her designer had claimed was possible – foiling from the off. It wasn’t until we went through the raw video footage that I could see what he meant. But Richard was insistent: he was surprised at how readily I had been able to foil and how long I had been flying. I had been frustrated with my first attempts – it had looked so easy in the hands of her designer.
Shadow era foil full#
As I stepped off the Formula Whisper, our cameraman and photographer Richard Langdon was full of praise for my first attempt at flying.
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