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High-Tech Hydrofoil
An anonymous submitter sent in links to a super-sophisticated hydrofoil/catamaran which intends to break various water speed records for wind-powered vessels. Max speed: 45 knots. A couple of fansites have more photos of the craft in action.
I was going to mention Yellow Pages Endeavour - the truely exotic Australian "Speed pod" as they call it. (That particular "boat" is almost impossible to define as anything but an "it") Of course, Yellow Pages can only sail on one tack, which makes it rather limited.
I also seem to recall the TriFoiler was getting close to that speed, though it suffered from cavitation problems.
While we may never see 45 knots on a cruising foil, it should be possible to cram some accomodations into a sailing foil - even if it would never be practical as a production boat. (You have a better background in this than I do though. I'm just an ME and avid sailor)
And, just for the record, this boat is NOT a catamaran. Cats have two hulls. This is (loosly) a Tri.
Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence...
Does anyone have any web pages that are more specific about the technical aspects of construction, such as material composition and so forth? The fact that this craft looks to be capable of 50 knots (92.60000000000001 km/h or 53.895mph thanks to Suntron Velocity Conversion) means that it would have to be constructed out of some pretty space-age type of materials (Carbon Steel, Titanium alloys and Carbon Fibre Composite come to mind here). The problem with the link provided by Slashdot is, besides the grammar difficulties involved in the translation from French (or any other language for that matter) to English, is that the details are sketchy and therefore it amounts to little more than your average press release. So if anyone has any interesting info they can post here, then go right ahead.
At any rate, I think the fact that this design was assisted by such large organisations as EADS (European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company) and CNES (Center National Space Studies) means that there's some pretty serious money being invested in this project. Also, the expertise being invested here is also amazing, given that the project has backgrounds in such high-tech fields as aeronautical and space engineering. So it's very likely that this will be more than a flash in the pan and that this will pave the way for bigger and more ambitious projects.
Self Bias Resistor
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When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer our friend.
OK, I have to go soon, so just a quick note:
, so 45 knots won't even get them the speed record. YPE claims a top speed of 54 knots, and to be honest I believe them. Even if they are Australians.
45 knots on a sailing hydrofoil with, like, cabin and somewhere to make a cup of coffee? I think not. Without going into details just accept that I went to University *just* to study this problem (I came to computing through writing fluid dynamics code) and you can take it from me that it won't be happening.
Thing 2: Current speed sailing record is 46.52 knots, held by Yellow Pages Endeavour (http://www.mko.freesurf.fr/innovoile/YPE_e.html)
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
I love it, maybe we can make the foil into semiconducters, write an assembler language, then port linux and cluster it
"If a man watches 3 football games in a row he should be declared leagaly dead" - A
It's an interesting thought, but I think you're missing the point of supercavitation. Supercavitation is only truly effective (and truly possible) with vessels that are completely submerged in water (eg. submarines, torpedoes and the like). It works by creating a renewable pocket of air around the vessel, so that very little of the liquid touches the surface of the vessel. This reduces the vessel's viscous drag (bearing in mind that the resistance of water is somewhere in the order of 1400 times that of air) and allows it to travel much faster. This isn't the sort of thing that can't be done with a partly submerged vessel, as is the case here.
If you're interested in learning more about the specifics of supercavitation, then is an article on the Scientific American website and two articles on Slashdot (here and here). It should be interesting to see what the possible future applications of this technology would be. As always any constructive criticism is welcome.
Self Bias Resistor
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When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer our friend.
There is a page on the Alstom site (an official sponsor of the project) here.
Hydrofoils are a funny thing. They still operate on the theories (whatever they are) on hyrdrodynamics, so they are still considered boats and not hover crafts. You can actually get your own personal-type model. Click here for more info.
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