Foiling 18' skiff

finaly, an interesting history lesson

thank you CT249!

Here are some comments from the owner of the Flying 18 from the 18 topic on boatdesign.net:
"Your text is interesting and I would like to answer to it.

May I introduce myself : Thomas Jundt from Geneva, owner of the flying 18 AET

Rome wasn't build in one day, we need time and practice to discover our machine, but :
Today I am very optimist about performance (fabulous job of John), I believe on the basis of our 3 sails with foils, that our boat in the hands of an trained team will beat all existing 18s around the track if :
- Wind more than 2 Bf, say more than 7 kns.
- No spinakker but a flat unstayed headsail (in cuben fiber) as the one you can see on the photos (apparent wind ) 30 sqm instead 60 as the are the JJ assymetrics now.

Foiling upwind :
I think to foil upwind we need 4 Bf of wind in order to achieve the 8 to 9 kn of boatspeed to take off, once out of the water + 2 kn so no question who is faster.
But even in 3 Bf I believe that the lift of the foils reduces the hull drag sufficiently enough to compensate for foil drag, at he worst the same as none foiling.
And rudder lift allows to push the bow down, what a traditional 18 tries by moving all weight ahead as far as possible.

Foiling downwind :
No question as soon as airborn faster than non foiler
And I believe no pitchpoling any more (as GP -covers in the pictures of seahorse) when you bear off at the weather mark

Conclusions :
- A conversion 18 will be faster than a non foiler 18 (in more than 2 Bf)
- A 18 foiler build from scrach even more of corse (in all conditions)
- In any case the lighter the better the faster
- 18 s are spectacular boats, foling18 s even more
- The league is fine but it 's become a one design class racing, with low devellopement
- All the major devellopement jumps (assymetrics, wings, fiber mast tops, carbone masts, etc) weren't made by the league.
- The price of devellopement is that things become obsolete over night (as typing machines f.i., can you rember the time before PC s ?)

Classs rules or not, in a couple of years we will see completely different hulls apear (more skiff type, narrow, non planing hulls, (you don't plane you fly) so performance gain will be in light wind and in havy wind.

And...
.. once you have foiled you cannot go back !!! "

Thanks all

as my sister said, "wooooaaaa"

It's a fisherman on shore, casting his line in