Foilers for sale

A lot of sailing clubs (especially inland) are way too small for foilers anyway. We have a notional PY limit of around 950 and no multihulls.

Fully agree with that, foilers are not suitable for the places many sail, as above expensive, quickly outdated, fragile, you need to be the same weight you were before you discovered beer, curry etc, need a certain wind to work, require you to do pay you dues with hours on the water (not quite in tune with being able to afford one). So fantastic as they are niche of a niche....... and over hyped to the detriment of our sport

I have seen (and drooled over and chatted with the owner) one of the currently for sale foilers, the asking price is eye watering. It is a work of art and certainly has a high value but worth a fraction of that value.

Still, considering other development classes un-proportionate, doesn’t explain the Waszp and what is the trade up of a €30k boat?

Well said, Tink etc.

What is odd is that not many people in the media seem to be asking questions about the practicality of "hyper performance" craft. One of the French sites recently posted some information about foilers that noted their vast cost and practicality problems, from the enormous cost (1/3 of the entire price of a Figaro III is the foils!) to the mooring issues. Few, if any, of the puff pieces about offshore foilers consider these important factors.

It's also sobering to see how far out of kilter many parts of the sailing "establishment" have become in their attitude towards cost. Inflation-adjusted costs for mid-performance seahuggers don't seem to have risen since the dinghy boomtime and such classes are doing quite well. However, the boats in the middle of the foiler market seem to cost more in inflation-adjusted costs than the most expensive dinghy (the Int 14) did back in the boomtime, and vastly more than the most expensive singlehander (the Canoe) did when the sport was growing. 

Once, it was publicly recognised that 14s and Canoes and the ilk were extremely expensive craft for the few. Now the "establishment" are promoting even more expensive craft as "the future". That represents a huge move to an elitist vision of the sport in which the average person need not apply. I love high performance craft and own and sail them, but for the health of our sport the media and officialdom need to stop pretending that they are the best way forward.

The other odd thing is that (unlike the situation when the sport was growing) very few of those in "the establishment" seem to actually go out and do what they are basically telling others to do, which is to buy, run and sail "hyper performance" boats. They are telling people to do as they say, not as they do, and that rarely works well.