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Royal Sydney Flying Squardon  (18 foot skiff club) have had a guy with a foil 18 for a few years now.  Has L shaped foils at the wing tips which retract under the wings when coming to shore and has a rudder foil.  As far as I know he is still developing and it has not taken off yet if the class will allow it anyway.

Originally posted by Bobbins Oh I dont know.  The idea of all three crew disappearing round the forestay when it drops off the foils would be quite amusing if you were watching from the bank...

The idea of a foiling 18 sailing at a venue with a bank to watch from (river, pond etc) scares the hell out of me . I think one of those would make Rutland look small.

yeah would be pretty funny, but you imagine the speed you could get out of a hydrofoiling 18, imence, someone with too much mioney and not enough value for the life of there boat should try it.......or what about hydrofoiling the booat that has 15 people trapezing on it. 14 others to make mistakes!

 

The only real barrier to foiling is its top speed, ( the heavier the mass you need to lift the bigger the foils you need/faster take off speed will be).  Most foil sections tend to cavitate at around 40 knots, beyond this it is more efficient to plane.  Just like cavitating propellers, the sections that can operate at higher speeds do not work well at low speeds and so either need to be ventilated artificially or need massive power to get moving, however this would unlikely be a probley for the 18s as the air drag from the hull and rig at speeds of around 40 knots would likely prevent significantly higher speeds. 

Originally posted by Granite Once you get foiling then at the higher speeds that you get you have the sails sheeted close to the centerline no matter which direction you point.

is this because you would be traveling so fast the apparent wind is greater then the true wind speed?