Tomahawk

Have a look at the link, explains quite a bit.

 

http://www.tomahawkfoils.com/news

 

The foil has been fitted to a windsurfer on display in the Palm Court and can also be seen on the Ovington Boats’ concept dinghy on Stand C88.

The foil’s inventor, Jonathan Howes explains the concept: “It’s a totally new type of hydrofoil that solves many of the problems inherent in conventional foil designs. The ventilated design has features that give a wide operating speed range without moving parts and exceptional tolerance to rough water, making the windsurfer simpler, more versatile and easier to sail”

The concept uses subtle upper-surface shaping to provide progressive changes in lift force with increasing speed in a similar way to an aircraft’s wing flaps but without any moving parts. This means that the windsurfer lifts on to the foils at a very low speed but automatically corrects for higher speeds, giving smooth performance throughout the speed range.

Ventilated surface running allows the foil to move in and out of waves with minimal impact on foiling performance and gives speed potential without sudden changes in handling due to uncontrolled ventilation or cavitation. Not only does it fully exploit the concept’s forgiving characteristics, but a windsurfer fitted with the hydrofoil still behaves like a normal windsurfer.

The design has been tested, developed and refined by well-known, Weymouth sailor and dinghy manufacturer, Linton Jenkins. He says: “The Tomahawk foil makes windsurfing enjoyable, fast, and refreshing. I’ve never had such fun windsurfing!”

That foil is more of a planing surface than a lifting
foil! It's huge! I'm not going to pass a verdict yet but
I'm currently not convinced that it's going to be very
fast at all.

I had a chat with Sam Pascoe, who said the ventilated foil coped well with waves, since the it is less disrupted by flitting between air and water (hence less crashes in flat water too, if you ride too high).

Obviously all you cynics will want to see the proof, but I'm just passing on what I heard!

Why is it swept back?

Earwigged on the discussion Linton was having with the Daily Sail chappy on Saturday. Basically upwind it's not going to be as fast as a moth, but downwind he reckons is will be on a par (maybe faster), as you'll be able to drive it harder - the user friendliness making up for the lower efficiency. This was Linton's gut feel and he had no hard numbers to back it up, but interesting none the less...