A Cat Championship in Panama City

Wow...I think this is the only time I've seen slow motion cinematography of sailing that I actually liked.

much nicer than bouncy boat-cams...

And this is how you properly feature a sponsor in sailing video.

It doesn't hurt that he crushes that pin end start..wow.

Nice to hear some 'Stralian music on a US video

Foilers are kicking butt
7 out of the top 10
And 10 out of the top 20...
Us low riders are still hanging in there

Mike you looked like you were foiling on that start! Your own personal puff? Love those, I seldon get em, but love em

not foiling, just power reaching down to the pin.

So Mike, has there been any talk inside the class, of perhaps splitting the fleet into foiling and non-foiling fleets? Or perhaps a separate trophy for each?

I was just about to sell my Blade and get an A cat last year when this foiling thing came along and put the 'state of the art' wayyy outside my reach, money wise!

$30K for a foiler?? Ouch!

All those non foiling A cats need to go somewhere, maybe if the class splits up, I can afford a used non-foiler and have someone to race against.

If I want to go flying, for $30K I can get an airplane and not have to worry about if there's wind, or clean weeds on my blades.

We addressed it this week at the annual meeting. For full details, check out the sh*tstorm we have started over on the SA Multihull forum under the A-Class NA coverage.

Highlight video of the week -

I filled me shorts...

I need to get an A-Cat. It's amazing what a leap there is in flight compared to the footage from Tankapanakunablahblah... <---Can the locals even spell the name of their city?!

I could watch that all...day...long.

man, just spent some time in that thread on Sailing Anarchy...you guys did start quite a storm. It's all in the wording. Nice that it appears to be resolved and I think you guys are headed down a good path. Contrary to some of the talk, it would be much more affordable to retrofit a standard

ocean hugging

boat with bottom-up installed foils to get it airborne than to go through the contortions of modifying the hull to accept some really oddly shaped daggerboard only to find out another oddly shaped daggerboard works better (and now it won't fit). A fore-aft top adjustment doesn't have to be buried in the trunk either and could just be bolted to the top of the deck.

Personally, after seeing the result of the phantom in the surf during the Florida 300, I'm waiting for someone to build a hull where the dagger board trunk opens through the side of the hull so the foil can be fully raised and permit sliding onto the beach. There are a lot of considerations there but I'm sure it can be done....heck, build the structure on the side of the hull like an old-school leeboard and unpin the entire structure when approaching the beach.

would a little cutout in the hull athwartship to fit the

T

part of the foil work to allow (when fully retracted) the foil to fit flush with the hull when you go skidding up the beach? Might be slow in non-foiling mode, however..

or you could just buy a moth.

Ever sail a 49er/29er? You never realize how much time you spend with your catamaran idle, drinking some water or taking in a snack between races at a weekend regatta until your f'in boat won't stay upright unless it's moving all the time. I'm guessing the moth is similar.

I had a moth. Like Jake said, try drinking a beer or chilling out between races. I sold it, to get another A-cat...

do any of you yoots with high-tech boats even drink while sailing anymore?

But yeah, the moth/29r/49r thing would really suck waiting between races... and using the head is practically out of the question I suspect.

I do enjoy loitering without having to worry the boat will flip.

You still can't go beyond max beam, and if you put the box on the inside you would lose a large amount of righting moment. This move has opened things up for innovation ,but it definitely doesn't mean it will be easier or even better, but the opportunity is there. It will be interesting to see the journey.

How much does righting moment matter? (I really don't know)...the Moths seem to get along ok with very little of it. Talking with JC about the CF20 Foiler, once they get up to speed with it and start dealing with really high apparent wind angles, they lose so much of the typical side force on the sail plan that they struggle to keep the windward hull flying. It often results in the windward hull dropping down to the water. That action can result in a wave hitting the people on the trapeze which is, reportedly, pretty darn dramatic at 30 knots!

I know it is forbidden in the AC, but could you just keep both boards down the whole time to minimize the

tea bagging

? Too much drag???

Not that I am against the idea, but I would like to see some builds or proposals on how it will be any cheaper to use foils inserted from the bottom.

I saw a price on the exploder

kit

for foils. Seems like it was about $3k.

Which is funny how cheap we are, yet we demand the latest gizmos.

$3k is close to the entry fee for some leaner regattas...

A lot of guys have sawed out their daggerboard trunks to replace them with curved, or wide open, trunks or even moved the location of the trunks for different types of boards. We had a few guys here do that to get to C-boards but their modifications would have to be re-done to get to any revision of the current foiling boards. When a new board style is developed, it may require a completely different trunk configuration to accommodate the rule that required that the board be inserted from the top.

With an option to insert the board from the bottom of the boat, it means you could conceptually take even a boyer MKIII and configure it with a foiling board without cutting the hull. Any fore-aft adjustment needed for the foil could be done with a mechanism that was bolted/laminated to the top of the existing deck and inserts inside the existing trunks could allow proper operation (although one might argue the value of investing that much into an older A-cat). You could also wildly change board styles without having to go in and modify the hull.

What we're probably going to see early on is the V-style boards like used in the America's Cup...and those really don't have any way to go in from the top into a typical trunk configuration.

I made a set of sliders for my C-boards and glued them to the top of the trunks. It allows me to go from neutral to +5 degrees of cant. One line pulls them both back at the same time and the bungee pulls them forward when I release the cleat.

Works really well running downwind to keep the bows up, and neutral cant upwind reduces the drag.

My next step is to build longer C-boards, and increase the size of the rudder winglets to stabilize the increased lift generated by the C-boards.

Here's a link to a video showing how stable my boat is with the boards set at maximum cant.

https://www.facebook.com/chuck.allen.562/videos/10205915743912691/

Righting moment is what gets you foiling in the first place(pops you up). The end game is foiling at minimum class limits, so yeah it's important at least in the direction I've been studying.Not to say some other innovation won't negate that altogether, like a center Moth foil, but active controls are still illegal.

You would still have the same righting moment in sea-hugger / displacement mode to initially get up to speed and would have the righting moment reduce as the boat comes up on foils if the foils were inset. Heck, it might be an advantage in some situations. It does seem, however, that the current method of foiling on the a-cats requires the trapeze action downwind...but that need might change as the speeds and apparent wind increase as the foils get better. I'm just tossing out ideas. Regardless, it will be interesting to watch how it develops.