After hanging around for a bit drinking tea and eating cake, waiting for the wind to fill in we decided to play with the mini foiler instead. There wasn't really enough wind for that either...
Decided as the forecast was looking better for Sunday to hang around and try sailing on Sunday too which turned out to be a great plan.
Breeze was good, although a bit shifty blowing off the land and gave me the chance to do a few tuning runs with Adam May and Alex Adams while Helen Rollinson was bombing around the harbour practicing her skills. It was all pretty evenly matched really, not a lot to work on other than just going sailing!
We decided to run for cover at about midday though, as the breeze had kicked up and we were expecting 30+ knots (which never appeared!). After a bite of lunch, the breeze was about 15 knots and we decided to relaunch the foiler and see if we could get it working properly.
It then promptly surprised us all, by flying around the marina and while the sail was interspersed with pitchpoles it was all very promising! Everyone is now hooked, and plotting their own versions... Adam took a load of photos too which he's going to upload soon hopefully.
higher aspect foils may give you a better range, like wand gearing, so the lift dies more progessively and you dont launch so much?
ReplyDeletedunno just a though, great looking boat! congrats on getting it to go so well straight up too, thats a bit of an achievement!
nick
You are right - But they are pretty long and tapered already...
ReplyDeleteI think the main launch problem is coming from when its overpowered as the windward foil comes out of the water and the resulting geometry change stalls the leeward foil crashing it down altogether. I'm planning on moving the floats forward next... And making a smaller rig for 15 knots plus!
Its certainly giving my brain some exercise now I have more of a handle on Moth setups and don't spend all my time bimbling on the Squirrel...