The Flying Phantom: $40k sailboat levitates two feet above the waves | Hacker News Reader

The Flying Phantom: $40k sailboat levitates two feet above the waves

gizmag.com

100 pointsradley35 comments

I've rode a hydrofoil on an air chair, and on a tow surf board. It is a very surreal feeling, almost as if you are flying. Choppy water has no effect on your stability, as long as your foil doesn't pop out of the water. When that happens you tend to fall pretty hard. I wonder how the sailors are able to control the use of the foil. If one of the foils was to pop out of the water, hold on.

There is a probe dragging in water at the front of the boat: http://www.sailmagazine.com/learning-fly-0

When the boat is too high, the probe goes out of water and automatically adjust the foil angle to lower the boat.

Ingenious. thanks for the link.

So I am guessing that these boats perform poorly when the weather is really rough.

All boats perform poorly when the weather is really rough. The degree to which they can remain seaworthy in inclement weather depends on design decisions.

A hydrofoil design actually does really well in choppy waters, because you elevate the hull out of the waves. The lift generated by the foil happens below the waterline, so you don't feel the surface waves. Just how large a wave you can negotiate with a vessel like this depends on the elevation provided by the foil design and your stomach for hard landings.

All in all, if you were to take the foils off this boat, I'd venture it would handle worse in the same waters as the foiled boat.

Sidenote: Also, FWIW, I didn't downvote you; I dropped you an upvote, because I can see why someone might think this way.

I remember my first time on an air chair. It's a surreal experience, for sure. One thing that few people appreciate is the effect of noise on your experience. With an air chair, you've got the noise of the motor boat in front of you, but you're at the end of a ski rope that is 50-75 feet long, so you've got some distance. When you go up on the foil, it's striking how much less noise there is than when you're on skis or a wakeboard.

I remember having a similar feeling the first time I sailed versus riding in a motorboat. The lack of engine noise makes the experience of sailing one of the most relaxing and exhilarating activities at the same time. I can only imagine what it's like on a hydrofoil sailboat. The quote from one of the cat captains at 2:34 sums it up really nicely: "Yes, it's crazy, it's noiseless, fast, and it never ends." I find it interesting that noiseless was the first concrete adjective he used to describe the experience.

Craziest looking foiling boat I've seen is still the International Moth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SN1gSkqvy0

I had a very early moth (before they put foils on them) which was still statically unstable. Inland waters with unpredictable winds meant you could go from strong wind to nothing almost instantly and with very little indication it was going to happen.

I remember spending a lot of time in the water...

I leant to sail in a Moth (actually my Dad's).

It was a 1960's tunnel hulled skiff, which he got cheap because they were banned for being too fast (ironic for what came later to the Moth's class).

It's a great boat - stable, and fast when you want it to be.

Very cool. The thing I really like about the early ones was that as an experimental class, you could get boats that were incredibly different to one another but still technically "moths". Much like early formula racing, there really was the latitude to tune the boat as well as your technique.

Not that I ever did with this one, it was about thirty years old and took all of my effort just to learn how to keep it upright. You also couldn't moor it anywhere because it would fall over if not moving which meant leaving it on its side at the jetti...

Yeah, and the "experimental class" thing was why I never really understood why they banned the tunnel hulls. It's too bad in a way, because in some conditions they might have been competitive with the unstable skiffs that dominated until the foils came along.

I'm in Australia, and we just sail off the beach, and the Scow shape was perfect for that.

There's an excellent discussion of the design at [1]. I have to say I'd love to try out a foiling Moth one day though.

[1] http://www.moth.asn.au/forum/3-hull-shape/533-scows

The Moths are insanely fast once they get onto the foils. This video from the annual Bloody Mary race at my sailing club captures the difference nicely. It's a two hour midwinter handicap race with over 300 boats entered. The Moths start 1.5 hours after the first boats, and in 2013 they won. This year though, it wasn't quite windy enough for them to stay on the foil through all their tacks so they didn't quite catch the leaders. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIpzd5m0xhg

I was just about to point that one out. I was more than a little surprised by their assertion that "the Flying Phantom is the first product to bring the levitation experience to the commercial market".

It looks like launching can be wet and awkward

From our office in Auckland we got to watch the massive AC72's trialling in the harbour before shipping off to SF last year. They're unnaturally fast, skimming along much faster than the wind. Amazing machines.

Ahhh, I'm so jealous! I watched every race of the final series of the AC last year, but you couldn't really get a sense of the speed of the boats from the broadcast - there weren't enough shots of the boats taken from a static point of view, and even when there were such shots, you couldn't really get a feel for how far away the boats were - in particular the AC72 is so much bigger than most cats that people that watch a lot of sailing can find them fooled by the scale!

That is amazing and I'm jealous you got to see them in person. I wonder how long it will be before all smaller dinghy races will start to be foiling - I'm picturing a collegiate dinghy team race on foils and it would be awesome to watch.

As a side note, I'm extremely happy that today my two loves, technology and sailing, have come together in a wonderful turn of events.

its way dangerous for everyday craft. Im mildly surprised the arnt restrictions on commercially available versions.

That's been happening for a while now. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k12ALBjQ7zM

Back in the early 1970s the Canadian navy tested a small hydrofoil ship for antisubmarine work and coastal patrol. It could travel at 60 knots. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMCS_Bras_d'Or_(FHE_400) At the time it was the fastest unarmed naval vessel in the world.

very neat, but s/levitates/hydrofoils

The title takes a reasonably interesting boat and ruins it with inane link bait. Sometimes when you try to make something great look bigger than it is you've ruined it.

You're right. I was entirely fooled by the creative language in the article's title. Expectations shattered, I started drinking again after 6 months of sobriety.

Agreed. I would still click it if it said "skates above the water." But "levitates" is completely inaccurate linkbait.

Bad submitter, no upvote.

In fairness HN usually moderates to the original title.

TurboJET in Hong Kong use Boeing hydrofoils (Jetfoil) between HK and Macau [1][2]. They're great. Once you get to cruising speed, they lift out of the water and the ride becomes incredibly smooth. It's 50 miles and the trip only takes around an hour.

Unfortunately, they seem to be being slowly replaced by non hydrofoil craft, presumably due to lower operating costs.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_929

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TurboJET

What happens if you are hydrofoiling 2ft above the water and hit a 3ft wave, especially at speed?

http://youtu.be/sZVIj5TUSKE

As far as I can see this doesn't answer the question.

Judging by that video, it seems jarring, but not necessarily catastrophic. I imagine the space of water that would have to be displaced by pushing the boat vertically is heavier than the water that manages to hit the hull and affect its vertical position.

If you're not belted in, you may meet the water very swiftly.

I so want to get one of these!

Anybody knows if it is "super hard", "insanely hard" or "do not apply without an olympic medal" to sail one of these?

Looks fun and dangerous. Move the tiller the wrong way at 30 knots and you're going to have one hell of a crash.

Hydrofoil kiteboard:

http://vimeo.com/17754852

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