The foils
A foil is a piece installed on boat for lifting the boat. It create lift by raising the front of the boat so the boat is more efficient. The first foil has been created in England in 1861 by Thomas May who created a boat with 3 bearing surface.
In France, Eric Tabarly is the one who permit the development of foil on sailing ship.
One of the most impressive sailing ship with foils is the Hydroptère, a boat design by Alain Thebaut and made by DCNS, the boat use technology from Airbus and Dassault (the suspension of the foil came from the military plane rafale marine).
The Hydroptère has got the record of speed with a sailing ship with a performance of 51.36 knot on 500m with a peak of speed at 55knot. 55 knot represent 102 km/h.
The 34th America’s cup see has been raced on AC72, boat with wing sail (like on USA17 for the 33th America’s cup) but specially fitted with foil. The AC72 can sail at 1.6 the speed of the wing at allure bearing. Now a lot of boat class accept foil: imoca, mod 70, nacra, flying phantom. This technology is already very expensive because it required a lot of studies and the materials are very hard to work, so costly.
