Originally Posted by DHO
This might be a better way to do things. I'm thinking the two masts might be better than one big one. You can get twice the sail area with less heeling force. The center of effort from the sailplan is kept lower. The two masts were used on the Hobie Trifoiler and the proa Crossbow.


If you just want straight up speed, in big air, yes. I don't think a similar scaled down design would work for what we do, ie. buoy racing over many different wind ranges. The tall rigs (think A cat) help get one hull out of the water in lighter air to reduce drag.

If you are going to design to keep both hulls in the water and use two shorter rigs, it will be a pig in light to medium wind.

I once witnessed a Hobie Tri Foiler regatta in light air (at Wildcat, many years ago) it was not pretty!

The A cats and all the other cats were going by them, they were nearly stopped. Never did see one up on the foils.

Maybe there is someone here who owned one and can tell us how much wind it took to get it up on the foils and go fast?


Blade F16
#777