Is it really so important as to why "T" foils improve the performance of a boat? Isn’t it quite sufficient that they DO? (And by no small degree) As I see it, there is a LOT of improvement from the fact that the sails are always at a more constant attitude to the wind and therefore they are always working more efficiently in all wind strengths than for a boat without foils. The rest is the foils also maintaining the hull in an attitude where it is able to accept that extra "power" and still "put it down" through the water retaining controllability/stability.
Is it necessary to fully understand the workings of a computer/calculator before accepting that by using it you can do more complicated computations with it than you can in your head?
THEY WORK guys, surely that’s enough?
In some ways I hope that sailers DON’T put T foils on their cats. The less that are out there, the bigger the advantage we have. If everyone “puts them on”, we’re all “back to square one” and we have to look elsewhere for efficiency improvements.
Someone asked about the cost of the T foil rudders? Our cost for a T foil rudder is only about 5% to10% more than for our “normal” ones, and this is only due to the fact that they are slightly larger in surface area and take a little longer to lay up. We don’t intend to charge any extra for an F14 with or without T foils.
DAZZ, I think you are confusing the yardstick for the 4.4 Alpha, which was a heavier “older” design than the 4.3.
The 4.3 was the cat that we built primarily the same as the F14 (as a “prototype test” boat). Although it was constructed in “polyester”, “normal CSM” and had an aluminium mast, it was “comparable” to the F14 and approximately only 15 Kgs heavier. We sailed it competitively for three seasons, established the 88 yardstick, then sold it on to a “non racing” sailer, it is a “unique” cat, a “one off”
I will go out on a limb here and suggest (only suggest) that the yardstick for the F14 WILL settle somewhere around the 73, 74, mark (maybe, just maybe, lower?). There certainly is much more potential for them to perform better than they are at present. As with any class, their “final” yardstick is dependent entirely on just how many of them eventually get out on the water regularly competing.
P.S. The Alpha F14 tacks "on a pin" (I am not sure which video you have been watching DAZZ, but in the DVD that I have been sending out on request, it is shown tacking and jibing). As to the "strength" of the T foils, we have given them the "crash" test many times as well as "loading" them repeatedly against up and down "flex" and so far they have proved strong to the point of being, "over engineered"
STEVE, I think someone wrote earlier that because it wasn't expressly mentioned/allowed in the F18 rules, then "T" foils are disallowed on F18's (Tornadoes as well) -they will never know just what joy they are missing.