We had an A-cat regatta this week end at Marstrom and guess what....a M20 with curved daggerboards! These boards have more lifting capabilities than the A-class rules allow and at 17-18 knots with the boards fully down it lifts the boat completely from the water. That is not good since it jumps out of the water quite violently and sometimes threws the crew in the water. The boards where longer than they are in the picture but then it started to do the "thing" at 16 knots. When they sail upwind with this only parts of the hull are in the water and that enough to balance the boat, so it is a kind of "semi foiling". It's hard to tell how much foiling you want to get the best performance. The boards are level with the bottom of the hull in the picture.



/hakan

Maybe they are first developing lifting boards then work on the rudders, makes sense to me. Get the boat to lift off then control the attitude, one step at a time. This could be awesome.

I was under the impression the curved boards were not at all designed intended for full on foiling, rather for a smaller amount of lift to keep it from pitch polling going downwind?

There was a discussion about these curved boards some months ago on the A Cat Forum. I thought they said it was about stability and lift going downwind, not full foiling.

I can't say for sure, but the boards on the A's, M20 and CFR type boats are WELL aft of a boat like the N20. I can't see them adding any lift to the bows.

Was this just a test, or do they plan on developing these new and longer boards. Im all for curved boards, but not ones with this much "performance enhancing" ability. While we are at it, lets do some blood doping too!

After a few runs we had her up to 25 knots according to the tender following us with the GPS system. Sorry no pics on that so I guess it didn't happen. We find when we do go that fast the whole leeward hull lifts up about 6" and the boat is really cooking. As such we decide we really kind of like what the boards are doing for us. Conditions were described by Fred as "Spicy" and indeed they were about to get hot.

Once more back across the harbor, the boat is hauling butt when we get hit by a good sharp puff. All of a sudden the bows start to lift up as I ease the sheet, a lot, then while running forward as I look directly to leeward and I see the lee hull angle upwards to about 30 degrees, wherein the banana boards kicked into overdrive and the whole leeward hull flew up about 10 feet out of the water while we were doing 20 plus knots. At this point according to the guys in the tender, the entire boats was clear of the water launching up into the air for a brief moment.

Seconds later Fred and I hit the water and start getting tossed about as the boat teeters on the edge of total disaster, both of us waiting for the wing to land on our heads, skating along with the boat heeled to weather, we were fucked for sure. "How in hell do you dump a C-class to windward?" was all I could think.

If you want to foil, put some of those babies on your 5.2 and start your own class, but dont bring them into the A Class, we want something more "traditional".