The upcoming America's Cup promises to be spectacular. For the first time, monohulls will be hoisted onto foils and fly around the course. The video animations and initial tests with a scaled-down prototype of the British challenger Ineos show a seemingly revolutionary foil system. It is to be flown on three wings, a swivelling arm on each side of the fuselage and a T-foil on the rudder.
Presentation of the new Cup-Foiler
The British prototype during test drives
The mechanism for this is currently being developed by the New Zealanders together with the Italian challenger Luna Rossa; it is to be made available to all teams as a design package. This is intended to reduce costs, but at the same time also to rule out surprises and thus competitive advantages for one team and, on the other hand, prevent disadvantages in favour of exciting races. However, the development of the foils themselves is the responsibility of the individual teams.
Test set-up for the new tilting system
The New Zealand defence team has now published a video showing and explaining the test set-up of the tilt mechanism. A weight of 900 kilograms is attached to an appropriately long lever arm to simulate the outgoing forces.
Tests by the US Navy
US Navy Foiler Boing Pegasus Class
However, the idea of foiling on three legs and even tilting the side foils is not quite as new as the PR machinery of the Cup circus suggests. The US Navy was already experimenting with foil warships in the sixties and seventies of the last century. These included a model that is very similar in principle to the cuppers now planned. This boat, the Boing Pegasus-Class, can be seen in a video.
German idea
And there was already a similar approach for the America's Cup, this time even from Germany. After the so-called mismatch between Cat and Mega-Mono and the subsequent rules vacuum from which the IACC class emerged, a German syndicate, which included silver and bronze medallist Ullrich Libor, launched a challenge that failed. Even the presentation design at the time bore a striking resemblance to the Cuppers of the upcoming edition.
So this idea is not entirely new - but it will be interesting to see how it is realised.
Lars Bolle
Chief Editor Digital
