The experimental French trimaran Hydroptère
has a footprint the size of a basketball court and a 100-foot-high
carbon-fiber mast that can fly 6000 square feet of sail—made variously
of carbon, Kevlar, and Cuben fiber—yet there's not much room aboard.
There's barely even a deck, just a scrim of netting that stretches
between the narrow center hull and two pontoons. I hunker down next to
the bowsprit, which I'm told is the best place to soak up the action
away from the spray that's thrown by Hydroptère's two underwater wings,
one under each pontoon. Hydroptère is a hydrofoil: Half plane, half
boat, and it doesn't just sail—it flies. With any luck, those wings will
take Hydroptère across an ocean.
It requires a crew of four to man the boat. The co-skipper, Jacques Vincent, has his hands on the wheel. Two très célèbre sailors, Jean Le Cam and Yves Parlier, share duties on the lines. Alain Thébault, the boat's owner and designer, directs. I'm just a stowaway, along for a practice run in San Francisco Bay. Parlier turns the winch, the mainsheet snaps tight, and we start to accelerate, fast. We easily outrun the speedboat chasing us, and at 12 knots (almost 14 mph), the entire boat starts to climb up onto its hydrofoils, no longer floating, but flying.
When it's flying, Hydroptère has all the insectoid grace of a praying mantis, with elbows out and arms akimbo. The trick to getting the boat speeding is reducing drag. So, when it flies, only the tips of the boat are in the soak: the end of the rudder and the lower halves of the two bladelike foils.
Getting Hydroptère aloft is simply a matter of catching a breeze; the foils do the rest, turning the force of water streaming around them into lift, just as an airplane's wings do in air. But flying the boat can get a bit tricky. Even though there are sensors all over—a total of 30—there are no readouts; the data are logged for post-sail analysis. Offshore sailing is almost entirely dependent on gut instinct and good reflexes. The crew must meet every gust with fine-tuned sail-trim adjustments to keep the boat from getting overpowered and pushed into a heel strong enough to pop one of the foils out of the water. That is the hydrofoiling equivalent of an airplane losing a wing, and it can easily result in a capsize. There's a "Jesus button" at the foot of the ship's wheel that the skipper can stomp on at any time to depower the sails in a hurry.
As soon as we're cruising, Thébault grabs me by the wrist, leads me amidships, where there is a joystick beside the captain's chair. It controls the rudder, a vertical fin with a horizontal stabilizer that controls the boat's pitch. By tweaking the pitch of the boat, the skipper can adjust the angle of attack of the foils in front. The smaller the angle of attack, the less lift; more angle means more lift. So not only does the stick control the boat's pitch, it also controls its altitude. "Like an airplane!" I exclaim. Thébault throws his arms wide and smiles even wider: "Like a magic carpet!"
Later that afternoon, Hydroptère hits 37.5 knots, setting a new sailboat speed record for San Francisco waters. The only boats in the bay that can beat it are the giant foiling catamarans—which hit speeds of around 40 knots—in the America's Cup races. Hydroptère's top sustained speed is 50 knots, a world record when the boat set it in 2009 (the record is now held by Sailrocket 2, which hit 65.45 in 2012). Hydroptère's top speed ever—an instantaneous reading from GPS—was 56 knots, at which point it tripped over its foils and capsized. That's comparable to crashing into a wall at 65 mph on land—without seatbelts.
The Hydroptère crew spent most of the summer in Los Angeles, preparing to sail to Honolulu along one of the major transits in the world of offshore racing, the Transpac. The current record for the 2225-nautical-mile route is 115 hours, but by the time you read this Hydroptère may have shaved off as much as a day from that record. Conditions will have to be just right: calm seas, with the wind blowing between 20 and 25 knots the entire time, day and night. The rest is dependent on the skill of the sailors. Beyond just sailing, they also must dodge ocean debris; the last time Hydroptère tried to conquer an ocean (the Atlantic, seven years ago), it hit a sea turtle the size of a VW Beetle and shattered a foil.
By the end of summer one of two things will have happened. Hydroptère will have made it to Hawaii, beating the Transpac record, or, scenario two: Hydroptère itself will have been beaten and maybe even sunk, somewhere in the mid-Pacific. Either way, Hydroptère's run to Honolulu is a swan song, a last sail. After flying, crashing, and chasing records for nearly two decades, Hydroptère is near retirement. But ThĂ©bault promises he will sail again. He's got Hydroptère 2 on the drawing board. It will foil just like the old bird—only faster.
It requires a crew of four to man the boat. The co-skipper, Jacques Vincent, has his hands on the wheel. Two très célèbre sailors, Jean Le Cam and Yves Parlier, share duties on the lines. Alain Thébault, the boat's owner and designer, directs. I'm just a stowaway, along for a practice run in San Francisco Bay. Parlier turns the winch, the mainsheet snaps tight, and we start to accelerate, fast. We easily outrun the speedboat chasing us, and at 12 knots (almost 14 mph), the entire boat starts to climb up onto its hydrofoils, no longer floating, but flying.
When it's flying, Hydroptère has all the insectoid grace of a praying mantis, with elbows out and arms akimbo. The trick to getting the boat speeding is reducing drag. So, when it flies, only the tips of the boat are in the soak: the end of the rudder and the lower halves of the two bladelike foils.
Getting Hydroptère aloft is simply a matter of catching a breeze; the foils do the rest, turning the force of water streaming around them into lift, just as an airplane's wings do in air. But flying the boat can get a bit tricky. Even though there are sensors all over—a total of 30—there are no readouts; the data are logged for post-sail analysis. Offshore sailing is almost entirely dependent on gut instinct and good reflexes. The crew must meet every gust with fine-tuned sail-trim adjustments to keep the boat from getting overpowered and pushed into a heel strong enough to pop one of the foils out of the water. That is the hydrofoiling equivalent of an airplane losing a wing, and it can easily result in a capsize. There's a "Jesus button" at the foot of the ship's wheel that the skipper can stomp on at any time to depower the sails in a hurry.
As soon as we're cruising, Thébault grabs me by the wrist, leads me amidships, where there is a joystick beside the captain's chair. It controls the rudder, a vertical fin with a horizontal stabilizer that controls the boat's pitch. By tweaking the pitch of the boat, the skipper can adjust the angle of attack of the foils in front. The smaller the angle of attack, the less lift; more angle means more lift. So not only does the stick control the boat's pitch, it also controls its altitude. "Like an airplane!" I exclaim. Thébault throws his arms wide and smiles even wider: "Like a magic carpet!"
Later that afternoon, Hydroptère hits 37.5 knots, setting a new sailboat speed record for San Francisco waters. The only boats in the bay that can beat it are the giant foiling catamarans—which hit speeds of around 40 knots—in the America's Cup races. Hydroptère's top sustained speed is 50 knots, a world record when the boat set it in 2009 (the record is now held by Sailrocket 2, which hit 65.45 in 2012). Hydroptère's top speed ever—an instantaneous reading from GPS—was 56 knots, at which point it tripped over its foils and capsized. That's comparable to crashing into a wall at 65 mph on land—without seatbelts.
The Hydroptère crew spent most of the summer in Los Angeles, preparing to sail to Honolulu along one of the major transits in the world of offshore racing, the Transpac. The current record for the 2225-nautical-mile route is 115 hours, but by the time you read this Hydroptère may have shaved off as much as a day from that record. Conditions will have to be just right: calm seas, with the wind blowing between 20 and 25 knots the entire time, day and night. The rest is dependent on the skill of the sailors. Beyond just sailing, they also must dodge ocean debris; the last time Hydroptère tried to conquer an ocean (the Atlantic, seven years ago), it hit a sea turtle the size of a VW Beetle and shattered a foil.
By the end of summer one of two things will have happened. Hydroptère will have made it to Hawaii, beating the Transpac record, or, scenario two: Hydroptère itself will have been beaten and maybe even sunk, somewhere in the mid-Pacific. Either way, Hydroptère's run to Honolulu is a swan song, a last sail. After flying, crashing, and chasing records for nearly two decades, Hydroptère is near retirement. But ThĂ©bault promises he will sail again. He's got Hydroptère 2 on the drawing board. It will foil just like the old bird—only faster.
Read more: How to Make a Sailboat Fly - Popular Mechanics
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Making Sail Boat Fly
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