LHydroptre the huge Hydrofoil Tri with a jaw-dropping 47 knot top speed is the fastest sailing boat in the world Did Alexander invent the hydrofoil.
How fast can a hydrofoil go. A hydrofoil boat has two modes of operation. A hydrofoil is completely unlike a floating hull because as the speed approaches zero the drag of the hull goes to zero but the drag from supporting the entire weight with a hydrofoil goes to infinity. The gradient becomes very flat so that there is no much speed to gain.
The key takeaway from our experts is that were just at the beginning of whats possible with windfoils. Get a feeling for. Keep the speed constant at foiling speed and gently shift your weight back.
On a cold day in October 1991 a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT led by physicist Mark Drela set a record for the fastest. Whats the Fastest You Can Go on a Hydrofoil. Racing sailboats go up to 15 to 20 knots 17 to 23 mph.
But the drag also goes up when the hydrofoil goes very fast. Also if the craft is traveling faster than the waves the foils could break to the surface and outside of the water resulting in a loss of lift and a negative angle of attack when the foil dives into the next wave making the craft crash into the sea. One problem that a hydrofoil craft can experience is the height of the waves being greater than the struts.
The best text we have found that explains how foils and wings gener. This is a question we get a lot. Hydrofoils let a boat go faster by getting the hull out of the water.
In between is a speed at which the drag is a minimum VmaxLD and a speed at which the power required is a minimum Vminp. Some boats like Paul Larsens Vestas Sailrocket 2 reached a speed of 6545 knots 7532 mph or 12122 kmh. Below are a few.