Foiling Ready To Take Off?
Are Foilers just for the Gods of sailing? Alan Henderson went to Datchet Water where Datchet Watersports Centre has just become the first place in Britain to offer lessons in sailing on foils to mere mortal sailors. SO FAR, most of the people at the forefront of foiling as it starts to take off in Britain are either International Moth sailors, who know all about sailing twitchy foiling boats, or general superstar sailors from Olympic or high performance classes. But now, thanks to an innovative joint venture between Datchet Watersports Centre and UK Bladerider agent Michael Airey, there is the chance for sailors to try out foiling, arguably the most exciting development in sailing for decades. The Bladerider was launched a year ago, and is a one design foiler which is a sub class within the International Moth class. It is of high tech construction and built in China for volume production and worldwide sales. Michael Airey took on the Bladerider dealership for Britain and Ireland in October, and started sailing his own Bladerider in January, after many years out of sailing. He himself has no background in Moth sailing, having most recently sailed Lasers, so this winter he has been working his way up the learning curve to foiling. Datchet is an ideal place to learn. The Queen Mother Reservoir is elevated from the surrounding land, and has few buildings or other obstructions to the wind around its shores. So the height helps the chances of the breeze being strong enough, while the lack of obstructions helps create a smoother wind pattern, with less gusts and shifts than most inland waters. The instructors, led by centre principal Paul Outram and Bladerider instructor Ian Watts, are all highly enthusiastic about the centre’s new arrival, and they with Michael’s help have developed a way of teaching the essentials of foiling quickly and simply to their pupils. The centre offers two packages to their eager clients. Either you can have the Bladerider experience; a half day package which aims to give you a good taster of foiling, or you can have a more thorough full day of learning, which more actively introduces the principles, provides preparation exercises, then gives you half a day on the Bladerider. Both courses are intensive, and the high pressure nature of sailing the Bladerider means that the centre likes to arrange this as two half days. It is an exciting new venture for the centre, and the application of the centre’s general skills of teaching in the development of a course specifically for foilers, means that learning the art of foiling can be far quicker, and indeed safer than doing it on your own. The course provides a high ‘pupil to instructor’ pupil ratio of 2:1 so the sailor gets plenty of help. As well as the centre’s teaching skills, Bladerider importer Michael adds to the mix by coming on each course, and can also give plenty of tips to the pupils, based on his own experience of recently learning how to foil. Michael also makes a point of coming to each teaching session, gets to know the course clients, and can offer them the chance to order a Bladerider on the spot if they so wish. Our two man testing team had the chance to take a shortened version of the one day course. It started with a number of exercises in modified Lasers. The Bladerider is a wide boat, needing a long tiller extension, so the Lasers were modified to be centre mains, with no aft bridle for the sheeting. So the first exercise was to practice tacking with the long extension. The idea of going out in Lasers made a good warm up exercise, helping to bridge the yawning gap towards the demanding balance of the Bladerider. The tacking was simple enough, being done just the same way as in a conventional centre main boat, but taking care with the extension in the Laser’s limited headroom, compared with most centre main boats. As the Bladerider is best sailed heeled to windward, we then practised sailing the Laser in this fashion. Next were a couple of exercises to simulate the balance and feel of the Bladerider. These were to get used to sailing facing forward, first with one foot in the cockpit and one on the deck. Having your body weight split between the two feet meant that you could easily shift the amount of weight on either foot according to gusts and lulls, thus preparing you for the next stages. And the next came soon enough, as we then had to stand with both feet on the windward deck. That gave no chance to shift the weight in and out, and you therefore had to control your boat’s heel solely through constantly trimming the main sheets. The instructor remained close by, either in another Laser or in a rescue boat, giving instructions and tips. Soon you had the confidence in the F3 breeze to start pumping to encourage the boat to surf. So after an hour or so in the Lasers, we were both ready and raring to go for an afternoon session in the Bladerider. Meanwhile Michael had been having a sail in the Bladerider, so we were able to watch his technique in things like working the boat up onto its foils, tacking and capsize recovery. And his capsize recovery was polished too! The centre’s Paul Outram said; ‘Teaching exercises like these can open up a tricky boat and make it easier to learn. We can spec the course according to the sailor’s ability level and experience. Anyone can then experience the excitement of the Bladerider, and with tuition, can really sail it.’ An ambitious claim? We were about to find out. READY FOR TAKE OFF First up was Tom, who normally sails a 12ft skiff. Tom moved across into the Bladerider, we pushed it to the side away from the rescue boat and he was free. The Bladerider sat upright well for a boat with such a narrow hull, aided by its airbag on each wing. So Tom picked up tiller extension and sheet, got familiar with the layout inside, and sheeted in. And he was off. In about 10mph winds he moved away nicely, sheeted in and came up to speed. Next was the time to start experimenting to try to lift the boat out. Powering up and bearing off in the gusts, quickly he was up flying. He heard the sudden silence as the boat smoothly and quietly lifted, felt the acceleration and wondered what to do next. He didn’t have long to wonder because soon the other wall of the pond was coming up fast. Queen Mother Reservoir is about a kilometre across, but didn’t feel like it as the wall approached at a rate of knots. Tack or gybe? Tom opted to tack, and to do that at speed. No trying to slow the boat down to drop it from the foils into displacement mode, he just went for it. Down crashed the boat off the foils, and the water which a moment ago had been flowing so quickly over the foils was flowing equally quickly, also painfully, up his nose! But he soon shook himself down and found his way to the daggerboard. The rescue boat helped turn the Bladerider around, so that it would then be pointing towards the other side of the reservoir, before Tom levered the boat up and jumped in over the wing. Soon he was off again, and had quickly mastered the art of making it fly. Though making it return to earth was trickier. Tom said; ‘I found the Bladerider fairly easy to get foiling, once flow over the foils and the apparent wind built up. Keeping it flat enabled the boat to rise out of the water. To start with I didn’t really notice it was foiling, the only thing is that it goes completely quiet and gets quite twitchy on the helm. There is a real sense of speed, but the most dramatic change is the quietness, which washes over you once you are up on the foils.’ There was only about 10mph winds blowing at the time, so Tom, who weighs in at 85kg, was doing well for a first time foiler in getting it to rise at all. Meanwhile in the rescue boat, we were unable to keep up with the Bladerider, which was probably going say 50 to 80% faster than the true wind speed. As Tom said later; ‘When it was going fast, it felt like it was going fast!’ To tack from the flying position was difficult, but although some crashes resulted in capsizes, you could still get away with a fair bit, and come out the other side! ‘Foiling into tacks is a bit manic, I was never quite sure what was going to happen!’ Tom added. My turn soon came, but I didn’t find it quite so easy to get up on the foils, and hence spent more of the time in displacement mode. So I can comment on how it was when sailing in the water, rather than above it. The Bladerider weighs in at only 27kg total, so of course loses apparent wind quickly, not having much momentum. Similarly you might think that the boat would easily stop and stall mid way through a tack. But generally the boat was a lot more stable than you would expect, you just had to use your body weight quickly and your mainsheet ditto to maintain balance. I found non foiling tacks to be fairly straightforward too. When you got stuck in stays you just backed the main, and the Bladerider politely continued its tack, unlike some other single-handers which are difficult to bring out of stays. Going at low speeds, or staying at rest was no problem either, with the airbags on each wing a tremendous boon, helping keep the boat stable at rest. LEAN AND MEAN We sailed to and fro across the reservoir, going reach to reach. Even in displacement mode, the Bladerider moved quickly, with little hull friction as the wetted area is low. The sail is slim line, cut to be flat for the high apparent winds generated when foiling. When the true windspeed dropped say below about 6mph, it was sometimes difficult to get the Bladerider back up to speed, with there being little draft in the sail. But in medium breezes, you could keep speed up easily, and as apparent wind built, you were soon hiking hard and going fast. Lulls meant you had to move in fast, as apparent wind dropped quickly. Compared with other boats, in the Bladerider you could easily lose your sense of where the wind was coming from. There are less visual signs, but the other thing is you need tremendous concentration in the Bladerider on your balance, with your body weight in or out, and you need to constantly work the main sheet to keep balance. Perhaps too your feel for the apparent wind through the power of the rig is more important than observing the external true wind, which you normally concentrate on when sailing a dinghy. Fore/aft trim was less critical than I expected, in that you do not have to dynamically move fore and aft according to the balance of lift between the daggerboard and rudder foils. Moving in and out, and constantly playing the mainsheet was much more important. Inside the boat, it was nice and simple, with a short and lightweight main sheet, which was easy to play. An autoratchet was provided too. At low speeds, the Bladerider is quite reminiscent of a windsurfer, but it soon powers up and requires some solid hiking as apparent wind rises. When capsized, the Bladerider sat nicely on its side, with no tendency to invert. Getting onto the daggerboard was easy, and the daggerboard is strong enough that you need not worry about bending or breaking it. It did not take much grunt to bring the boat up, but the trickiest bit I found was to climb up and leap in over the wing into the boat. No doubt you would soon get plenty of practice in this skill. The hull is lightweight, and could be deformed by your weight, so you need to be careful in climbing up from daggerboard to hull, when it is best to stand on the chine if any part of the hull. But at Datchet, we had the benefit of the instructor team in the rescue boat, who helped lift the mast tip to right the boat gradually, making leaping in easier. Moving up into flight, the Bladerider is smooth. There is a smooth transition as first the bow gently lifts, then the foils start to lift the whole boat out of the water. It seems that the whole boat has low drag, whether fully in the water or partially, while it really accelerates forward when fully up. I can’t say how easy it is to gently lower the Bladerider down from fully foiling, as for beginners this often led to crashes. As Tom said re tacking from being up on the foils, ‘foiling into tacks is a bit manic, I was never quite sure what was going to happen!’ But both of us loved the experience of sailing the Bladerider, and I’ll bet everyone else who tries it will too. So here we are in the sailing world at a transition point between current conventional sailing and the adoption of foiling. Will foiling stay an interest of a small minority or can it make a breakthrough to widespread acceptance? I think the sailing market is ready for this breakthrough. Skiffs of various sorts now make up a big chunk of the British sailing scene. Skiffs need lots of power to get them going, with a big sail area, and demanding spinnaker handling. Instead, with a single-hander foiler you rely on efficiency, not sail area. By a huge reduction in drag, far greater speeds can be attained, with a simple rig and a very lightweight hull. What is not to like about that? There are now huge numbers of sailors who have mastered demanding skiffs like 49ers and Musto Skiffs, and who could equally handle foilers. But after enjoying the Bladerider experience, I am convinced that plenty of normal club dinghy sailors could also master the art of foiling. After the asymmetric revolution of the Nineties, we could be ready for a foiling revolution in the Noughties. Companies who can offer the combination of the right product, and the right coaching, will be well placed to stimulate a second revolution in British sailing. Bladerider and Datchet have shown the way forward. • Test sail courtesy of Michael Airey, Bladerider UK and Ireland agent, Tel: 07867 802062 and Paul Outram, principal, Datchet Watersports Centre, Tel: 01753 683990. Thanks to all the instructor team. The half day Bladerider Hydrofoil Experience is priced at £299, and gives you three hours of sailing, while the Bladerider Coaching Course is priced at £599 and offers eight hours of tuition and foiling. The Bladerider ready to sail price is £10,500.