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Turbo : Hydrofoil Daysailor

Posted by on 03/18 at 12:16 PM

A school project from 1983

Turbo (a trendy name back in the 80's heyday of the Porsche 911 Turbo) was my project one quarter. (School of Industrial Design, University of Washington. The Dean - James Hennessey, was way ahead of the curve concerning sustainable design. He wrote a book called Nomadic Furniture in 1973 that was full of simple, light, resource/space efficient, and recycled furniture designs -- I couldn't have been LESS interested at the time... ). The project was mostly concerned with model making and presentation - and was fortunately never graded on whether the idea was actually feasible or not.

Turbo was conceived out the info contained in Hydrofoil Sailing (AYRS, 1980). I had visions of 40 knots. Aside from the lounge chair helm, it was a pretty cool little boat. The styling was strongly influenced by the German designer Luigi Colani.

The design was influence by Dave Keiper and Williwaw - his 30' flying hydrofoil trimaran that sailed from California to Hawaii back in the 1970's. I thought all sailboats would shortly be sporting hydrofoils and speeding around as fast as motorboats. The foil arrangement was: Central main lifting foil that carried 85% of the weight, small forward foil that sensed waves and controlled pitch. Fwd foil also included a rudder. Lateral foils were for heeling (roll) control - the boat was intended to sail with the windward foil clear of the water - like a trimaran. Solid wing sail was silly.

Please Note: The drawing/image above is a cartoon, a sketch, a doodle. No plans exist.

Comments

  • Interesting design.  Did you ever build a prototype for testing?

    The link below shows some of Bernard Smith’s boats.  Smith prototyped strange aerohydrofoil proas in the 1950’s and built some full-size models in the 60’s.

    The Fliptacker was probably his most recognized invention.

    http://www.geocities.com/aerohydro/designframeset.htm

    Posted by  on  06/12  at  11:44 AM
  • No, this is as far as it ever got. I’m very much a fan of Bernard Smith and his boats - “The 40 Knot Sailboat” was one of my favorite books as a kid.

    Posted by Editor  on  06/12  at  03:00 PM

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