This is a wild and wonderful story: I found out about it by reading the posting by Dick Lemke under Kris Harig’s “CBTF-no ballast” thread. Dick said that when he , David Goebel, Tony Johnson and Chris Traiser got together for a day on the water last year(?) that something incredible happened. Only he didn’t realize it was incredible so never told me about it! Those guys had taken David’s Spinnaker 50 and Chris’s F3 out sailing that day. They had a few problems understanding how to set the foiler up but finally got it going.Dick tells what happened next well in the other thread.But to sum up : the F3 tacked while up on foils-never touching water during the tack. This is extraordinary because in my few hours testing that had never happened-close but not quite. One of my other customers ,an 84 year old man from Hull, Georgia had told me two years ago that his F3 had done the same thing but I discountd it because he was so excited about the incredible speed I was sure he was exaggerating and he had no witnesses.
Well after reading Dicks story last night I wrote him a personal e-mail and said words to the effect that I thought he could be exagerating and did he realize that if true that was a simply incredible testament to the performance of the F3; he said he thought thats what happened but I should contact David just to be sure.David coroborated the story also with no idea that that single event–tacking on the foils–was such a big deal.It is a huge deal rarely ,if ever, seen on fullsize hydrofoils and an indication of the incredible efficiency of the F3 hydrofoil.
And the whole thing discovered accidently here on this forum…Thanks Chad! And Dick! And David![:-jump]
Doug Lord
microsail.com
monofoiler.com
High Technology Sailing/Racing