Hydrofoils -why aren't they popular?

Bandit said:
View attachment 110934View attachment 110935View attachment 110936

These are the three hydrofoils I was involved in operating for ten years.

They are essentially the much bigger brothers of the Red Funnel hydrofoils from the same yard.

They are all Rodriquez hydrofoils from the yard Rodriquez Cantiere Messina in Messina in Sicily.

Condor 4 RHS 140. 136 passengers at 34 knots 2 x MTU about 1,300 hp
Condor 5 RHS 160. 180 passengers at 35 knots 2 x MTU about 1,550 hp
Condor 7 RHS 160F. 200 Passengers at 36 knots 2 x MTU about 1,950 hp

Early fast ferries were limited by the light high hp engines that were available at the time.

Condor operated hydrofoils from 1964 until 1995.

They operated between St Malo, Jersey, Sark, Guernsey, Alderney initially until 1996 and then until 1989 on the Jersey and Guernsey to Weymouth Route until the introduction of the passenger only wavepiercering catamaran Condor 9 and the car and passenger wavepiercers Condor 10, 11, 12, Express, and Vitesse .

The hydrofoils are fast the fuel burn when on the foils is low in comparison to a normal planning vessel and the ride in the larger ones Condor 5 and Condor 7 was very good in comparison the to the sea state they were operating in . They operated up to about a force 7.

The limitations are: capital cost, maintenance cost, frequency of maintenance, draft when off the foils about 3.2m iirc,

When the senior master of Condor 5 was queried about the poor rearward vision by the MCA in about 1984 with the Question " how can you safely see overtaking vessels " he replied " Its not a problem, nothing has overtaken me since 1964". 1964 was when Condor first used hydrofoils.
Click to expand...


Two interesting links here:


A Rodriquez promotional video with some good footage of Condor hydrofoils

and


Showing how Rodriquez became the principal builder of Supramar designs
 
just a note that the russian one we still have here doing a 120nm return trip daily during the summer at circa 30kn needs foils cleaned every fortnight. That's what the diver that occasionally checks my mooring and cleans hull told me a few years back.
not too happy against an F5, occasionally seen it struggling to get up doing all sorts of tricks (like going 50m from the rocks to calmer waters with loads of black smoke emitted...)
Not too sure recreational mobos used once every couple of weeks and left for a month idle would work. Seems that hull must be squeaky clean!
 
I do remember a trip from Rhodes to Fethiye turkey on a hydrofoil, on our retrun trip the steward gave out carrier bags we soon found out why....... as we left the islands the craft began to rock and roll at very low speed, some 0f the bags got filled very quickly and taken aft to chuck over the side, most unwise as some passengers got their own back!!!!
 
vas said:
just a note that the russian one we still have here doing a 120nm return trip daily during the summer at circa 30kn needs foils cleaned every fortnight. That's what the diver that occasionally checks my mooring and cleans hull told me a few years back.
not too happy against an F5, occasionally seen it struggling to get up doing all sorts of tricks (like going 50m from the rocks to calmer waters with loads of black smoke emitted...)
Not too sure recreational mobos used once every couple of weeks and left for a month idle would work. Seems that hull must be squeaky clean!
Click to expand...
But I guess using clever design at rest the foils could be raised out of the water not only for cleaning but storage.
 
must be very clever and extremely expensive design that will let these massive blades to move (guess hydraulically) and store above water still maintaining their strength when deployed.
Further, it's going to be a bit tricky unless there's ample space either side to move them to, typically they "park" parallel to the dock, cannot see it being easy.
and I'm talking commercial, recreational, no way there's going to be space to shift them about either on pontoon finger berths, or med stern to...
maybe retract them into hull and slide a cover over, but it's a bit too much in the thunrderbirds are go territory (imho) :-)

V.
 
The front foils on the Rodriquez do actually rotate about their top axle in order to get on the plane and then for minor trim - if I remember correctly (it's nearly 30 years since we serviced them) it's a total of 4 Deg rotation being 3 deg forward and 1 deg aft. It's a bit like having your skis in the snowplough position to give lift at the expense of speed initially.
 
Rebecca & Steve said:
The front foils on the Rodriquez do actually rotate about their top axle in order to get on the plane and then for minor trim - if I remember correctly (it's nearly 30 years since we serviced them) it's a total of 4 Deg rotation being 3 deg forward and 1 deg aft. It's a bit like having your skis in the snowplough position to give lift at the expense of speed initially.
Click to expand...
Maybe the IOW Red Funnel foils did, but the Condor Boats , PT50's, RRHS 140's. RHS 160 and 160F all had fixed foils with flaps.

In the summer when it warm July onwards the foils used to weed up, in the water close up it just showed a fine hair and it was enough to make them sluggish, when it got worse they would loose lift. A bit like a sailing yacht not pointing well when weeded up. Initially a diver would clean the foils and when it got worse an overnight drying out on a spring tide, pressure wash and a prop change.

The propellers lasted about 450 running hours or until strike damage, 450 hours and cavitation killed them, they were running 8 to 9 hours a day at 35 knots and the weed grew, two sets of props a season .
 
Ah, yeah, saw it one day crawling (in relative terms) doing something like 8-10kn. When back to port I was told that it lost a blade from one of the props :rolleyes:
 
Looks like foils are going to take over the world and transform EVERYTHING that takes to the water.

How good they are and how long they will last is another debate.

I have the feeling they will fizzle out as quickly as they came in just like the 3D TV flop.

 
Bandit said:
Maybe the IOW Red Funnel foils did, but the Condor Boats , PT50's, RRHS 140's. RHS 160 and 160F all had fixed foils with flaps.

In the summer when it warm July onwards the foils used to weed up, in the water close up it just showed a fine hair and it was enough to make them sluggish, when it got worse they would loose lift. A bit like a sailing yacht not pointing well when weeded up. Initially a diver would clean the foils and when it got worse an overnight drying out on a spring tide, pressure wash and a prop change.

The propellers lasted about 450 running hours or until strike damage, 450 hours and cavitation killed them, they were running 8 to 9 hours a day at 35 knots and the weed grew, two sets of props a season .
Click to expand...

Absolutely agreed about the 'hair' - almost like a mini-seagrass. When I took over we practiced and practiced until we could lift-out (no mean feat with the front foil jutting out of the dock and getting the belt between the prop shaft and the hull) - wash off (4 x 3-phase pressure washers in tandem, prop-change and re-launch - all on the top of a Solent double tide. Mercedes FI pit stops had nothing on us :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top