ML are fast and very stable. no seeming hiccups. difference is noticeable
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I don’t really think this is true. As far as I know, everyone is using the same foil analysis code (XFOIL) developed at MIT in the late 90s and put out as open source in 2000. There have been improved wrappers for it, but still the best analytical solver. Do you know something more about this and the software developers are using? If so, I’d love to hear what people are using
I don’t know what software designers are using. I’m going by what a friend of mine told me. He has been involved in foil development in conventional boats as well as foiling boats for a long time. He is regarded as one of the top foil designers in the world, working for an America’s Cup team and SailGP. I’ve worked with him on a few boat projects, a couple of them improving sailboat rudders. During my conversations with him, I understood him to say that relatively new CFD software allowed them to model foils as well as structures much better and faster than they could say 10 or 15 years ago. Maybe he was referring more to the structural modeling rather than the specific aspects of the foil section itself. The two are interrelated. My understanding was the software was what was making it possible. Listening to Adrian Roper talk about designing foils I get the same feeling. I think Adrians comments that I remember regarded being able to run a lot of modeling without having to prototype foils and how much that opened up the design space and the time and effort it saved.
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I still find surprising that small brands are keeping up and often kicking bu## of way bigger companies in foil design.
I appreciate the time and cost savings of CFD and theorethical knowledge but in many cases i see a missing link in the last phase: on water testing and refining.
Having a guy like KDW,who can both foil and design foils, is probably what makes magic happen or not.
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The point on KDW’s involvement is interesting. I think as athletes improve they will drive design, but probably not always from behind the computer. Look at how surfing evolved… short boards are not hydrodynamically efficient. They are in fact pretty hard to surf in many ways (unstable, awful in small surf). But pro talent and desired radical turns, barrels, etc drove the design that way. Foils are probably going to continue to get better and more specific based on needs.
I think foil brands are getting better at describing “who this foil is for” in their marketing too, which will help the sport grow. When I started looking at foils as a beginner it was like trying to solve a math problem to choose the right one. Now it’s much easier. North does a great job with their positioning in my opinion
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