History of foils, 1861-2000

In 1861, England’s Thomas W. Moy (1828-1910), then in 1869, France’s Emmanuel D. Farcot lay the foundations for the concept. The first imagines attaching three streamlined wings beneath a dinghy pulled by horses. He observes that the backwash of water around the trailing edge of his submerged wings decreases with speed and, incidentally, that his boat rises out of the water. The second, Emmanuel Farcot, files a patent incorporating several improvements to the boats. He imagines a series of movable lateral foils that are tilted when accelerating. The principle of the hydrofoil is born, but the boats are still some way off flying very high.

In 1878, two British men from London, John Stanfield and Josiah Clark, propose a method to lift boats out of the water to increase their speed. “We put a certain number of slightly inclined fins on the sides or below the boat, along its entire length, so that when the boat gains speed, these fins will tend to lift the boat up on to the water”. 

Horatio F. Phillips (1845-1926), an aircraft manufacturer, also lays the foundations in 1881 for the principle of transversal foils below speedboats, especially on torpedo launch cruisers.

In 1885, Count Charles de Lambert (1865-1944) builds a catamaran-type raft out of four barrels fitted with sheets below them, pulled by a horse on the bank. The craft rises above the water. Later, in 1897, on the Thames, he tests a catamaran on four transversal foils. Powered by a steam engine, the catamaran brushes the surface of the water. In 1904, he resumes his experiments with an internal combustion engine and five horizontal foils; it manages to lift up and reach a speed of 40 km/h.

Meanwhile, in 1895, the aircraft builder Clément Ader (1841-1925), adapts foils on a dinghy, placing two on the front and one on the rear, but does not continue down this path.

One of the first successful experimental flight attempts seems to be attributed to America’s William M. Meacham, who has been researching hydrofoils since 1894. On July 29, 1897, in Chicago, he gets himself pulled along on board a light boat fitted with a horizontal bow foil and three foils in the rear. As with Thomas Moy’s boat, the angle of the foils is auto-adjusted by a sensor on the front.

After creating a model helicopter that flew, the Italian engineer Enrico Forlanini (1848-1930) imagines rigid marine wings submerged with a ladder structure. In spring 1898, on Lake Maggiore, he tests a small pontoon made of two floats, pulled by a motorboat. The engineer then starts building a self-powered boat. On April 11, 1904, he submits the patent for a motorboat with foils. The following year, he builds his Idroplano 1. With a displacement of 1.62 tons, it is powered by a 70 horsepower engine that drives two propellers with five counter-rotating blades positioned at the front and the rear. During the first tests, in 1906, he gets his boat to fly at a speed of 27 knots (50 km/h). Two years later, he successfully launches a second lighter craft, fitted with a small steam engine. 

At the start of 1911, his Idroplano 7, which is 10m long, is tested on the water, powered by a 100hp Fiat engine and a marine propeller. On December 23, he travels a distance of 34 kilometers at a record average speed of 40.50 knots (75 km/h).

In the same year, Forlanini meets the famous American inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922), who buys his patent from him. In 1912, with Canada’s Frederick W. Baldwin, he creates the Hydrodrome HD-1, a “duck-like” boat, with one foil on the front and two ladder foils in the rear. They reach over 70 km/h. Launched in July 1919, the HD-4 prototype, fitted with two 350hp Renault engines, sets a new world water speed record of 70.86 knots (131.23 km/h).

In 1899, Gaetano Arturo Crocco (1877-1968) develops his Barchino Idroscivolante, featuring two dihedral-shaped steel foils, powered by an 80hp Clément-Bayard engine, activating two counter-rotating, variable-speed aircraft propellers attached to the end of two fins positioned in a V-shape on the rear quarter of the wooden hull. During his tests, the Barchino Idroscivolante reaches speeds of over 70 kilometers per hour. This boat is on show at the Italian Air Force Museum in Bracciano.

1907 sees further attempts to create hydrofoils. In the United States, Peter Cooper Hewitt (1861-1921) creates the first American motorboat that really flies. The mahogany boat is very light and features a tubular structure supporting the engine and a set of four stepped foils. At 48 kilometers per hour, the runabout is supported by just the final level of the foils. In France, the Brazilian Alberto Santos-Dumont (1873-1932) commissions an inflatable trimaran, powered by an aircraft propeller. During a test, the boat sinks and Santos-Dumont nearly drowns. Later in the year, on October 17, the boat is restored for a photo session…

Sir John Thornycroft, a British speedboat specialist, designs a new type of hull. Built in 1909, Miranda III is a 6.70m foiling runabout, powered by a 60hp engine, with a small foil positioned below the stem. At full speed, the boat planes on the flat rear section of the hull.

We will have to wait until 1938 to see their compatriots Robert Rowe Gilruth and Bill Carl managing to get a small foiling catamaran to fly, with the Catafoil. At the start of 1950, the American industrialist J. Gordon Baker flies on board the Towboat II, rigged as a cat-boat and fitted with V-shaped foils. In 1954, he creates the Monitor, an 8m hull with two lateral ladder foils and one rudder foil, propelled by two aluminum fins positioned side-by-side. Too expensive, the fins will be replaced with a classic rigging. In 1955, the boat reaches 30.40 knots (56 km/h).

In 1969, James Grogono adapts foils on a modified Tornado, the Icarus. He will go on to hold six speed records over 500 meters in Class B. In 1983, he reached 28.10 knots. 

In the meantime, all the navies are carrying out tests on foiling cruisers, paving the way for larger boats with speeds of 40 to 50 knots. Passenger cruisers are also developed everywhere where waves are not too heavy, particularly on lakes, by a dozen different countries. 

In the 1960s and 1970s, some people marked the history of foiling sailboats through their ingenuity and perseverance with their work. They include Claude Tisserand’s Véliplanes (1964), Dr. Sam Bradfield’s NF2 (1968), Leif Wagner Smith’s Kotaka (1972) and the Pattison brothers’ Force B (1976).

From 1972, a sailing speed week is organized in Weymouth, in southern England. Each year, new foiling yachts are presented and try to beat the records over 500 meters held by the proa Crossbow. The Brest speed week is launched in 1975, but only lasts a decade.  

Following the attempts by Roland Tiercelin and his 12m Trimama with sails on each hull in 1978, foils start to be seen on ocean racing multihulls. The following year, Hydrofolie, a trimaran designed by Xavier Joubert for Alain Labbé, has foils that can be adjusted with a hinge where the arm meets the float, based on a strut. The sailing yacht still exists, revised by Marc Lombard.

In 1981, the yard Le Guen-Hémidy creates the foiling trimaran Gautier II on a plan by Sylvestre Langevin in aluminum. This 13.72m yacht, skippered by Jean-Yves Terlain and Christian Février in the Twostar Europe I with a thick profile mainsail designed by Alain Chapoutot, shows surprising qualities in terms of speed. Two years later, Vincent Levy calls on the architects Marc Van Peteghem and Vincent Lauriot-Prévost for his 50-foot foiling trimaran Gérard Lambert, with foils designed by Silvestre Langevin. Silvestre Langevin also designs François Boucher’s 50-foot trimaran Ker Cadelac, a sistership for Denis Gliksman, St Marc, and Yves Terlain’s 60-foot Meccarillos. In the same year, the architect Marc Lombard opens his firm and designs the Plan d’Enfer, 12 meters long with T foils below the floats.

A special mention must go to Dan and Greg Ketterman’s TriFoiler, with a mock-up dating back to 1981, which moved into series production in 1992 to 1999. Longshot held records in the three categories, A, B and C. It even won various competitions despite the growing number of new arrivals.

The first foiling yacht designed to compete in the America’s Cup, the 65-foot British foiling trimaran Blue Arrow, was launched in 1988 by Peter de Savary to attempt to take part in the challenger selections in San Diego. Following a failure to reach an agreement with the New Zealand teams, it stayed back in England.

The hydrofoil skippered by Éric Tabarly in 1976 is the forerunner of the trimaran Paul Ricard. Stabilized with foils, in 1980 it beats the transatlantic record held since 1905 by Charlie Barr. His student, Alain Thébault, creates the Hydroptère in 1994, and will continue working to improve its concept. In 2009, he manages to maintain a speed of 51.36 knots over 500 meters. 

While England’s Andy Paterson is one of the first to have developed a foiling Moth, Australia’s Brett Burvill and John Ilett use the centerboard and rudder with a T as a foil and revolutionize the Moth. Some manage to reach speeds of over 32 knots.