Hydrofoil project

Version one was years ago. I had molds made by a friend of a friend who had a CNC machine. Progress will be faster now that I have my own.

Dude, that’s very cool! I love outside of the box projects! As a sailor interested in the America’s Cup, foils are of great interest to me and I love making stuff out of carbon fiber. Keep up the great work! One of the reasons I wanted an XC-1000 was to be able to make NACA blades for dinghy racing and this is very closely related.

You have GOT to put a hydrofoil on one of those things. Like the foiling Moth or the Hydroptere. I was using a friend’s hydrofoil yesterday, and managed to get up and flying on the foil a few times. Its an amazing feeling.

My foil needs some redesigning. I know I made the stabilizer too small.

And I have a few other hydrofoil projects in mind. Maybe something with a small 10 hp motor to get around the lake with. Hydrofoils for a big race windsurfer. A hydrofoil bike. I could do that!

The previous stabilizer was too small. The board wasn’t stable enough. So I rescaled it, carved a new set of molds on my X-Carve on July 4, and they are ready to lay up carbon fiber and epoxy today after work. This machine is really making this project go much faster. I will have achieved 3-4 days from finished design on the computer to finished product ready to go on the board. LOVE IT!

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can’t wait to see you onboard a working craft. go get em!

So far it worked pretty good. This is my prototype, so its not as good as the commercially available hydrofoils available. But I got some rides in.

Next I will be redesigning a lower aspect front wing. This, along with a longer, better fuselage should make a much steadier ride. An issue with the old windsurfer as a board is the convex deck. This makes it harder to prevent roll. It was harder to apply pressure to the board to keep it from rolling sideways.

I will be building an entire new board from scratch. This includes the mast (vertical strut) which is far too flexible, the fuselage, and the front wing. I think the stabilizer turned out perfect, so I may not need to make a new one.

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Can’t like this enough. Awesome shots. Congratulations on building your dream!

Definitely one of the coolest things on this site! Thanks for sharing! :sunglasses:

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Nice vid and idea!
the howl from the wind through the lines is haunting, I might use it for halloween this year
This gives “getting it up” a whole new meaning!
Please keep us posted on your progress.

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This is awesome. Thanks for sharing. keep it up!

I just cut a mold for a lower aspect front wing.


I just made a new fuselage based on my experience that the joints between these parts should be flat surfaces. You can see that the top half of the mold has a flat area to connect to the fuselage.

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This just keeps getting cooler! :sunglasses:

Can you model a saddle into the wings to increase the bonding area?

Wow.
What bits are you using on the foam?
I have not tried Styrofoam before.

What foam? I haven’t used foam except doing a few test cuts. Those I did were with a 1/8 straight cut bit, and they turned out great.

I am planning an entire new board, and intend to cut the foam for the core with the X-Carve, just to make sure everything is straight and clean, to minimize the amount of adhesive and filler I need to use. But for that I will probably need a much longer bit. I have one from my Dremel kit that looks good.

https://www.dremel.com/en_US/products/-/show-product/tools/561-multipurpose-cutting-bit

The material I am using for the molds is a PVC sold as an artificial wood sold under the name of either Azek or Veranda.

MidnightMaker: I tried complicated connections, but found that what works best is just a flat surface to flat surface joint. And they are not bonded by any adhesive. They are held together with screws.

It took a while, but I finally got it together, and out on the water. Still needs a lot of work. I am going to build an entirely new mast, and probably a stabilizer. Then next, and entire new board.

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I’m getting much better with the hydrofoil. I think the part that needs the most work now is the one between the board and the kite control bar.

But still, next is a larger front wing, maybe a bigger stabilizer, and a new board. This one is HEAVY!

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I’m getting ready to carve molds for a new front wing. This one is going to be bigger, to get me up in lighter winds. The previous wing was 230 X 442 mm. This one is going to be 230 X 550 mm.


The top mold is so thick I will have to glue two sheets of PVC together, a 3/4" and a 1/2".

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Very cool project I would love to make one is there anyway you could share the files thanks