Talk:Hydrofoil

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What has been holding back the hydrofoil from achieving widespread popularity? Kent Wang 02:31, 29 May 2004 (UTC)

I second this question. 71.192.137.124 05:56, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

The hydrofoil main advantages are that it allows high speeds to be achieved with considerably less power than most other types of high-speed craft such as planing hulls, catamarans etc. Hydrofoils also generally offer better seakeeping and comfort on board. THe Boeing Jetfoil is still considered the benchmark in terms of passenger comfort for passenger ferries. To answer your question, why then have hydrofoils not achieved widespread popularity? There are a number of reasons for this: 1) Hydrofoils are sensitive to impacts with floating objects and marine animals. If the hydrofoils hit something the boat will fall off the foils and this often creates a perception of increased danger. However, there have been hydrofoils operating in Hong Kong for 20 years and those waters are some of the most littered anywhere in the world and hydrofoils operate a relatively trouble free operation. The Hong Kong Marine department has online records of all accidents in its waters for those who would like more information on their operation. The second problem is hydrofoils are almost like sharp knives going through the water. Their operation in areas where there are marine mammals such as whales causes a problem as the hydrofoil normally causes fatal damage if hit by a hydrofoil. This is in contrast to normal hulls which just slide over a whale with minimal damage to both.

2)Hydrofoils are expensive to build. A vessel like the Boeing Jetfoil nowadays costs about 3 times the price of an equivalent catamarans passenger ferry. This prices them out of the market completely. More simple hydrofoils such as the Russian designed ones and those by Rodriquez in italy are more competitive in price and are still being produced today for operation on ferry routes.

3) it is a very conservative industry. Hydrofoils are still considered exotic by many commercial operators of high-speed craft and many will not take the risk of trying such exotic vessels when they have no experience operating them. Those that do have found benefit in their operation.

4) Technical compexity and high maintenance. This is what killed most military hydrofoil projects. The US Navy for example developed some of the most technically advanced hydrofoils around but they could never get them to be reliable due to the complex propulsion systems and ride control required. This eventually lead to the suspension of their hydrofoil projects and that of most other Navies to. The Russian Navy still operates very large hydrofoils and have been successful in their designs, largely because they have opted for simpler systems which might not have the same performance as the US designs but are much more robust.

80.213.118.173 13:09, 1 April 2007 (UTC)Dr. Gunther Migeotte, gmroaming@gmail.com

[edit] Hydrofoil vs. Hydroplane

Websters New World Dictionary, College Edition, 1968: paraphrased;

Hydrofoil- ... a foil (wing) that lifts a boat out of the water...

Hydroplane- ... a boat hull that rises on top of the water when going fast enough ...

The two are different (Attn:Chinasaur), and my dictionary does not call them the same. Planing requires the hull on the water surface. A foil is submersed.

But a link from here to hydroplane seems reasonable (Attn:N328KF) because they are similiar concepts. (==See also==)

Pud 19:07, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Pud. Hydrofoil is a structure that lift a boat off the water, Hydroplaning can be a phenomonon. Even a car can hydroplane when it speeds across a puddle of water. Kowloonese 19:15, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I have no issue with this. -Joseph 19:24, 2004 Aug 25 (UTC)

I agree; I think in most formal terms, hydroplaning is only when you completely pass your own wavefront, but in practice the term is used to mean anything that causes the hull to lift out of the water (as in "most modern boats are designed to hydroplane to some extent"). So I think the link from hydrofoil to hydroplane makes sense. The hydroplane as a synonym for hydrofoil I just got from dictionary.com. If you looks at the whole page of definitions there, it looks like the terminology is pretty confused, but there is one source that seems to equate "hydroplane" with "hydrofoil", although maybe it means the actual foil and not the whole boat. But I'm not deadset on mentioning that in the article. --Chinasaur 03:29, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] ASW?

"…but the program was cancelled due to a shift away from ASW by the Canadian Navy…" The ASW link redirects to Aswan international airport, with no disambiguation page. Could somebody who knows what ASW means in this context please correct this (either create a page about ASW or remove the link and put the meaning in brackets). If the Canadian Navy really did shift away from Aswan International Airport, then the fuller link title would be better. 193.251.50.8 (talk) 12:36, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Picture

The picture at the start of the article dosen't really give you an idea of what a hydrofoil is. I think it should be chaged to one of these: If nobody comments in a few days I will change it.

DPM 15:04, 6 June 2008 (UTC)