Motor Boat & Yachting – May 2018

NAVIGATION

Mel Bartlett

PRODUCTS

Nick Burnham

The latest marine engines and innovations

NEWTECH

We head to the SEAir HQ in France to test its foiling RIB and see

how this ambitious start-up plans to take foils to the masses

Words Jack Haines Pictures Richard Langdon

Flying without wings

Within the boating fraternity, foiling

is the word on everyone’s lips at the

moment. Be it the spectacular AC45s

raced in the last America’s Cup

or recent confirmation that Princess

will be pioneering the use of a new

high tech Active Foiling System on its

forthcoming R Class superboat.

Yet even in the realm of powerboats,

hydrofoils are nothing new. Italian

inventor Enrico Forlanini began work

on them in 1896 and when Alexander

Graham Bell and his chief engineer

Casey Baldwin first tested Forlanini’s

hydrofoil over Lake Maggiore,

Baldwin is said to have described

it as being “as smooth as flying.”

What is it about the SEAir RIB,

then, that moves the game on and

demands closer attention? The

company’s mission is to bring foiling

to the masses and dispel the notion

that it is a dangerous way to travel,

only to be attempted by professionals

and race-hardened sailors.

CARBON-FIBRE FOILS

SEAir is based in the hotbed of sailing

innovation that is Lorient, Brittany,

and was founded 18 months ago by

Richard Forest, Bertrand Castelnérac

and Benoit Lequin. As CEO, Forest is

an engineering enthusiast responsible

for bringing in investment whereas

Castelnérac and Lequin are sailors

through and through. Lequin, who

is in charge of engineering, holds the

record for crossing the South and

North Atlantic in an open catamaran

and it was Castelnérac who, while

watching the support RIB struggling

to keep up with the foiling racing

yacht, had the light bulb moment.

We meet the trio inside their

ramshackle workshop near Lorient’s

port, the office walls plastered with

technical drawings, graphs and

equations all dedicated to the art

of hydrofoils. Inside

the shed are the hulls of three Zodiac

RIBS, two 7m versions and a 5.5m

identical to the one we are here to

test. SEAir is not a boatbuilder; it is

a producer of foils and the associated

technology. The company decided

to start with a RIB and approached

Zodiac, who agreed tentatively to

take part in the project. Zodiac has

since described the SEAir as the

greatest innovation it has seen in

20 years of RIB building.

The foils are 100% carbon fibre

and take two weeks to make by hand.

MY TAKE Fun as this SEAir RIB sounds,

the really exciting prospect is the

possibility of significantly reducing the

fuel consumption of much larger planing

boats by fitting them with automated foils. Hugo

In calm water, the majority of the hull

‘fl ies’ a few inches over the surface,

signifi cantly reducing drag

The angle of the foils

create lift, much like

an aeroplane’s wings

WATCH THE

VIDEO ON

MBY.COM