Hydrofoils: Design, Build, Fly

Right from the preface your book touched a chord with me. I may have a technical background, but nothing satifies more than the practical challenge of building knowledge based on "doing". Here is a book that covers in detail all the ideas and data realted to my pet subject! Fortunately, in sailing you cannot predict all variables and and this goes even more for hydrofoil sailing which adds a further dimension. Having built and tested many configurations of sailing hydrofoil over the years I can attest to the accuracy and it is refreshing to have an accurate description of what is happening. Refreshing explanations of all those things you thought you understood but were not quite sure. I have gleaned heaps of hydrofoil stuff, borrowed Grogono's book, Marchaj, [...], Tom Speer etc, but have never come across a condensed, comprehensive resource like this before... if only it were around 15 years ago when I first started mucking around with foils!! Simple tables, a ready reckoner, just what I missed in discussions with the theorists. Data consolidated, I even found some graphs I had invented for myself, which I now find were aparently already developed by others... I am really impressed that magnificent design ideas such as Dynafoil and Moth get proper coverage. In Hyfibe I can see the embodiment of many best principles, it is now a real challenge to apply these to a sailing craft!. This book is comprehensive and well presented and finally confirms so much of what I had gleaned over the years but had no speaking partner to check with. It also provides all the elements which I can readily develop into new designs. A fantastic resource of really neat ideas well worth testing. Totally recommended to anyone contemplating designing, building and flying with hydrofoils! Dr. Ian Ward

A good and instructive book for the amateur and fortunately not too technical,for many others of this ilk tend to be written by boffins This book was very useful to me before giving the go ahead to let my own boffins loose on designing a new wingsail hydrofoil leisure crafty.

I've been tempted to convert a small catamaran to foils, and ran across a mention of this book in a video online. Its awesome! So far it's covered every design aspect that I was thinking about, and given me more that I hadn't even thought of, and I'm only half way through. If you're thinking of adding foils to a boat or building one from scratch, this is the place to start!

Mr. Vellinga addresses many design issues, provides references and is very helpful. He gives you the tools to get really close with your design, whatever it is. He covers from little to big, from pedal to sail to power. In doing so, he gets into many specifics of differing approaches to controls and stability. This book, combined with his youtube videos and hydrofoil websites you have many tools to accomplish building a functioning hydrofoil. I would guess its very difficult to produce a book that is all to everyone even on hydrofoils. He walks you through his proof-of-concept, pictured on the cover, which involves many complex and fundamental issues. If you want to build a hydrofoil, it would not be a mistake to read this book and keep it in your library. I "Spent" the $20 plus a little more and I'm glad I did.

A fairly basic yet complete enough to give you a good handle on the information you need. Not college level hydrodynamics here but will give you a fair handle of the concepts and "hands on" experience of the author. Has room for improvement, especially his diagrams ,etc. but generally entertaining

This book is excellent. The explanations are accessible yet the engineering level is deep enough to build things that actually work. The language is clear and the subject of hydrofoils is explained in a comprehensive manner so regular human beings (with some ability to build things) can design and make them. I recommend this book!

If you want to size up what a hydrofoil project would mean, or need a guide to designing one yourself, it's all right here. Mr. Vellinga is a silly, nerdy guy who absolutely loves his subject, and introduces us to a loose-knit, historic, worldwide community of mostly amateur hydrofoil designers. These people's work become his (and our) touchstones, as examples of particular design philosophies, and how they behave. Their examples, and their results, help the would-be hydrofoil builder triangulate the design philosophy that best suits her vision of a fun project/craft. The other information helps sharpen her vision of what a working example of her vision would mean in terms of size, weight, cost, and performance.

Im using it to get some foundational knowledge for a university research project. Its good, but as soon as the author tries to look smart he makes horrible mistakes. He does not understand what turbulent flow is. He does not know what 3 to the power of two is. He doesn't understand induced drag. Its the only book of its kind that i know, and he knows a lot from a practitioners point of view. But he has apsolutely no understanding of some advanced theoretical concepts he tries to explain. I would be very happy with a revised version.

面白そうだと思ったので購入しました。入門者が基礎を勉強するには、良いかもしれませんが、自作するには、データーが不足。材料をサイズ通りに行えば自作が完成するかと思ったが・・・・中々・・・・

An interesting read and great introduction and in depth study on the topic. Written to aid the design and build of many variations. As Ray said, Don't buy this book "You can save hours of study by doing months of building and testing".

Momentan das einzige Werk, das Hydrofoils und die verschiedenen Techniken dazu weitestmöglich ganzheitlich darstellt. Mir hat das Werk sehr geholfen um die verschiedenen Techniken im Einsatz von Hydrofoils zu verstehen und mich in die Lage versetzt selbst Hydrofoils für meinen Katamaran zu designen, berechnen und hoffentlich auch mal zu bauen.

paguei o dobro sem perceber só pelo fato da amazon rastrear os meus cookies, livro é bom porém não é um passo a passo, necessita-se gastar um tempo razoavelmente grande para conseguir fabricar um hidrofólio. Na verdade nem sei se será possível da forma que o livro complica o assunto invés de simplificar.

Ho acquistato questo libro per iniziare a scoprire il mondo dei foil, il calcolo la progettazione ed esempi pratici. Dopo svariate ricerche questo libro è l'unico disponibile. Unica "pecca"...è tutto in inglese ;-) Consigliato per chi vuole approcciarsi ai foil