TriFoiler VS Rave

wow the TriFoiler kicked ass. I have a Hobie 16.

if one can sail a 16, you can sail anything on the water

Downside of the trailing wands with the rave is that valuable lead time is sacrificed. TF height ctl. system has sensors ~7' ahead of the foils. This lead allows the TF to track the swells better because it knows wave height ahead of time. When the Rave senses foil depth, the foil has already passed that point in the water. Can make an argument that with trailing wand lag, the Rave ctl sys has less bandwidth and an underdamped ctl. response. Look for Rave undulations in the pitch axis.

On the surface, it might seem that Rave style downstream wands/sensors are the way to go to avoid stuffing a sensor in a wave, but if the weathah is that rough or more specificaly the combination of wave height and steepness of the slope of the waves are that significant, you are only a hair from stuffing the entire hull of the rave into a wave. On either boat, prudence in such rough conditions would dictate getting into displacement mode and beaching.

New, owner improvements in the Rave have improved upwind sailing performance considerably. Also - the Rave shown had no reacher.... not really a fair comparison w/o that. I still think downstream foil control wands are the way to go in rough weathah'


Flame away. :)