7 ms·

In Vancouver there are gas stations specific for boats, I heard from an attendant at one of them that occasionally yachts stop by and fill in $50,000 worth of g

by inasio 3y ago

In Vancouver there are gas stations specific for boats, I heard from an attendant at one of them that occasionally yachts stop by and fill in $50,000 worth of gas (and pay cash according to him). Hydrofoils in theory would cut a very significant chunk of that, even if still on gas-powered boats. Given that the technology has been around for many decades, I suspect there's got to be a showstopper that prevents its adoption (vulnerable to floating logs?), and I suspect simply making them electric won't alleviate that

riffraff 3y ago
But we've had those for decades, no? There's a bunch of "aliscafi" doing ferries in Italy for example, both at sea and on lakes.
- smileysteve 3y ago
  Similar, but quite different. The tradition foiling ferries rely on a surface based foil which does reduce drag significantly, is not as efficient as a sub surface foil, but are easier to implement because they "ride" the surface so they don't require balancing technology. Candela is using sub surface foils, relying on water both above and below the foil which provides significantly more lift, and immune to surface irregularities (if properly predicted).
xuhu 3y ago
More like the logs are vulnerable to the hydrofoils. Those vertical wings look like they can slice anything in half.
- inasio 3y ago
  Yeah, no. This is not Starwars or samurai anime, commonly found red cedar or Doug firs go from one to many feet wide
moffkalast 3y ago
The problem with hydrofoils is that they don't scale up very well. Practically all larger designs were always gas turbine powered to even be able to supply enough power for initial liftoff and guzzled kerosene at laughably unprofitable rates. Much like ekranoplans and hovercrafts they didn't really prove to be economical in the long run. This smaller bus-sized version might genuinely be at the limit of what makes sense with current battery and motor tech.
- bagels 3y ago
  Why is this? Is it because the boat mass doesn't scale linearly with surface area?
  - moffkalast 3y ago
    I wish I could give a good explanation, but from what I understand it's more down to fluid dynamics than usual intuition would dictate. The resistance curve [0] has unusual peaks where resistance is highest based on wave creation and interaction with the hull length [1], which interestingly makes longer ships able to reach higher cruise speeds more efficiently (why container ships are as large as they can be), but it also increases these maximums that need to be passed, making transitioning to planing even harder. Due to these factors you'd probably need beyond 8x the engine power to plane/foil with a 2x larger ship. [0] https://amarineblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/basics-ofshipresistance-16-728.jpg?w=485&h=364 https://amarineblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/basics-ofshi... [1] https://calconcalculator.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/image-53.png https://calconcalculator.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/imag...
mikepurvis 3y ago
Off the cuff, I would guess it's a power-to-weight issue. People with yachts want to fill them up with granite countertops and pools and grand pianos and who knows what else. Whereas a hydrofoil boat needs to be built with more like airplane sensibilities.
conductr 3y ago
In addition to other comments, I’ve heard/read somewhere that the skill to operate is more akin to piloting an aircraft so probably a large bit of it is retraining hurdles
VoxPelli 3y ago
“We use an advanced control system that stabilizes the naturally unstable boat in just about any condition. Sensors around the perimeter of our boats measure wave height and feed this information to our Flight Controller. Height, roll and pitch data are as well. The Flight Controller is then able to adjust the position at up to 100 times per second, in order to achieve stability.” That’s from Candela’a own webpage, and the following older article mentions: “Many of them have worked at aerospace and technology companies such as Eurocopter, Saab Gripen, and Volvo.” https://www.torqeedo.com/en/news-and-press/blog/blog-2020-12-17.html https://www.torqeedo.com/en/news-and-press/blog/blog-2020-12... I think Candela is basically what happens when you take Swedish engineering tradition, combine it with skills attained from building advanced fighter jets and the challenge of making electric boats have a reasonable range at all. Some added bonuses you get: Barely any wake, so you can run fast without disrupting others or the wildlife / nature.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
zackmorris 3y ago
You're so close! It's not the issues with tech but the whims of the uber rich that prevent adoption of most innovations. They have the money and choose the profitable things to invest in, which are nearly always the opposite of the practical things that would help the most people. Once you begin to see the world through this lens, it all makes sense. The best place to start is to talk to old people 40, 50, 60 years old plus. They'll tell you how so much of this was solved in the 60s and 80s and even earlier, but the powers that be suppressed any innovations that reduce fossil fuel usage, the influence of finance, the profits of the arms industry, etc etc etc.
- robomartin 3y ago
  > It's not the issues with tech but the whims of the uber rich that prevent adoption of most innovations. Please provide a list of 25 innovations who's adoption was prevented by the uber-rich. In addition to that, also provide a list of the uber-rich who participated in each instance of preventing each of the listed innovations from being adopted.
  - coryrc 3y ago
    You got to spend money to make money. Larry Ellison and Oprah spend money on real estate, the Waltons on crushing American small business, and Buffet on fleecing poor people buying mobile homes. The EV revolution and much cheaper space access can be traced to one billionaire. Bill Gates is curing diseases. Imagine what else could be achieved if the other rich put their money toward similar projects.
    - moffkalast 3y ago
      So in short, innovation beyond the lab stage requires major funding and few people want to take on the risk? Sounds perfectly logical. It's human nature to value the same amount of loss far more severely than the same amount of gain. I suppose that's why most new tech is either deployed with government funding because they don't care about burning boatloads of other people's money for some small strategic gain, or by rich lunatics with a god complex that believe they can't possibly lose despite the risks involved.
dvaletin 3y ago
> I suspect there's got to be a showstopper that prevents its adoption Weves is one of them. Hydrofoils are sensible to waives
henrikschroder 3y ago
> I suspect there's got to be a showstopper that prevents its adoption No, it's the other way around. Diesel-powered non-computer-controlled hydrofoils weren't good enough to overthrow regular diesel-powered boats. You saved some gas, but not enough for anyone to bother. The pressure to go green and move to electric boats means that the energy savings from going hydrofoil is suddenly extremely interesting in order to make a boat that has enough speed and range if it's gonna carry batteries. Couple that with modern sensors and computing, and their hydrofoils can do a lot more on-the-fly adjustments to further improve stability and efficiency than the older ones. And these two factors combine to make something new, and you can't say "Well, hydrofoils failed in the past, so this will fail as well". > In Vancouver > (vulnerable to floating logs?) That's a very local "you" problem. The various Swedish archipelagoes have completely different conditions than the Seattle-Vancouver bay area.
- inasio 3y ago
  Possibly also specific to the Pacific NW area, Vancouver and the surrounding islands have the largest ferry fleet in the world, yet practically all of the boats carry up to hundreds of vehicles and hundreds/thousands of passengers. Something like this would replace, optimistically, one passenger ferry (Vancouver to North Vancouver), and perhaps a handful of water taxis. I think they're super cool (I also love moth hydrofoils), but I'm not sure they're going to replace much given the current infrastructure. Perhaps though new use cases will happen because of them

by inasio 3y ago

riffraff 3y ago

But we've had those for decades, no? There's a bunch of "aliscafi" doing ferries in Italy for example, both at sea and on lakes.

smileysteve 3y ago
Similar, but quite different. The tradition foiling ferries rely on a surface based foil which does reduce drag significantly, is not as efficient as a sub surface foil, but are easier to implement because they "ride" the surface so they don't require balancing technology. Candela is using sub surface foils, relying on water both above and below the foil which provides significantly more lift, and immune to surface irregularities (if properly predicted).

xuhu 3y ago

More like the logs are vulnerable to the hydrofoils. Those vertical wings look like they can slice anything in half.

inasio 3y ago
Yeah, no. This is not Starwars or samurai anime, commonly found red cedar or Doug firs go from one to many feet wide

moffkalast 3y ago

The problem with hydrofoils is that they don't scale up very well. Practically all larger designs were always gas turbine powered to even be able to supply enough power for initial liftoff and guzzled kerosene at laughably unprofitable rates. Much like ekranoplans and hovercrafts they didn't really prove to be economical in the long run. This smaller bus-sized version might genuinely be at the limit of what makes sense with current battery and motor tech.

bagels 3y ago
Why is this? Is it because the boat mass doesn't scale linearly with surface area?
- moffkalast 3y ago
  I wish I could give a good explanation, but from what I understand it's more down to fluid dynamics than usual intuition would dictate. The resistance curve [0] has unusual peaks where resistance is highest based on wave creation and interaction with the hull length [1], which interestingly makes longer ships able to reach higher cruise speeds more efficiently (why container ships are as large as they can be), but it also increases these maximums that need to be passed, making transitioning to planing even harder. Due to these factors you'd probably need beyond 8x the engine power to plane/foil with a 2x larger ship. [0] https://amarineblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/basics-ofshipresistance-16-728.jpg?w=485&h=364 https://amarineblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/basics-ofshi... [1] https://calconcalculator.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/image-53.png https://calconcalculator.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/imag...

mikepurvis 3y ago

Off the cuff, I would guess it's a power-to-weight issue. People with yachts want to fill them up with granite countertops and pools and grand pianos and who knows what else. Whereas a hydrofoil boat needs to be built with more like airplane sensibilities.

conductr 3y ago

In addition to other comments, I’ve heard/read somewhere that the skill to operate is more akin to piloting an aircraft so probably a large bit of it is retraining hurdles

VoxPelli 3y ago

“We use an advanced control system that stabilizes the naturally unstable boat in just about any condition. Sensors around the perimeter of our boats measure wave height and feed this information to our Flight Controller. Height, roll and pitch data are as well. The Flight Controller is then able to adjust the position at up to 100 times per second, in order to achieve stability.” That’s from Candela’a own webpage, and the following older article mentions: “Many of them have worked at aerospace and technology companies such as Eurocopter, Saab Gripen, and Volvo.” https://www.torqeedo.com/en/news-and-press/blog/blog-2020-12-17.html https://www.torqeedo.com/en/news-and-press/blog/blog-2020-12... I think Candela is basically what happens when you take Swedish engineering tradition, combine it with skills attained from building advanced fighter jets and the challenge of making electric boats have a reasonable range at all. Some added bonuses you get: Barely any wake, so you can run fast without disrupting others or the wildlife / nature.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

zackmorris 3y ago

You're so close! It's not the issues with tech but the whims of the uber rich that prevent adoption of most innovations. They have the money and choose the profitable things to invest in, which are nearly always the opposite of the practical things that would help the most people. Once you begin to see the world through this lens, it all makes sense. The best place to start is to talk to old people 40, 50, 60 years old plus. They'll tell you how so much of this was solved in the 60s and 80s and even earlier, but the powers that be suppressed any innovations that reduce fossil fuel usage, the influence of finance, the profits of the arms industry, etc etc etc.

robomartin 3y ago
> It's not the issues with tech but the whims of the uber rich that prevent adoption of most innovations. Please provide a list of 25 innovations who's adoption was prevented by the uber-rich. In addition to that, also provide a list of the uber-rich who participated in each instance of preventing each of the listed innovations from being adopted.
- coryrc 3y ago
  You got to spend money to make money. Larry Ellison and Oprah spend money on real estate, the Waltons on crushing American small business, and Buffet on fleecing poor people buying mobile homes. The EV revolution and much cheaper space access can be traced to one billionaire. Bill Gates is curing diseases. Imagine what else could be achieved if the other rich put their money toward similar projects.
  - moffkalast 3y ago
    So in short, innovation beyond the lab stage requires major funding and few people want to take on the risk? Sounds perfectly logical. It's human nature to value the same amount of loss far more severely than the same amount of gain. I suppose that's why most new tech is either deployed with government funding because they don't care about burning boatloads of other people's money for some small strategic gain, or by rich lunatics with a god complex that believe they can't possibly lose despite the risks involved.

dvaletin 3y ago

> I suspect there's got to be a showstopper that prevents its adoption Weves is one of them. Hydrofoils are sensible to waives

henrikschroder 3y ago

> I suspect there's got to be a showstopper that prevents its adoption No, it's the other way around. Diesel-powered non-computer-controlled hydrofoils weren't good enough to overthrow regular diesel-powered boats. You saved some gas, but not enough for anyone to bother. The pressure to go green and move to electric boats means that the energy savings from going hydrofoil is suddenly extremely interesting in order to make a boat that has enough speed and range if it's gonna carry batteries. Couple that with modern sensors and computing, and their hydrofoils can do a lot more on-the-fly adjustments to further improve stability and efficiency than the older ones. And these two factors combine to make something new, and you can't say "Well, hydrofoils failed in the past, so this will fail as well". > In Vancouver > (vulnerable to floating logs?) That's a very local "you" problem. The various Swedish archipelagoes have completely different conditions than the Seattle-Vancouver bay area.

inasio 3y ago
Possibly also specific to the Pacific NW area, Vancouver and the surrounding islands have the largest ferry fleet in the world, yet practically all of the boats carry up to hundreds of vehicles and hundreds/thousands of passengers. Something like this would replace, optimistically, one passenger ferry (Vancouver to North Vancouver), and perhaps a handful of water taxis. I think they're super cool (I also love moth hydrofoils), but I'm not sure they're going to replace much given the current infrastructure. Perhaps though new use cases will happen because of them