[HN Gopher] Candela P-12 taking off - Electric hydrofoiling pass...
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Candela P-12 taking off - Electric hydrofoiling passenger vessel
[video]
Author : JoachimS
Score : 258 points
Date : 2023-11-21 15:00 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| zknill wrote:
| The promo video has a perfectly flat body of water. I'd be
| interested to know what impact waves have on a hydrofoil.
| Phenomenit wrote:
| There is another video on their channel that shows the
| technology in rougher weather and sea, seems to work fine.
| roflyear wrote:
| Which video? None of the videos I see show in rough
| conditions - the worst is probably "better than average" from
| spending time on the ocean.
| Phenomenit wrote:
| This one:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i2Zf9WVlNY
| 0xNotMyAccount wrote:
| All vessels have limits on the sea state they can handle,
| particularly small vessels. Very large vessels can
| generally handle much more. You can see how much more the
| traditional small patrol vessel is bouncing out there, my
| spine hurts just watching. I could see this being used
| for pilot vessels and harbor patrol craft, for sure.
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| Cool, definitely a smoother ride than the adjacent boat.
| RationalDino wrote:
| That isn't rough.
|
| According to another comment, the Candela can handle
| waves of up to 1.2 meters. But about half of waves in the
| open ocean are 2+ meters. So this boat can't handle a
| normal ocean sea.
| jdmoreira wrote:
| This is Sweden. I've lived in the east coast of Sweden
| for 10 years, never seen a wave and there is water
| everywhere.
|
| Now I'm from Portugal, so... no comparison really.
| HALtheWise wrote:
| I don't think the primary target for these boats is the
| ocean, they're mostly designed to operate on lakes, bays,
| rivers, etc
| travoc wrote:
| ...so places where 5 knot speed limits are often enforced
| to prevent wakes.
| SamBam wrote:
| Since they barely produce wakes when they are
| hydrofoiling, these rules can probably be changed.
| nine_k wrote:
| But during the transition to the hydrofoil mode and back
| they produce _a lot_ of waves and wake; seen this many
| times firsthand.
| sorenjan wrote:
| They have been given permission to drive at 12 knots
| because they produce much smaller wakes.
|
| https://www.hamnen.se/varldens-snabbaste-elfartyg-far-
| kora-f...
| HALtheWise wrote:
| Candela has been granted a waiver for the 12 knot speed
| limit in Stockholm, presumably because they make way less
| wake. Places like the San Francisco Bay are also clear
| examples of not-the-ocean but no-speed-limits.
|
| https://candela.com/candela-p-12-enables-public-
| transport-fa...
| roflyear wrote:
| Why do you need a ferry for a small lake? Anything you'd
| need a ferry for won't be much distinguishable from an
| ocean. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PebbX8uzyPI
| chrisco255 wrote:
| The Great Lakes are not that choppy on average except
| during storms. But the primary use case would be along
| intercoastal waterways and rivers, which are also very
| calm except during storms.
| roflyear wrote:
| I dunno, where there is boat traffic there will be chop
| as well. So it's intercoastal, low traffic areas.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _Why do you need a ferry for a small lake?_
|
| E.g.:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_Island_ferries
|
| * https://streetsoftoronto.com/guide-to-the-toronto-
| islands-fe...
| Crunchified wrote:
| How about Puget Sound (Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia...),
| where there are ferries all over. Several routes have
| "foot ferries" (no cars) offering rides with added speed
| to get the commuters to home or work across several miles
| of semi-open waters. Only rarely are waves a serious
| factor, and I don't know if that's even serious enough to
| affect this watercraft. Just one example of where this
| could really be useful and profitable. I can think of
| others.. Chesapeake Bay, Lake Champlain, Great Lakes...
| eesmith wrote:
| With Google Maps I found a ferry on the Swedish lake
| Hjalmaren, between Vinon and Hampetorp.
|
| https://sv-m-wikipedia-
| org.translate.goog/wiki/Vin%C3%B6lede... says the route
| is 5km long and takes about 16 minutes.
|
| Wikipedia says the lake is 483 km2, while Lake Champlain
| is about 3x bigger at 1,331 km2.
|
| From Google Street View it seems the mainland is visible
| for nearly every direction.
|
| Oh! I found another ferry, a car ferry from "Boheden, 956
| 93" to "Sandudden, 956 93 Overkalix", according to Google
| Maps. The lake Djuptrasket is 8.68km2 and the ferry is a
| few hundred meters.
|
| And one between Sund and Jarenleden, on the lake Stora
| Le, 131 km2 but it's narrow and the ferry is only about
| 600m.
|
| Sweden has a LOT of lakes, and most of them are narrow. I
| assume they were made by glaciers? I found those two
| ferries by looking for two roads ending on opposite sides
| of a lake.
| henrikschroder wrote:
| The Stockholm area looks like this:
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/@59.3284101,18.0369884,11.71z
| ?au...
|
| There are plenty of places where the water route is much,
| much, much faster than the land route, and there are
| plenty of islands that are only accessible by boat.
| patall wrote:
| As you obviously have never been to Stockholm, feel free
| to pay us a visit. Its really nice in the summer! This is
| the ferry map for the archipelago:
| https://waxholmsbolaget.se/globalassets/kartor/hela-
| skargard... Note though that that doesn't include the
| line the P-12 will be in service on from next year as
| that is line 89 run by SL:
| https://sl.se/globalassets/linje-89.pdf
| chromanoid wrote:
| https://www.hamburg.com/visitors/hamburg-
| by/13965006/ferry/
| wood_spirit wrote:
| There are lots of videos on YouTube of the smaller C8 in choppy
| seas and crossing the wakes of other boats.
|
| I happened to see one for real gliding over some waves big
| enough to give me a bumpy ride in a conventional motorboat.
|
| So they do better than a conventional motorboat in the kind of
| normal rough sea.
|
| There must be some wave height that starts to give it problems,
| but it's up past where normal little motorboats become hampered
| too.
| roflyear wrote:
| Can you link? I don't see anything that is more than
| "average" waves for the sea.
| Sayrus wrote:
| I think the video wood_spirit is referencing to is
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i2Zf9WVlNY
|
| It's not extreme weather and the waves don't reach the
| length of the foil itself. I'm curious as well as to what
| happens on rough seas.
| roflyear wrote:
| Also totally different boat eh. Those waves are probably
| a little bigger than they look, but yes, definitely
| "better than average" I would say.
| wood_spirit wrote:
| A quick search for "candela c8 rough" finds some?
|
| Boy do I want one. For those calm days though. The
| quietness is another big draw. I have a 4stroke and it's so
| peace destroying.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| Video of one of their smaller "speedboats":
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i2Zf9WVlNY
|
| I guess they can operate in waves that don't reach the hull? At
| least sideways
|
| EDIT: Their FAQ says the speedboat can handle 1.2M high waves:
| A Candela generally outperforms regular leisure boats in rough
| weather. The maximum wave height when foiling is approximately
| 1.2 meters from wave peak to valley.
|
| https://candela.com/faq/
| sergioisidoro wrote:
| That video has the title "extreme weather". That's a very
| liberal use of the word "extreme"
| mbrameld wrote:
| It's extreme relative to the operating capabilities of the
| hydrofoil.
| silvestrov wrote:
| Now try the North Sea on a windy day:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYzIWngs_T8
|
| Watch the helicopter coming in to land 30 seconds into the
| movie. It lands at the end.
| Gud wrote:
| I doubt these small taxis are designed for the North Sea
| though.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| No these are mostly meant for rivers and intercoastal
| waterways. They're not going to be used for
| intercontinental travel.
| tyfon wrote:
| They would be perfect for the public boat transportation
| system in the Oslo fjord between the islands there.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Just in case anyone was ever wondering why the conditions
| of a SpaceX launch (specifically for the water landings),
| but also any launch with an at sea recovery zone can
| prevent a launch from occurring even if the weather is
| sunny at the launch site.
| foobarian wrote:
| Wow that helicopter must be super light weight for the
| blade to rotate so slowly near the end. :-)
|
| Fantastic example of stroboscopic effects in video.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| And? It's a ferry designed to operate, like most ferries,
| in littoral waters. Harbors, bays, rivers, channels, and
| ocean areas close to shores. Not North Atlantic bluewater
| conditions.
|
| This has as much relevancy as "nerrrrrr, dumb plane, why
| did they build it if it can't fly from NYC to Australia"
| while looking at a picture of a Dash-80, a regional
| commuter plane.
| patall wrote:
| That's a well know problem for all of us that want to surf
| around Stockholm: the baltic sea us just too calm. You can
| go to Toro and hope for rhe best but in reality even with
| good wind, all you can do is wing or SUP foil, not even
| enough to try prone foiling...
|
| (My comment may sound sarcastic but I am serious: the
| baltic sea has always seen other types of boats, both for
| leasure and commercial)
| VoxPelli wrote:
| They have sensors that detects waves and adjusts the
| hydrofoils to avoid crashing into the water.
|
| If one would like to use hype words I guess one could call
| them AI-driven hydrofoils or something
| tauntz wrote:
| Hydrofoiling boats have been in commercial use for quite some
| time. I've taken one[1] between Estonia and Finland a couple of
| times but these are sadly not operating anymore.
|
| 1. https://images.delfi.ee/media-api-image-
| cropper/v1/02cc3aa0-...
| nine_k wrote:
| The Greek apparently still operate hydrofoil boats between
| islands on Mediterranean sea. Sea, not river.
| riffraff wrote:
| Same in Italy. Both sea and lakes.
| KWxIUElW8Xt0tD9 wrote:
| I recall a hydrofoil on Lake Garda -- obviously lots of
| power required -- it was much louder than the normal
| ferries on that lake.
| ge96 wrote:
| jet foil in Japan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_lKISuF5Y4
|
| edit: shorter video
| stcredzero wrote:
| What are the economics of hydrofoils like? I recently watched
| a YouTube video covering the rise and fall of hovercraft
| ferries. Basically, the lower reliability of hovercraft
| eventually overwhelmed the utility of faster transit times.
| Is it the same for hydrofoil ferries?
| tauntz wrote:
| I remember reading articles about the Silja Line ferries
| needing repairs all the time. But that might have been an
| issue with the specific models and not an indication of
| hydrofoil reliability in general.
| rbanffy wrote:
| They must be much more efficient than both boats and
| hovercraft - they don't need to keep the air cushion, and
| they don't need to push their full tonnage away from their
| path - lift losses excepted, they must be equivalent to
| much smaller boats.
|
| I would expect to see more of these as recreational
| vehicles, as they must be much cheaper to operate and, with
| recreational boats having a much lower duty cycle than,
| say, BEVs, solar recharging becomes attainable, as long as
| you keep the boat docked or anchored and charging for much
| longer than you use its propulsion.
| 1234letshaveatw wrote:
| I saw a single person standup foil on a local lake. They
| look unreal, almost unbelievable in operation. Like
| someone is flying over the lake. Search for efoils on
| youtube
| dylan604 wrote:
| This does sound approachable. From my experience, people
| with lake front property and docks with boat "houses" are
| clear from any obstruction of direct sun. Line the roof
| of said boat "house" with solar, and in the typical
| weekender/vacationer use of a boat, seems pretty
| managable. However, when the sun is up to be charging is
| typically the time of the boat's use so it won't be on
| the charger. Use the solar to charge a powerwall type of
| solution, and then charge the boat at night?
| rbanffy wrote:
| Solar panels could be on the boat itself, but I am
| assuming solar won't be able to do much recharging while
| the engine is in use anyway. OTOH, very few boats are
| used, or moved, every day.
|
| I imagine a boat would have a hefty battery pack anyway,
| to power a stove, fridge, air conditioning, plus
| essential bridge equipment.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I think we're talking different sized boat on a lake. Do
| house boats typically power from battery or from a
| generator? I have no familiarity with those.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Most houseboats are barges with no propulsion. They use
| shore power but often have a backup generator. Having
| some solar or a small wind turbine is relatively common
| too.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Yes. I was thinking "river boat with limited propulsion
| that is moved when the owner wants a change of scenery".
| euroderf wrote:
| I talked to the skipper of one. He said the boats (Linda
| Line) had been in service in the Black Sea.
| ano-ther wrote:
| On the Thames:
| https://www.londonreconnections.com/2020/soviet-fleet-on-
| the...
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I took one from Tangier to Gibraltar, in the 1970s (Might
| even have been the 1960s).
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| Wouldn't / Shouldn't they slow down out of hydrofoil speed when
| they enter rough seas? I would imagine that would be the
| prudent thing to do.
| acyou wrote:
| Here's old footage of the foilborne Canadian Navy hydrofoil
| HMCS Bras D'Or from the 1970s, with some rough sea action right
| at the start of the video. Doesn't look like a smooth ride, and
| must be a huge stress on the hydrofoil structure:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVYSUWEi-WQ&ab_channel=imaxg...
|
| I think that as a general rule, longer vessels tend to be more
| seaworthy, they don't get swallowed by waves.
| eschneider wrote:
| Absolutely not true. Long vessels have different problems
| with waves, like having the bow AND stern lifted by waves at
| the same time, so you have a whole different set of failure
| modes.
| acyou wrote:
| Interesting, but I think many ocean-going vessels tend to
| be fairly long for good reason, with the bigger, longer
| ones also being faster and more capable in rough seas.
|
| Offshore commercial fishing boats are an example of shorter
| ocean-going boats. I think they would normally prefer to
| avoid storm seas if possible. They have to head up and turn
| into the waves, they can't take them sideways.
|
| One example of when people thought that a big, long boat
| would be more seaworthy, was the Titanic, which sank in
| 1912 after hitting an iceberg. But it wasn't the waves that
| did it.
|
| I think big, long and strong boats are pretty great in
| rough seas. If I was crossing the Atlantic, I think I'd
| rather be in a bigger boat, provided that it doesn't break
| up or develop any leaks.
| stcredzero wrote:
| _I think I 'd rather be in a bigger boat, provided that
| it doesn't break up_
|
| This is a very high structural demand. Torpedoes work
| best, when they can effectively "lift" the keel, breaking
| the back of the ship. (Not exactly, but kind of, IIRC.)
| Very high sea swells apparently do the same thing! When
| there's far less buoyancy supporting one end of the ship
| than the other, the entire ship has to act as a
| cantilever. At the size of large ships, the square-cube
| law dominates, and the ship is far more fragile at that
| scale than a model boat would be. Even steel structures
| at that scale are flex-y.
| btbuildem wrote:
| I imagine one of the challenges would be getting up to foiling
| speed in rough waters. From the videos I've seen, once the hull
| of a foil boat is out of the water, the ride is much less
| affected by waves.
| devindotcom wrote:
| they take off at around 7-8 knots, so as long as you can get
| up to that you're good. the motors and wing stay well below
| the water, the candelas do wave detection as well IIRC.
| yencabulator wrote:
| It's intended for use in coastal waters in the Baltic Sea,
| around lots of islands and behind the Danish straits that
| significantly tame incoming winds & waves:
|
| > P-12 [...] will halve commuting times in Stockholm from 2024.
|
| In the waves hydrofoils can handle, they're more comfortable
| than traditional boats -- the waves don't move the boat around
| as much.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| The deeper the lifting surface the larger the waves can be. You
| need the waves to not have too much of an impact at their peak
| while the foil still being underwater at the trough. Unless the
| foils can extend and rectract[1], the depth of the lifting
| surface impacts minimum draft of the ship as well.
|
| 1: Or fold, though with folding foils, you need to transition
| from foiling to floating where the water is deep enough, then
| float into the shallower water.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| In general, hydrofoils provide a smooth ride as the vessel is
| lifted out of the chop. But in more extreme conditions, the
| hull can nosedive or otherwise slam back down into the water,
| at which point it's lost its momentum required to stay in
| foiling mode.
| smileysteve wrote:
| I foil and efoil as a hobby; Once on foil, surface waves have
| no impact as long as you keep the foils in the water -- this
| means observing and adjusting attitude. If you do it well, you
| can maintain full speed and only feel the attitude changes (no
| bumps). Though, if it is very windy and wavy on the ocean/lake
| it is more difficult to develop foiling speed to take off.
|
| The reason why Candela is pioneering sub surface foils now is
| because it takes a reasonable amount of sensors and computation
| to avoid the foil breaching.
|
| For the most part, you wouldn't want to take a sub surface
| foiling vessel flying out in a storm with significant swells,
| but that's not what most boating is anyway.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Depends on the height of the waves relative to the height the
| foiling boat flies at. There's a reason those America's Cup
| boats and the big ocean going trimarans that use foils have
| quite different designs.
|
| The biggest issue is that if the foiling fails the boat has a
| tendency to bury the bow quite violently. This killed an AC
| sailor a decade or so ago.
|
| Foils make sense for inland waterways but making them work for
| the ocean proper is considerably more difficult.
|
| I'm no naval architect but this boat is awfully narrow in beam
| which is probably its biggest limitation.
| mlhpdx wrote:
| Foiling sailboats deal with pretty substantial wave action,
| including open ocean storms. It's all in the design.
|
| What's really shocking to me is how slow this ferry is compared
| with those foiling sailboats which can reach upwards of 90
| km/h.
| MuffinFlavored wrote:
| > Ferries are by far the most polluting form of transportation
| today
|
| Interesting
|
| The video also says that if it didn't plane up into hydrofoil-
| mode, it'd need to use enough energy to push 12 tons (full
| weight) through water. How much does it need to push in hydro-
| foil mode/what kind of percentage reduction are we looking at?
|
| It fits 30, 20, or 12 passengers depending on configuration and
| cost EUR1.7m. Which EU country is willing to buy like... 100 of
| these?
|
| It can't be cheap to ride if it can only hold 30 passengers max?
| JoachimS wrote:
| There are quite a few ferries with capacity around 30
| passengers in service in Sweden. Most of them burning diesel.
| MuffinFlavored wrote:
| Ah, shows how uncultured I am for not knowing that. I'm used
| to 30 people all crammed into one grocery aisle pushing each
| other for a $6 box of sugary cereal at WalMart in America so
| it seemed like an "insignificant" number in terms of
| transportation.
|
| (slightly kidding)
| nemetroid wrote:
| There are? Where?
| m_eiman wrote:
| In the archipelagos near Stockholm and Gothenburg, for
| example. There's a list of the nationally financed routes
| here:
|
| https://www.trafikverket.se/resa-och-trafik/farjetrafik/
|
| Then there are regionally and locally financed routes as
| well.
| nemetroid wrote:
| The ferries in that link are all road ferries. Most of
| them take at least 30 _cars_ , and a lot more than 30
| passengers.
|
| Most of the archipelago ferries in Gothenburg take around
| 300 passengers. The smallest one I could find on
| Styrsobolaget's site takes 165:
|
| https://www.styrsobolaget.se/om-oss/fartyg/rivo
| eesmith wrote:
| While not a ferry, it looks like Sweden has water taxis.
|
| Looking around I found a few listed at
| https://visitsweden.com/about-sweden/getting-around-
| stockhol... , for example, https://www.battaxi.se/our-
| boats says the m/s Alma ("Our fast all-round boat")
| carries 20.
|
| I also found https://waxholmwatertaxi.com/services/taxi-
| boat/?lang=en says "We offer Taxi Boat for 1-12
| passengers throughout the Stockholm archipelago."
|
| I can imagine some people might pay good money for
| significantly faster transport + "eco friendly".
| Retric wrote:
| Hydrofoil's vary quite a bit but on average your looking at
| ~1/6th the drag at the same speeds. Wave height limits depends
| on the design, but it's actually more comfortable in moderate
| surf than a normal boat and worst case they default to a normal
| boat.
|
| As to the economics, there's a long tail of these things. High
| speeds enable more trips per day which offsets fewer seats.
| Consider 3+ million people per year visit the Statue of Liberty
| and it's a 2 way trip. I doubt NYC would swap, but if they did
| they could easily buy 10 of the things just for that one route.
| nine_k wrote:
| The current NYC water taxi boats look plenty fast, at least
| for the short routes between NJ and NYC, or Manhattan and
| Brooklyn.
|
| While going around the Statue of Liberty and sightseeing,
| high speed is not necessarily your goal %)
| smileysteve wrote:
| Pricing will also be determined by marginal maintenance and
| running costs; Foils significantly reduce running costs; going
| electric reduces running, environmental, maintenance costs.
| frankus wrote:
| How robust are these to random floating logs? They're quite
| common here in the Salish Sea and have been cited as the reason
| that the Boeing hydrofoil project never really took off.
| garciasn wrote:
| Hitting debris or the bottom while on foils is NOT recommended
| and can be catastrophic to the boat and its passengers.
|
| Hydrofoils haven't taken off because of the above and,
| primarily, the high operation, maintenance, and build costs.
| Historically, these just have not been more economical than
| their traditional counterparts.
|
| Being that this particular company is not focused on those
| parts of this and are solely focused on the technology being
| green, my guess is they are ignoring the operation,
| maintenance, and build costs and hoping that they can be all
| hand-wavey about that part--which probably will not pay off for
| them.
| roflyear wrote:
| My understanding was that, similar to a sail on a boat, you
| really want to be able to "trim" your foil, which is really
| complicated. You can have a good "average" foil but it will
| really be great in most conditions.
| jesperwe wrote:
| Candela foils are dynamically trimmed under computer
| control.
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| From an engineering perspective the hull would have to be
| strong enough to support all the weight of the vessel on the
| foil mounts. I imagine this is not a trivial problem to solve
| and the vessel would have to be purpose designed for foils,
| so little retrofitting may be possible on existing vessels.
| flybrand wrote:
| I clipped a granite plinth Efoiling - your ride comes to a
| very abrupt halt. Thankfully the board was fine and the
| carbon fiber wing had just minor scuffing.
| gilbertbw wrote:
| I would be concerned that the carbon fibre has been
| significantly weakened by the impact.
|
| https://www.resinlibrary.com/knowledge/article/can-
| carbon-fi...
|
| > Since fibre strength significantly exceeds that of the
| matrix (epoxy), damage usually occurs in the matrix
| before the fibres for laminate composites. In some
| instances, this is relatively easy to detect; snapped
| fibres protruding from the object's surface. Yet more
| microscopic damage - something which can spread through
| the object - is harder to detect even though it can
| significantly reduce the mechanical properties of the
| composite.
| flybrand wrote:
| I'm concerned, but it's a hobby where the penalty for
| failure is getting wet.
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| That looks like a lot of fun, kind of like a OneWheel on
| water, but safer because water lands a lot softer than
| the hard ground does!
| bagels wrote:
| Weight of the boat + dynamic loads.
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| Great point lol it's not like the carried load will be
| the same all the time and I didn't even consider that :)
| thriftwy wrote:
| Boats are, in general, an unpopular way to carry passengers
| these days, and of those, hydrofoils have a significant
| share. It's debatable whereas anything ense has "taken off"
| if hydrofoils didn't.
| abraae wrote:
| There must be thousands or tens of thousands of ferries
| around the world, yet hydrofoil ferries are as rare as
| rocking horse shit, so I don't think this is correct.
| thriftwy wrote:
| I know only a couple of non-ferry scheduled passenger
| boats (no car deck) and half of these are easily
| hydrofoils. I guess that depends on the region, though.
| kitd wrote:
| > the Boeing hydrofoil project never really took off.
|
| _badoom tish_
|
| Don't tell us, you're here all week? ;)
| devindotcom wrote:
| I actually rode a C-8 around Elliott Bay and asked about this
| since as you say there's lots of logs, or deadheads as my
| grandpa called them. They said it's not optimal but the logs
| can be detected and accounted for, and the fins are super
| strong to impacts from the front. Better to avoid, of course,
| but they said it would be OK. It just whacks them out of the
| way basically.
| ttul wrote:
| Many logs in the Salish Sea are actually enormous tree trunks
| complete with root systems...
| gosub100 wrote:
| would be a perfect application for sonar, wouldn't it?
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| They tested an earlier version of the Candela in the lagoon of
| Venice, which has quite some waves caused by other motorboats. I
| don't think people were impressed.
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| Other than a Reuter's article[1] (and some very similar
| articles) hyping up the testing of what looks like a pretty
| normal boat but with hydrofoils, I can't find anything about
| the reception. Is this your personal experience? Do you know
| why people were unimpressed?
|
| 1. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-
| transportation/swedis...
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| I attended the boat show, tried the Candela, and heard
| numerous comments about it.
| sergioisidoro wrote:
| I'm wondering if this solution lands too much in between usable
| options.
|
| Long sea passages might have rougher weather which is not great
| for hydrofoils and might be too long for battery ranges. In short
| passages in inland bodies of water (with better wave conditions
| for hydrofoils and friendlier to battery ranges), do you have
| enough distance to start gliding in order to get the benefits of
| hydrofoil?
| simonbarker87 wrote:
| The high speed ferry on Lake Como uses a foil (although not as
| smooth as this, I'd almost say it is semi-flying perhaps) and
| there is more than enough distance between the ports to benefit
| from this Candela boat. The slow stopper ferry probably
| wouldn't be a good option for this foil version (depends on
| acceleration time to flight I guess) though as the stops are
| pretty close together.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| When I used to visit the island of Ischia with some regularity
| there used to be hydrofoils connecting it to the other island
| and Naples. Worked great!
| louwrentius wrote:
| Always cool to see boats like this, never ceases to amaze me.
| Would have been interesting to know more about power, battery
| capacity, runtime, charging and so on.
|
| I'm into solar and LiFePo4 batteries and for those who have
| little experience with batteries or maybe lead acid, it's just so
| unbelievable magic how well this stuff works (Or how bad lead
| acid really is). And what is possible.
|
| There is a lot of engineering ahead of us, but the energy
| transition is in my view more of a political topic than a
| technical engineering challenge.
| capableweb wrote:
| Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that Grafana being used in the
| boat dashboard? At least some of the widgets seems to either be
| very Grafana inspired, or straight up pulled from the Grafana UI.
|
| Probably the last place I'd expect that memory-hungry and CPU-
| inefficient UI to appear.
| tetris11 wrote:
| I guess your comment deliberately begs: are there any better?
| reliablereason wrote:
| > Probably the last place I'd expect that memory-hungry and
| CPU-inefficient UI to appear.
|
| In a prototype with batteries large enough to heat and power a
| house for weeks?
|
| The power consumption of the navigation electronics is probably
| not a big concern.
|
| I would have put linux and a fullscreen electron app on those
| screens.
| gosub100 wrote:
| I didn't read their comment as "drains the battery", more
| like "slows your computer down and eventually freezes". That
| could still be fine if you anticipate it (and as you said,
| it's a prototype) and the control system (throttle, rudder)
| doesn't depend on it.
| itsyaboi wrote:
| Its almost certainly some RTOS like QNX.
| rcpt wrote:
| Can't wait to cruise up to some Central California surf lineups
| with all my foiling buddies in one of these
| chakintosh wrote:
| The design language was screaming Polestar then I scrolled and it
| turned out it was indeed using Polestar batteries.
| UrineSqueegee wrote:
| this is really really old tech, these transport vehicles already
| exist for about 2 decades now.
|
| Here's one I used to take very regularly.
|
| https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=176682457397144
| kristofferR wrote:
| What are the reasonable size limits of this tech?
|
| Does it have positive or negative economics of scaling (does
| hydrofoiling on bigger electric ships get cheaper or more
| expensive per weight unit), or is there a ship size limit where
| the equation flips?
| lstodd wrote:
| I think it's not possible to fit enough batteries by weight to
| scale this.
|
| Consider the Voskhod boat which at 28 tons and 60 km/h has to
| have ~800kW engine. To have any useful range the battery mass
| and charge time would be prohibitive.
|
| Turbodiesel and/or gas turbine work just fine though.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voskhod_(hydrofoil)
| smileysteve wrote:
| As length increases so do the support/balancing requirements
| between multiple foils (front vs rear); As weight increases,
| lift may want to be increased to keep a low liftoff speed. As
| lift increases, speed and maneuverability decrease.
| greedo wrote:
| I once took the hydrofoil ferry from Seattle to Victoria, BC. It
| was fast, but it was still a 2 1/2 hour trip. Not sure what that
| ferry used for propulsion, but I assume diesel.
| malkia wrote:
| Seems like real code :) https://imgur.com/a/OTNsf5X (spotted from
| the video - looks like .cpp, Visual Studio Code as IDE)
| lambda wrote:
| They are using FreeRTOS, communicating over a CAN bus using
| CANopen. Looks like this is a shutdown routine, shutting down
| various devices. They seem to have separate tasks for
| propulsion control and GPS.
|
| Pretty standard fare for a vehicle controller.
| carabiner wrote:
| WE HAVE DONE MUCH -- BUT THERE IS MUCH -- TO BE DONE
| tobinfricke wrote:
| Also check out https://www.navierboat.com/, a competitor in this
| space.
|
| And an amazing historical progenitor:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2i3EeUnku0
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Plainview
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| Raketa was a passenger, earlier and mass-produced one.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raketa_(hydrofoil)
| inasio wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| More like the logs are vulnerable to the hydrofoils. Those
| vertical wings look like they can slice anything in half.
| inasio wrote:
| Yeah, no. This is not Starwars or samurai anime, commonly
| found red cedar or Doug firs go from one to many feet wide
| moffkalast wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Why is this? Is it because the boat mass doesn't scale
| linearly with surface area?
| mikepurvis wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| "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...
|
| 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.
| zackmorris wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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.
| nemo wrote:
| Old person here - this does not resonate with my experience
| at all. It's been the middle class driving consumer
| technology since the '60s at least. The stuff that was
| "solved" almost always turned out to be breathless reporting
| hyping technologies that didn't pan out for various reasons.
| dvaletin wrote:
| > I suspect there's got to be a showstopper that prevents its
| adoption Weves is one of them. Hydrofoils are sensible to
| waives
| henrikschroder wrote:
| > 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.
| robotnikman wrote:
| Sort of related, a game I play (From the Depths) has an electric
| hydrofoil ship called the Candela in it... except its a
| Battleship with armed with large lasers and missiles.
| rexreed wrote:
| Navier is also doing something similar:
| https://www.navierboat.com/
|
| Navier has been very self-promotional, taking the boat and its
| founder on a tour all across the US selling (investors) and the
| community on hydrofoil-based boats.
| bagels wrote:
| What's the business case for this? Where are people are willing
| to pay a lot more for ferry tickets (I have to assume these boats
| will be more expensive, and have a much lower weight capacity)?
| pants2 wrote:
| These have been around for a long time. SeaWorld had a hydrofoil
| boat experience back in 1965. I don't think the biggest problem
| was the lack of electrification but more the cost, safety, and
| limited areas where it can operate.
| heikkilevanto wrote:
| Interesting. But what are the (un)likely failure modes?
| Max-q wrote:
| Hydrofoils were in fashion during the 70s. Many were built 7n
| Norway and sold to South East Asia. As seen on James Bond. I
| wonder why they disappeared
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