[HN Gopher] Candela P-12 taking off - Electric hydrofoiling pass... ___________________________________________________________________ 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 ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-11-21 23:00 UTC)