Williwaw
This summer, the French 60′ foiling trimaran Hydroptere sailed 2215 nautical miles from Los Angeles to Hawaii. The winds were not favorable and the passage was not terribly fast at about 11 days, compared to the four day record set by the 110-foot trimaran Geronimo in November 2005. Nevertheless, as most hydro-foiling sailboats are limited to relatively calm water, the ocean passage was itself an achievement. Hydroptere was not however, despite all claims, the “the first flying hydrofoil to cross an ocean.” In fact, she was not the first by almost a half century.
In the late 1960s and early 70s, an engineer named Dave Keiper designed and built the world’s first hydrofoil sailing yacht, a 32-footer named Williwaw. Keiper cruised 20,000 miles around the Pacific sailing twice to Hawaii from the West Coast and back and then on to the South Pacific as far as New Zealand in 1976. Keiper died of heart failure on June 27, 1998 at the age of 67. Keiper’s book Hydrofoil Voyager: WILLIWAW, From Dream To Reality and Toward the Sailing Yacht of the Future has recently been republished. A video of Willawaw underway:
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