Searching boat designer and naval architect for active foiling motorboat project

Looking for boat designer who could design a new project 6.5-7.6m active foiling motorboat.

We require experienced designer who has experience in active foiling projects.

Currently we are developing our own electric POD powertrain in 40kw peak power.

The boat will be all carbon and fully electric.

Production plant is located in Europe, city of Riga.

 

Welcome to the forums matiss311!
When you say "active", how active do you mean? Most development moved away from all-weather wave-profiling roll-controled fully "active" systems well before the new millennium (i.e. the Beoing jetfoils and their 1960's to 80's military predecessors and derivatives) so this makes those experienced designers few and far between. Modern small boat electric flat-water designs ( like the Navier N30, and Candela C-7 or C-8 which are more your size anyway), of which most are only active in pitch and sometimes roll, only platform "small" (i.e. ~1m) waves as well as having very short ranges due to foiling weight restrictions. With that market being so new, I doubt you will find any "experienced" designers unless you go head-hunting. However, the technology is well trodden ground so I expect any well rounded Naval Architect graduate student paired with a good controls engineer and an experienced lightweight composite fabricator could get the job done.

 

Is this boat to be designed to use for military purposes? Things are a bit edgy these days for the Baltic states.

You might inquire to Odd Faltinssen at Norway university. He is a well known professor of naval architecture and has an accumulated knowledge of foilers.

 

Thank you so much for given information. Yes, you said it quite well. We are looking for a full design on this project. And exactly you are right about the boats what are in the market. That is why we are looking for an experienced designer, because I hear so many projects where foils were designed and the boat actually never foiled.

 

Thanks for the note. Not military only Leisure now. But that also can work, not sure would it need electric motor but yes, good idea.

Things has always been edgy in Baltics due to cognitive disonated neighbour. But we will kick *** if somebody comes.

 

Most new experimental boat designs leave me disappointed. Compared to what was being done in the '60s and '70s. I like Frank Kowalski designs. But there are more interesting ideas to come.

 

I think that is because most developers don't follow the tried and true RTD&E adage of "crawl, walk, run". Very few successful designs spring forth like Athena; most go through evolutionary stages of development ( see both the Navier and Candela websites for protype development stories), so as a boat manufacturer you should never expect to go from CAD to series production just by hiring talent without having to do the background foundational steps first (such as being able to build the hull and foils). So while there are some people (a few on the forums) who have the necessary hydrodynamic and control experience; my personal advice is to pick up some promising tabula rasa just out school and develop talent in-house so you can shape it the way you want it to develop.

 

...and welcome to the Forum @matiss311 !!

Although you've been a member here since 2019, this is your first thread and, in fact, your first post !!

I'm intrigued by your project.

Would you be willing to expand on the design or concept?

 

Hi Matiss,

if you haven't already, you might want to look/ask around in the french ocean racer ecosystem, mainly around Lorient. For example, there are
- folks doing foil control electronics as a service: Système de contrôle de vol pour foilers - AUSTRAL Electronics https://austral-eng.com/controle-du-vol/ (i think i even saw an other one doing the same a while ago, but can't find it)
- plenty of designers and composite geeks with experience with foils in actual waves, including tricks like deformùation changing the angle of attack etc (recent article as an example: LinkedIn https://lnkd.in/drPPjSWg )
- prototyping businesses specialising in performance parts, from infusion over autoclaves all the way up to tape-laying
- SEAir Flying Boat - SEAir https://seair-boat.fr/ going quite military right now, and into rougher waters than the usual motor foilers, if that is where you are headed
If you aren't familiar with that scene, www.tipandshaft.com might be a nice entry point, especially the job ads and announcements in the newsletter. You might actually consider posting there. It's cheap and you reach tons of fresh talent, some already with serious work under their belts.

BTW i might be curious about your pod. Is that something that could provide highly efficient thrust at 16kn, while also remaining in the safe 48V domain ? It's a bit sad for my purposes that solutions like rimdrivetechnology.nl top out at 22kW before going high-voltage.
Any plans for making it kick-up on debris impact ?

Cheers and best luck with your project!