The way Ed Kearney sees things, a new era of foiling technology has arrived. He hopes to lead it as CEO of the California startup Boundary Layer Technologies.

Military applications were the first era, in the 1970s, with foiling torpedo boats. The second era started about a decade ago, when America’s Cup teams invested heavily in foil engineering. Today, the idea is to make the technology accessible to everyone—with products like the Valo Hyperfoil, a personal watercraft that combines electric propulsion with foils for speeds approaching 35 knots.

“The silence is bizarre and exciting,” Kearney says. “You don’t even hear the water sloshing. It’s a very quiet hum of the electric motor, and then there’s the wind and the birds chirping.”

Boundary Layer Technologies was founded in 2019 and has worked on a few marine-specific concepts, including a micro container ship that could replace air freight, and a 150-passenger ferry. The costs for those prototypes were quite high for a startup, so in late 2022, the company pivoted to the recreational product. It built a prototype of the personal watercraft, then used lessons learned to create the updated design that was unveiled at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show in October 2023.

“Most people we spoke to—whether they were boatbuilders or yacht crew—said: ‘I think I’ve seen that thing. That’s cool,’” Kearney says.

The price point for the Valo Hyperfoil ($59,000) is more than double most traditional PWCs, but Kearney says that the company already has about 60 orders. A limited production run is expected to begin this year, with the main production run starting in 2025.

“We’ve had people ask us the dimensions to see if they will fit in the garage of their yacht,” he says. “We have customers who live on lakes. We have customers out here on San Francisco Bay. All of them like technology and want to be part of this new era in boating.”

Projected range for the Valo Hyperfoil is more than 60 nautical miles at an average speed of 27 knots. Put another way, it should run for close to two and a half hours at about 21 knots. A three-hour charging session brings the battery back to full.

And the Valo Hyperfoil can be towed or stowed in traditional ways. “You can put it in a garage or on the deck of a yacht,” Kearney says. “The foils fully retract, and the back one has a tilt system like an outboard engine.”

Keeping Balance

Ask any America’s Cup skipper, and they’ll tell you that a foiling craft can be hard to balance. That’s why the Valo Hyperfoil has a control system called Skyride that uses advanced algorithms to adjust the foils hundreds of times every second. “The control system is very hard to build, and that’s one thing we are really good at as a company,” says Ed Kearney, CEO of Boundary Layer Technologies.

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The idea of surfing a boat’s wake dates to at least the 1950s or ’60s, when recreational ­powerboating boomed in postwar America. It was a time when the idea of an “endless summer” ­appeared on movie screens, with surfers chasing tasty waves and a big, warm sun around the globe. More and more people began to think about surfing, and quite a few who had grown up water-skiing became interested in riding a board behind a boat.

By the 1980s, as board technology evolved, entire categories of boats were being built to satisfy the wakeboard craze. Boatbuilders added ballast to create a better wake shape for riders doing tricks and jumps, and some boaters dragged cement blocks on board to add weight. The thinking went that the deeper you could get, say, the starboard aft quarter of a boat into the water, the better the wake would be on that side.

Today, wake sports are evolving again. In the past decade or so, some wakeboarders decided to shorten the rope from 60 or 70 feet — an ideal distance for jumping a wake from side to side — and instead ride closer to the engines. That location wasn’t good for wakeboarding, but it provided a bigger wake for ­wakesurfing, a sport that is seeing a renaissance of interest. In turn, boatbuilders are again looking to reshape the wake, this time for wakesurfers who don’t want to hold a handle at all.

“People realized they could let go of the rope,” says Mike ­Ricciardi, head of Yamaha Watercraft ­product development. “It’s the endless wave, ­­without having to paddle through the surf.”

Today’s idea is to attach accessories under the hull that scoop and redirect the water going into the wake. Numerous wake-shaping systems are on the market, and in February, Yamaha’s won an Innovation Award from the National Marine Manufacturers Association.

Called the WakeBooster, the under-hull accessory is sold in a package that includes a rope and a board with a total cost of less than $1,000. The award recognized the WakeBooster’s price and ease of installation.

“There are no tools, no screwdrivers, nothing,” Ricciardi says. “You can put it on and take it off in the water.”

The WakeBooster is designed to work on several of Yamaha’s 21- and 24-foot wake-sports boats, including some models that date back to 2015, Ricciardi says. Configurations, trim packages and engine choices don’t matter as long as users stick with certain Yamaha boat models.

“This thing attaches on the bottom of the swim platform,” he says. “It’s like a scooped plate. It’s shaped in a specific way — the geometry, the curves, the mount angle, all of that grabs water running off the bottom and side of the boat and pulls it into the center of the wake, so on the side of the boat where you have the WakeBooster mounted, you get this clean, beautiful wave.”

What will come next for wake-surfing technology? Surfers like Ricciardi with an “endless summer” attitude are still thinking about it — and thinking big.

“A lot of yachts throw some pretty big waves behind them,” he says. “I remember being on a 50-foot Hatteras or something like that and seeing that wake and thinking, Oh my gosh, let me at it.“

The post Yamaha’s WakeBooster Turns You into a Pro appeared first on Yachting.

Technohull has a new RIB, the SV909. The tender is 29 feet 8 inches length overall with a 9-foot-10-inch beam. The Greek builder calls the boat’s three-step hull form a “super ventilating hull.” The design allows for a cushion of air to form as the boat planes, enabling a reportedly soft ride while also reducing hydrodynamic drag.

With standard twin 200 hp Mercury Marine L4 DTS outboards, the tender reportedly tops out at 62 knots. There are 7 other Mercury Marine outboard options as well as several single- and twin-inboard options.

The SV909’s layout has a sun pad forward, while the aft section’s layout varies depending on engine choice: with outboard engines, it’s a full-beam settee, but with inboard motors, it’s a sun pad above the engine compartment. Two small swim platforms flank the motors in the outboard setup too. Wrap-around, shock-absorbing helm seats is one useful feature in the center console, where owners can mount an optional Smart Central Console Touchscreen plus a T-top, in addition to the standard instrumentation.

Technohull says the SV909 is “for those who want to take the weekend off and not worry about the distance to cover.”

Learn more here.

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Quadrofoil thumb

Quadrofoil, a high-tech development company, has just released a cutting edge design that is sure to turn heads – the first all electric, hydrofoiling personal watercraft.

With attention to aerodynamic details and the precision engineering of its foils, Quadrofoil ensures that the craft can glide through the surface, easily reaching cruising speeds of 20 knots.

Its sleek look and lightweight hull (just 220 lbs.) aren’t all about speed though, there’s more to this craft than meets the eye. It’s designed to be eco-friendly and completely oil free, running an all-electric outboard motor that can take you over 60 miles on a single charge. Not only that, but at a cost of just $1.25/hour, it is the most efficient PWC on the water.

Two models are currently in production by Quadrofoil. The limited edition Q2S starts at $28,000 and hits the water in March 2015 for a lucky 100 owners. After that, the Q2A priced at $18,700 will become available mid-year.

Learn more about the Quadrofoil design and find out how to own your own at quadrofoil.com.

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Slide

Inflatable water slides have become a must-have toy aboard superyachts, especially those available for charter. They turn any anchorage into a personalized water park, shuttling guests from the sundeck to the water surface with an exhilarating ride.

Members of the Monaco Yacht Club can now enjoy the same thrill, but without the superyacht. The club recently installed its own FreeeStyle Cruiser Slide, turning the building into its own version of waterpark fun.

The slide is just shy of 50 feet high — that’s about five stories — and is available to members and guests. If you look closely at the photograph, you can see the inflatable black brace that keeps the slide’s arc in place, just the same as the brace works on the side of superyachts.

Learn more about these slides at www.freestylecruiser.com.

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Zeus Twelve Series

As megayachts continue to grow, so do the amount and array of toys owners want at their disposal. Multiple tenders, helicopters and PWCs are becoming commonplace, but a matching tender, sports car and motorcycle? Not until now.

Sporting an almost metallic-white color scheme with dark and gold accents, the trio of vehicles with windswept rakes is known as Zeus Twelve, named after the most powerful Greek god, who controlled lightning. The series will incorporate electric propulsion, and 12 represents the maximum number to be built.

The tender, dubbed Avalonne, is designed to serve double duty. At 41 feet, it’s small enough to fit aboard a mega-yacht yet large enough to sleep four guests overnight. Able to accommodate eight guests above deck comfortably, the craft’s primary purpose will be ferrying guests ashore, which designers predict it’ll be able to do at 40 knots. A retractable canvas top will keep guests and crew dry in the event of spray-inducing chop or an afternoon storm.

The Thorium is an electric-powered motorcycle whose color scheme matches the other craft, but the machine is in a class all its own. Its designers predict an hour of charging will provide a range of 171 miles and a top speed of 102 mph. For more “quiet” days ashore, the Scionne sports car will get you from point A to point B at speeds of more than 145 mph, and its Lotus Elise chassis should ensure a smooth and comfortable ride.

They say money can’t buy happiness, but then again, they have probably never seen the Zeus Twelve series.

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