Nacra 17 MKII: Ultimate Racing Foiler?

Photo: Laurens Morel saltycolours.com – courtesy Linda Bomhof  / Magic Marine. –
Great pic by Laurens of the Olympic Nacra 17 Champs 2016, Argies Santi  Lange & Ceci Carranza. Nacra is currently putting the MKII for Olympic sailors to test it. You’ve seen videos from Bora Gulari, also Arg Majdalani & Bosco and plenty others.

Foiling gybes by Bora, smooth first rides for the Arg youths and some impressive foiling spi hoist clip are hard proof of how good the new 17 MKII is doing.
Additionally I got feedback from Fer van West (Morrelli & Melvin / Nacra) and they are pretty happy with performance and feedback. Some friends in Ned report seeing live how the MKII foils upwind like nothing in 6-7knots.

Concerns till now is how the platform will perform in wavy locations, foiling will not be as smooth surely but it will another process for the crews to learn as they did with the semi foiling downwind mode of the MKI.
The A-Class Zs can handle chop pretty good, and in any case you can set up a skimming mode,  and we aer seeing the new 17 is providing easy stable flight out of the box, an asset still pending for the As. (always speaking here of racing Cats, recreational wand foilers are another complete category) The ideal trim for the updated olympic cat version will be found by the fleet after they start receiving and racing the MKIIs by June/July 2017.

Santi Lange reports “We had a great and very interesting week in the Netherlands, and we’ve learnt plenty. The MKII is quite sensitive and demands great coordination and anticipation. It will be a great challenge to sail it at Olympic level.
The actual regattas will be held with every type of waves and chop, so the question will be how we’ll be able to handle the boat in those conditions”

For the actual deliveries we hope Nacra being able to fullfil the new announced build quality, for a start foils are being made by Holland Composites. Platforms this time around will need to support much higher loads than the MKI, and we’ll see the olympic fleet pushing the limits of the new platform. Great times ahead.

There is another Morelli & Melvin foiling project out there is still in test & development stage , its called the “Super Foiler” and well known by now, but for the moment the Nacra 17 MKII is taking the honors for top flying performance. Chances are the MKII might beat the F20FCS/FP Elite around the course. Situation still to be proven , but if it becomes a reality then the MKII will surely deserve to be called the “Ultimate Racing Foiler”.
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