A-Cat. Exploder A15: Z22 Foil Retrofit
Video sent by Hernan Salerno, location: Mar del Plata, inside Port. The good thing about the older Exploder A-Cats is the chance to retrofit without much modifications. The Exploder A15 is a great example. A15 featured in video above has the following equipment:
- A15 Platform unscathed
- Z22 Foils
- Cassette Casting
- 2018 Rudder Blades
- 2019/2020 388mm symmetrical Exploder Winglets
The Z22 Foils enter factory case without issues, original mainfoil for the A15 was the Z5, later Z10 which featured a new section. The final winner mainfoil for Exploder became the ‘Z22’ , Brewin won at Sopot with those.
The rider in video above is an excellent monohull & F18 sailor, Hernan Salerno, he has about 1yr of A-Class sailing and latest mod to his A15 are the 388mm winglets from Exploder. Hernan reports a noticeable change from the 2018 Sopor winglets.
Flight on the video is perfect, yes flat water , but still great performance for 5yrs old platform, more in a Class like the A-Cats. Sail its a recut Landy to DS. A14 platforms cannot take a Z5 / Z10 / Z22 foil, but a work around with orig DNA Z is a nice alternative if you don’t opt for case major mods.
With a friend here in BA we are putting together another A15 like the one on the video, that suffered a land blown out on a storm, the A ended empaled literally on a cat road trailer mast support. Big damage but in front of front stay anchor hardware. It was repaired two years ago but never sailed again or the fix was actually finished.
This week we spend 3 days working on it, we fit a set of Z15 (same underwater shape as Z22) and we also end modifying original wing down rudder blade with a 388mm Expoder winglet. Main difference with A15 on the video are the cassette cases/rudder blades.
The Z15 went down quite smoothly on the original case, a bit of light sanding on the deck insert leading edge and voilá. Check comparison in span vs orig Z5 foil. Massive change indeed aside the foil planshape / concave diagonal etc etc of the newer mainfoil Z15 version.
We launched it yesterday to see if structural repair was holding and also to test new foils & winglets fit. All good on a light onshore breeze. More testing and fine tuning to come, the idea is to achieve a similar flight as video above, handicap will be the longer rudder blades & Cassettes castings but we are confident it will flight pretty well too.
More updates coming weeks
Rules Comments
— These mods withouth changing gudgeons placement + 388mm Winglets are indeed outside 230cm width rule, and we do not recommend to do the same, as if you pitch or trapeze breaks once on the water the winglet tip outside hull width can cut you provoking a serious injury. We are making some proof of concept tests, and for racing of course you will need to comply with IACA Rules.
