I am curious if it would be possible to have a 2 foot deep mast, front to back and make it get to 5 or 6 inches wide. I think it would be slick if it didn’t affect performance a ton to do this so that a normal board could be used and all electronics could live in the mast.
I am guessing your ability to turn on a dime might be affected, but if you made the mast the proper shape, shouldn’t you be able to have the area inside to house battery and electronics. This could allow companies to bring down the price of the boards as well. If you did an aluminum mast, you would have a perfect ability to cool any electronics just attaching them to the inside of the mast. Curious what everyone thinks.
You could build one like that, but it would be terrible. It would require a monstrous amount of power to overcome the resistance it would pose. Think of it in term of High aspect foils vs normal foils. High aspect are faster, glide better and way less resistant to water flow.
Just the area of that will be larger than the wing area.
Then add the wave drag, which will be horrible for such a short “vessel” and the inabilty of the thing to turn… it will be horrible to ride and probably with higher drag than a planning board…
I feel if it is shaped properly the drag wouldn’t be a huge issue. It would not be a block, but have a point on the front and the back. A wave hitting it from the side could be rough, but once you are up foiling not a ton of it will be under water.
Dont design something based on your feelings, especially when there are tools that can give you a good estimation on the properties of your idea.
You cannot escape wave generating drag. You can read about it in the wiki. In a short vessel moving fast (that is on the surface) the water you displace as you move forward generates waves. These waves are liters and liters of water that move every second thanks to the energy you provided, so it will be expensive.
Alternatively you can fully submerge your electronics and battery, far from the water line. This way you only add the drag of the pod (using standard aerodynamic drag, which can be very low if you shape it correctly)
It has been done and reported here in the forum.
Select a symmetric profile and do a comparison between a normal mast profile section and then do one scaled to your design. Choose speed and fluid water. The difference will be huge!