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Sunfish Boat Specifications

The sailplan requires just 2 lines to control and the boat can be set up in less than 5 minutes. The patented kick-up rudder system allows full beach landings with no problems. The hard-chined hull and low sail plan provide unmatched stability and a forgiving feel. The Sunfish hull is light enough to throw on top of your car with ease, and the bulletproof Laser Performance construction ensures that your Sunfish will provide years of virtually maintenance free enjoyment. The Sunfish combines performance, stability and durability in a package that appeals to beginners and experts alike.

If it's racing you crave, the international sunfish class has a full time staff that sanctions more than 1000 events each year. add the hundreds of local and regional events to that list and you can stay pretty busy racing your sunfish. the class will keep you posted with its quarterly magazine "windward leg" and provide valuable preformance tips. the elegant simplicity, performance, and intelligent economy of the sunfish is unmatched. the sunfish enjoys fantastic resale value. old or young, tall or short, expert or beginner, the sunfish will provide you with years of fun and write your ticket to the wet world of wind. you will find sunfish in resorts around the world and in your own backyard. when you are ready for hassle-free fun in the sun give us a call to learn more about today's sunfish., highlights: convenient storage in the back of cockpit which is perfect for extra gear or a cooler. patented kick-up rudder makes beach launches, landings, and shallow-water sailing effortless. self-bailing cockpit hydrodynamic daggerboard maximizes upwind performance. lateen rigged sail:  automatically depowers when hit by a gust of wind  two sides of the sail are supported which ensures durability  easy to rig and derig mainsheet is the only control line that you need to use to enjoy the simple pleasures of sailing a sunfish. simple main halyard is one of the two lines on the sunfish, it hoists and lowers the sail in a matter of seconds, enabling spontaneous enjoyment of the water stainless steel bow handle: facilitates carrying, docking, and holding the boat into the wind while launching or loading molded in keel is designed to take the abuse of repeated beach landings.

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Electric Candela hydrofoil boat sets world record by crossing Baltic Sea

• September 16, 2024
• 2 minute read
• Joshua S. Hill

An all-electric hydrofoiling boat from Swedish company Candela has set two new world records by travelling between Stockholm and the Finnish autonomous region of Åland, marking the first time an electric boat has crossed the Baltic Sea.

Candela, which has developed a range of electric hydrofoil boats and ships, wanted to demonstrate that “that zero-emission sea travel is not only possible today, but that foiling electric ships and boats are so much cheaper to operate than fossil-fuelled vessels.”

The record-breaking journey was undertaken in the Candela C-8, a €330,000 ($A544,500) leisure craft, equipped with a battery from technology partner Polestar.

The journey covered 150 nautical miles from the port of Frihamn in Stockholm, Sweden, to Mariehamn, the capital and largest town of the Åland Islands, an autonomous region of Finland, with a charging stop in Kapellskär.

While charging along the trip was made mostly with existing charging infrastructure, a 40kW Kempower Movable Charger was needed in Kapellskär.

Leaving from Frihamn at 6am, the Candela C-8 made it to Mariehamn by lunchtime, and returned to Frihamn the same day.

YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hFoRF_Q0CA

“The disadvantage of electric boats has been their short range, due to traditional boat hulls consuming so much energy,” said Gustav Hasselskog , the company’s CEO and founder.

“With our hydrofoil technology, we combine high speed and range, but you get so many other benefits. Flying over the Åland Sea in total silence and without slamming was absolutely magical.”

A gasoline-powered chase boat of similar size accompanied the Candela C-8 on the journey and had to be refuelled for a cost of €750, or around $A1,230. For comparison, the Candela C-8 consumed 213 kWh of electricity, at a cost of about €40-50 (around $A66-83).

“We actually had range anxiety, but not for the Candela,” said Gustav Hasselskog.

“The irony is that the photographer’s gasoline-powered chase boat had to refuel six times during the trip, while we only charged three times.

“We’re talking about 95% lower operating costs,” concluded Hasselskog. “This is a revolution that makes waterborne transöport competitive with land transport in terms of costs, which we will now demonstrate in public transport in Stockholm.”

Joshua S. Hill is a Melbourne-based journalist who has been writing about climate change, clean technology, and electric vehicles for over 15 years. He has been reporting on electric vehicles and clean technologies for Renew Economy and The Driven since 2012. His preferred mode of transport is his feet.

We are definitely in an age of disruption, as much as the bashers, critics and cynics like to deny it. Amazing, 1/25th the cost of their ICE partner boat! And quieter, cleaner and calmer too boot!

Google informs me a litre of diesel is € 1.668, so that trip would have used ~450 litres of diesel, or 4,500 kWh. That’s shockingly inefficient.

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What's up guys, new to the forum. I'm 30 I live in Florida. And just picked up a sunfish sail boat with a custom built transom.... I've read a lot of reviews on them about the non planning hull and being unstable. I tried it out today.. only had a propane 2.5hp. Surprisingly it was extremely stable.. I'm 6'2 250lbs, so I'm not a little guy. I have a center console that I'm goin to install on it. I'll be posting pics of the build. Looking at a 9hp motor, going to test it out and see what best matches the boat.  

Nothing wrong with that!  

I'm impressed. There are a couple of old Dolphin Sr. hulls around here, along with plenty of Sunfish hulls, too. The past discussions that I've seen on the topic all led me to believe that the "planing" was never fulfilled. I owned a Dolphin once and it would plane fine when sailed, but only when the hull was canted to one side or the other. Of course, for a small sailboat, that was ideal. A fishing boat would have to plane best when pointed straight ahead. Please keep us posted as to your future results.  

Andrew Pienovi said: Im brand new here today from Portland Oregon and have been looking at these Sunfish hulls for awhile. I just found one in pretty good shape with no glass dents or dings for $40 on craigslist. I added a couple inspection ports to see the inside and attached a swim platform transom. I had read on a number of posts on here and everybody said it doesn't work. But I've see a ton of info on duckboats being converted from sunfish. I just tried it today and it worked great. I have a 4 stroke Suzuki 6hp on it. Now that I know it works, i'm going to customize it. I'll update when its finished. View attachment 95292 Click to expand...

Looks good! Keep sharing the progress.  

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Why are killer whale attacks on the rise? These scientists set sail to find out

ABOARD A BOAT IN THE STRAIT OF GIBRALTAR — From the surface, the azure waters seem calm and inviting in this narrow patch where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Mediterranean Sea .

Spain’s arid coast looms in one direction; the tip of Africa in another, less than 10 miles away. From time to time, schools of small fish breach the water in unison, as if in symphony.

But with binoculars trained on the horizon, the boat’s captain is on the lookout for something potentially far more unsettling: orcas, also known as killer whales, who in recent years have taken to slamming boats with alarming regularity.

Over the last five years, roughly 700 orca run-ins have been recorded, according to the Atlantic Orca Working Group-GTOA, a partnership of Spanish and Portuguese scientists that monitors the Iberian killer whale population. At least a half-dozen yachts, fishing vessels and sailboats have sunk.

For the Spanish fisherman who take to the Strait of Gibraltar nightly hunting for tuna, marlin and swordfish, the likelihood of an orca run-in has added another harrowing element to an already dangerous job.

“Of course they can sink you,” fisherman Manuel Merianda told NBC News earlier this month as he plucked out errant stingrays trapped in his fishing net after harvesting the night’s catch. “They break your rudder and water and waves begin to enter your boat, and once the water enters there is nothing you can do.”

On one of his recent fishing trips, Merianda’s boat was followed by a pod of orcas, an experience he described as terrifying. Yet when asked if that risk made orcas his enemy, Merianda shook his head.

“We are the ones who are in their habitat,” he said in Spanish. “We are the ones who don’t have to be there.”

The encounters have nonetheless become so frequent that Spanish authorities have issued an alert, urging sailors to stay close to the coastline, where the orcas don’t tend to stray, especially during the summer months.

Often the creatures will ram into the rudders, potentially rendering the vessels inoperable, or even bite off pieces of the boats.

Why Iberian orcas are attacking ships in the Strait of Gibraltar, one of the world’s busiest waterways, has quickly become one of the terrifying mysteries of the sea. The highly intelligent animals are known to be generally peaceful, especially toward humans, and before 2020, such interactions were basically unheard-of.

Not everyone believes these events, while harrowing and dangerous, constitute “attacks” in the literal sense of the word.

“Attacking implies something aggressive towards humans,” said Janek Andre, whose organization WeWhale tries to protect orcas. “These orcas are simply playing. So in the end, we call it — and everybody should call it — an interaction.”

Nearly every day during summer months, Andre and his teammates board a small boat on the Spanish coast and sail into the strait to track the movement of the orcas. When they spot them, they radio their location to sailors in the area, encouraging them to stay away.

Marine biologists have a host of competing theories for what the orcas are doing, from the “play” theory championed by Andre to the notion the orcas are retaliating, either for damage that boats have done to orcas in the past or for human-caused pollution of the waters they rely on.

One theory holds that it may just be a fad — that the orcas, like popularity-chasing teenagers, have simply picked up a curious learned behavior that for whatever reason has become the trend of the moment.

But new research offers a competing theory that’s gained traction among those who study the orcas’ habitat.

Scientists from the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute, based on Spain’s northwest coast, have pointed out that in recent years, the once-dwindling population of Atlantic bluefin tuna has recovered, in the process becoming the linchpin of the orcas’ diet. Atlantic bluefin tuna are tough prey: They swim faster than orcas and grow up to 13 feet long.

In a paper published this month in the scientific journal Ocean and Coastal Management, the scientists argue that what humans see as attacks are actually older orcas training the younger ones on hunting methods needed to successfully overcome their prey.

“They need to ram, they need to hit, they need to bite, to isolate this large tuna. And then this has to be in cooperation,” Bruno Diaz Lopez, the institute’s founder and chief biologist, said in an interview. “So how do they reinforce this technique? Practicing.”

Orcas, or “killer whales,” can grow up to 27 feet long and weigh as much as six tons. Known as the ocean’s top predator, they’re extremely intelligent, with their own languages of clicks and whistles that differ from region to region.

The subspecies striking boats is called the Iberian orca, and its future is anything but certain. The creatures are on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s “Red List” of critically endangered species. Only about 35 of them are still believed to be alive, and their reproductive rates have become alarmingly low.

Faced with the need to share the waters with gigantic mammals, sailors in the strait have tried various ways to deter orcas when they show up. Some make noise to try to scare them away, throw sand in the water, or push their motors to full speed and try to leave the area. Others advocate turning off the engine, keeping silent and playing dead.

As he plotted a course through rippling waters back toward the coast of Spain, Andre, the WeWhale founder, said he believed humans would never know with certainty why so many orca interactions are taking place.

“We are not orcas. So you can do a lot of science and studies,” Andre said. “But in the end, it’s such an unknown world for us, what’s happening below the water and how these animals actually interact.”

Josh Lederman is an NBC News correspondent.

Michael Fiorentino is an associate producer at NBC News Engel Unit based in London.