Curious about the benefits of installing a pontoon hydrofoil on your boat? First note: We are talking about a foil, or wing that mounts under the tunnel area between your hulls to create lift at your predetermined boat speed and NOT talking about soft plastic or metal lower unit additions mentioned online as “Hydrofoils”. Although a VaraPlate™, Pitch Control Plate will be mounted to your lower unit and comes standard as a pontoon and tritoon hydrofoil kit, we are focusing on the surface/hydrofoil that creates lift to decrease drag and increase the speed of your pontoon and tritoon boat.
In general, water is 780 lbs. denser than air. In theory, a wing of an airplane could lift 780 times more weight size for size if it could fly thru water instead of air! You may ask, “What good is that?”
A boat planning/displacing water in normal mode creates drag. If you can reduce the amount of wetted area of the boat that creates drag, then the boat will generally be faster and more efficient for any given horsepower. Since we add some wetted area by adding a hydrofoil, then the amount of wetted area we add has to be less than the wetted area we remove when lifting the boat out of the water. The greater the difference of foil/wing area added versus the wetted area lost gives a greater speed for a given horsepower/speed.
