New Phantom Foiling Catamaran: the FP ULTIMATE

Phantom International is pleased to introduce its latest foiling catamaran: the Flying Phantom ULTIMATE, designed to be furthermore efficient on every point of sail, with upwind VMG up to 15% higher than foiling cat benchmark. For high performance addicts!

Stability for maximum performances

« It’s not about pure speed, but about efficiency and stability », explains Phantom founder and CEO Alex Udin. « There is no point building a boat that can beat speed records on straight line because reaching 35+ knots trapezing on a 18ft catamaran is clearly too frightening. What we wanted is a foiling cat that can fly and perform well on every point of sail. The design brief was clear: 100% foiling upwind with enhanced performance and stability and better foiling gybes. It is something that has never been achieved before on this type of boats »

The Flying Phantom ULTIMATE is the result of Phantom International unrivaled experience in foiling beach catamarans combined with the benefits from the last AC50 developments in Bermuda during the America’s Cup.

« To design the FP ULTIMATE, Phantom has worked closely with some of the best experts in the yachting industry, including Gonzalo Redondo (A-Class design expert), Benjamin Muyl  (head of America’s Cup Land Rover Bar Design Team), and famous French sailor Franck Cammas », adds Alex Udin.

FP ULTIMATE key features

The hulls are lighter and have less windage because the freeboard is lower. They have less drag at low speed which improves take off.

The daggerboards / foils reach outboard to increase righting moment which improves upwind foiling.  The straight shaft and long tip result in better heave stability and the aspect ratio of the tip is higher, increasing the efficiency.

The rudders have been optimized to improve the stiffness for better handling and control.

The shape of the rudder elevators is also more efficient, with wing tips to reduce induced drag and smooth shaft / elevator junction to reduce pressure drag. 

Now that the foils are more efficient we managed to increase the elevator area for the same overall drag, which results in better stability on every point of sail and in the manoeuvres and especially the foiling gybes.