Deep Dive: the hidden story of the ‘foiling trap’

With the breeze only around 14 km/h, the Swiss needed to sail at an extreme 77.1° true wind angle to generate enough apparent wind to remain on the foils. They were travelling quickly, but much of that speed was being spent moving across the racecourse rather than towards the mark.

The consequence can be seen in their velocity made good - how fast a boat is moving towards its destination - towards the windward gate. Explora Swiss managed just 9.36 km/h, the worst of the four finalists. Los Gallos, despite travelling almost 7 km/h slower in a straight line, achieved 11.07 km/h VMG by pointing significantly higher at a 60.3° true wind angle.

And the distance tells the story even more brutally. Explora Swiss sailed 1,957.2 meters on the leg. Los Gallos covered just 1,511.3m. In other words, the fastest boat was effectively taking the scenic route.

Los Gallos accepted the apparent disadvantage of displacement sailing, keeping the hulls in the water and sacrificing raw speed for a much tighter line. By the time the boats reached the top mark, that decision had paid off.

The "foiling trap" is therefore not really about foiling itself. It's about the conditions in which staying on the foils becomes so demanding that the speed advantage is cancelled out by the distance required to maintain it.

The numbers turn the Geneva story upside down

That same paradox appears when the data is expanded across the entire weekend. If more time spent flying and higher average speed were the defining ingredients of success in Geneva, Explora Swiss would have been the team lifting the winners' trophy. Instead, they finished fourth.