eXploder AD3 is A-Class sailing catamaran – one of the fastest singlehanded sailing boats on the water. The eXploder A-Class cats have been in production since 2013 and in that time won a staggering 6 World Championship titles and 15 Continental titles
Since it’s conception the eXploder platform has been improved over and over again. The focus behind the current boat has been aerodynamics. Optimised hulls and foils / rudders / daggers are constantly being tested and improved.
OPTIMISED
DAGGERBOARDS/RUDDERS
OUTLINES AND PROFILES
Tweaked and tested foils are not only incredibly fast, but also easy to control. This is a race-winning combination. When a customer buys a new boat, it is always provided with the latest, fastest, tested foils / rudders / daggers.
FOCUS ON AERODYNAMICS
Hulls, beams, double-layered trampoline, hull-beam connections – all these parts are optimised for drag reduction. Together with D3 Applied Technologies we’ve ran countless tests and CFD simulations to try to understand where the biggest efficiency gain lies. This is not a hydro story anymore, it’s a flying object! Also the whole package is designed to be very clean and as visually appealing as possible.
EASY ANGLE TRIM
All the foil trimming systems are clean and easy to operate on any course, allowing on the fly trimming, including rudder differential in either displacement of foiling mode.
DURABILITY
All boat elements are designed to be durable, failure-free and easy to operate and manufactured using the latest in material and technology
READY TO SAIL
The eXploder AD3 is provided with all needed systems and even trim markings making initial boat set-up intuitive. To go out on the water, everything what is needed is to put a mast on, insert foils / rudders in their slots, hoist a sail and attach a Cunningham and a mainsheet.
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP PROVEN
In our business the only way to determine performance is through results. The eXploder AD3 has won 6 World and 15 Continental titles in the last 7 years.
DESIGNER / R&D TEAM COMMENT
“The AD3 2020 model is the result of over a decade of learning, testing, failing, succeeding at times, and overall, developing these boats. With the previous platform we made some compromises from a design perspective, enabling us to build test boats over the years with different board and beam locations. It has been a very successful platform, widely used by the majority of the class. However, in the last couple of years we have been considering changing the daggerboard cases, but in order to respect our philosophy, that would require a new platform. So last year we tested a few systems on the 2019 AD3 (carbon traveller car, rudder differential, etc), and prepared the grounds to design a new model in 2020.
You have limited opportunities to design a new platform, and in most projects, new ideas sometimes fade away in the design process as we face boatbuilding realities (materials, tooling, custom hardware, etc). On this model we were given plenty of freedom in terms of shapes and surfacing, and for once this was maintained until the end. The aero-package of an upwind-foiler is one of the main drivers of performance, and this boat is very clean in that aspect.
We took the opportunity to update the foils (Z42) and the rudder elevators. We not only changed the rondure and planform but also the family of foil sections following the most recent design tool developments. As of rudder lift control, we can sail now with a more extreme rudder differential. Righting moment is the horsepower of any boat, so this is a huge performance gain, particularly upwind.
The rest was our typical process of designing a racing boat: countless design iterations, CFD for aero and hydrodynamics, VPP iterations to update polars etc From a hydro point of view, this hull is designed as a foiler, so we ended up reducing the volume, rocker and freeboard of the hulls. Interestingly, we managed to reduce drag at lower speeds (2 hull downwind and non-foiling upwind).
The bar was set as high as it gets with it’s predecessor but we are 100% confident that the AD3 is another step towards the ultimate performance. “