Hydrofoil

A hydrofoil is a lifting surface, or foil, that operates underwater much as a wing operates in air, lifting a vessel's hull clear of the water as it gains speed and so reducing drag and allowing higher speeds. Emmanuel Denis Farcot patented an early version in Britain in 1869, fitting wedge-shaped planes to a vessel's sides to lift it and reduce its draft, and the inventor Enrico Forlanini began his own hydrofoil work in 1898, developing a ladder-style foil system and patenting it in Britain and the United States. Alexander Graham Bell began hydrofoil experiments in 1908 that led to the HD-4, which set a world marine speed record of 114 kilometers per hour on September 9, 1919, a record that stood for two decades, and the engineer Hanns von Schertel's company Supramar launched the first commercial hydrofoil passenger service, the PT10 Freccia d'Oro, on Lake Maggiore in 1952.