The magic of the moment
How French startup SEAir made flying boats a reality
By Jenn Schlegel
For years, foiling has been associated with competitive sailing boats like the America’s Cup or IMOCA series, or those stealth-speed Ultim trimarans. Today, thanks to SEAir, this experience is now readily available for recreational and professional motorboat enthusiasts as well. A French startup founded in 2016, SEAir is located in Lorient, France, a seaside town along the rugged coastline of southern Brittany. The area, popular with sailors and marine-industry insiders alike, puts SEAir smack bang in the middle of the French nautical scene, but CEO and co-founder Richard Forest will be the first to tell you that SEAir is certainly not only just about hydrofoils.
“A hydrofoil is a very old concept. The main idea with a hydrofoil is to lift the boat and reduce the drag so it ‘flies’ over the water. Foils are well known for sailing boats. However, I had the feeling that for motorboats, they could be the answer to several problems, such as passenger comfort, improved speed and, of course, fuel savings,” explains Richard Forest, co-founder and CEO SEAir.
Building upon this concept of hydrofoils and motorboats, SEAir developed the Flying Tender 80, an 8-meter, rigid-hulled inflatable boat equipped with retractable hydrofoils and an electric stabilization system. Their pioneering design enabled the vessel to lift off at 16 knots, significantly reducing the impact of rough seas and increasing speeds by a stellar 20-30% compared to traditional semi-rigid inflatables. And, using hydrofoil technology saves fuel for a greener, more energy-efficient boating experience.
Today, SEAir's Flying Tenders can be found all around the world, from the sunny south of France to the far-flung shores of Australia. Not just for fun, their versatility covers all kinds of on-water applications ranging from passenger transportation and crew transfers to watersports support.
And thanks to its growing popularity, SEAir recently decided to expand into the commercial luxury market with the 40ft Flying Chase Boat, featuring premium materials and bespoke French interior finishing. The 40ft Flying Chase Boat, the next generation of SEAir innovation, is clearly the perfect accessory for both superyacht and day boat enthusiasts.
Serious about marine engineering
Glamorous lifestyles aside, the people behind SEAir are serious about marine engineering and innovation. The team is constantly working on new designs and concepts besides the SEAir Flying Tender 80 and the 40ft Flying Chase Boat.
Beyond the recreational markets, the company has taken its design and naval architecture excellence and applied it to more utilitarian vessels including a 20-meter stealth flyer for the European Defence Agency (EDA) and a foiling catamaran crew transfer vessel (CTV) aimed at the offshore wind-power industry.
“Our business model is very focused on engineering. This includes the hydrodynamic and structural design, the definition of systems for retractability, durability and quality,” explains Forest.
The team at SEAir knew that using simulation would be a game-changer. Thanks to advancements in computing power and simulation capabilities, a major core of traditional naval architecture has transferred to the digital twin, including interlinked design, component development, systems simulation, and sizing for full vessel integration.
“The innovation is not the foil itself but leveraging the simulation tools. For example, with SEAir’s process, we simulate the boats on the computer, then we take a physical prototype to the sea, and it works the first time,” says Forest.
Even if Richard Forest makes going from the blank page to the digital twin to a real-performance SEAir flying boat sound like a breeze, he is quick to credit Siemens Xcelerator solutions and Siemens Digital Industries Software partners: JANUS Engineering and SIGMEO.
A catalyst for change
Several years ago, SEAir was asked to develop a flying boat prototype for the French Ministry of Defense and the French Special Forces. The original 8-meter design was expanded to a 20-meter flying boat and successfully submitted and accepted as a viable project by the European Defence Agency.
“When the project was selected by Europe, well then, we had a good problem,” quips Forest.
But, European project posed its own challenges. The SEAir team had to adapt its working process towards a more international mindset capable of working with other project partners including Spanish, Danish and French companies. Forest realized they needed a better simulation software solution. As a startup, they had a wild mix of engineering tools, including some small software programs, self-programmed tools, and custom-made spreadsheets.
“It was very important for us to have a more professional product. We’d make some modifications in one tool and then we’d transfer it to another tool, and it didn't work. It was the wrong solution. And we would start again.” Forest adds, “We needed to spend less time on the futile activities and focus on our business. We can be more focused on our business if we have efficient software design tools.”
Next-level collaboration with NX
One of the first tools from the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio that came onboard at SEAir was NX, a CAD solution used by many naval architects. With over 20 years of experience focusing on hull design and system integration, Nicolas Philippe was one of the first SEAir team members to see the immediate advantages.
“As we worked with European partners on the 20-meter boat, we had to exchange a lot of information with them. Today, NX is very convenient and important for us because we integrate all the system information in the digital twin. This means we are able to speed up the process of designing a vessel,” states Nicolas Philippe, Naval architect Research and Design (R&D), SEAir.
Handling hydrodynamics with Simcenter
Hull design and system integration are vital elements of any marine project. Ask any naval architect or marine engineering expert and they will say that the interaction with the water and the wind are just as important – if not more – to overall design performance and final on-water success. This is certainly the case when it comes to foils and motorboats and something that SEAir took into consideration from the first days of concept design.
“A foiler is basically like an airplane. There is a lot of interaction with the water as well as the air. The boat has to have the right balance all the time -- on calm seas, on waves and during extreme weather. You have to be really precise with your foil design and all the system controls,” explains Amaury Grisard, Naval architect at SEAir.
Grisard tends to design 5 or 6 foiling boats a year and knows first-hand the pain points of the process. To start, he quickly sketches a first idea, moves it to NX and then test his design idea for feasibility in Simcenter™ STAR-CCM+™ software, a multiphysics computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software from the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio.
“The Simcenter STAR-CCM+ process is really easy. It's like a tree. You just select the correct branch of the tree and follow it. At the end, you’ll have all your setup done and it’s fast,” explains Grisard.
After that first test in Simcenter software to see whether the new foil design performs well or not, it’s a conversation between the Simcenter engineers and the NX systems teams. In SEAir’s engineering offices above the wharf-style workshop in Lorient, the Simcenter and NX teams easily collaborate, going back and forth seamlessly adjusting the overall system design and performance of each simulated component.
“Typically, we’ll test the hull and the foils in Simcenter and examine the interaction between both. With these results, you can easily see where the problems are and where you need to change your design in NX. From there, it is really simple: you just import it and it works,” Grisard adds.
For the moment, it is smooth sailing, but Grisard points out that there is much more than just the software, when it comes to foil design, it is the entire Siemens Xcelerator ecosystem that results in advanced engineering success.
He adds, “On the last boat we did, we tested four different hull options. We go into the design quite deeply and definitely advance our foil design thanks to the Siemens Xcelerator tools. But what was also important was the training we received from the Siemens partners and the online Siemens Xcelerator Academy and forums.”
“Before, we spent a lot of time with all the different tools and phases. We don't have this with the Siemens tools because it's a fully linear application,” adds Forest. “I think we win at least 20-25% of time using this fully integrated software.”
Kudos to the local Siemens partners
Cutting development time by 25% is an impressive feat for a small company that was relatively new to digital processes. Richard Forest is quick to agree with Amaury Grisard and credit the local Siemens partners for their expertise and assistance.
Forest explains, “We work a lot with two Siemens partners, JANUS Engineering and SIGMEO. Siemens has amazing software, but there are so many possibilities that actually I think we know only 40% of the software’s capacity.”
JANUS Engineering, based out of St. Malo, France, specializes in cutting-edge digital manufacturing NX applications from CAD to computer-aided manufacturing or CAM. SIGMEO focuses on advanced Simcenter applications including Simcenter™ Femap™, Simcenter™ NASTRAN™, Simcenter™ STAR-CCM+™ and Simcenter™ 3D™. The two partners work closely together with the engineers at SEAir to make the most advanced digital twin applications a reality.
“Siemens Xcelerator is very interesting for companies such as SEAir because they can access many applications easily. That permits them to develop new products with all those applications. There is no limit. They have access to the training platform as well,” explains Emmanuel Hiard, NX expert, JANUS Engineering.
Especially when it comes to CFD accuracy and streamlining the digital twin, SIGMEO expert Jean Guy Clemenceau was on-hand to explain the inner secrets of Simcenter as well as adapt and scale best practices from the aerospace industry for SEAir.
Additionally, they introduced SEAir to the Siemens startup program. The Siemens startup program is aimed at small or medium-sized companies that are less than five years old. The dedicated program gives qualified startups access to state-of-the-art Siemens Xcelerator technology and options for SaaS or software-as-a-service with preferential financial terms.
“SIGMEO has been a Siemens partner for almost 20 years,” explains Simcenter expert Jean Guy Clemenceau, SIGMEO. “Numerical simulation software is evolving very fast in very competitive sectors. So it's important for the customer to have a partner which can bring all this technology together. It provides a wealth of technology for the customers.”
Depending on the Siemens software, SEAir turns to Janus Engineering or SIGMEO for support and continuous improvement as they face their next big challenge turning their stealth flyer into an autonomous vessel.
“We have very good relationships with both companies. It’s important to have the same spirit. They are small, local companies, like us. They are experts in their domain so when we have a question, it's very easy to have a call with them for technical support or training,” explains Forest. “We also use the Siemens Xcelerator Academy as an online training. We really appreciate the support of a global firm – whether from Siemens directly or a smaller partner. It works very well.”
Click here for more information on Simcenter STAR CCM+
A fun fact about foilers…
Q: What does the telephone have in common with a foiler? A: Alexander Graham Bell
Here’s a fun fact about foilers: Did you know that Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone in 1876, also worked on the first foilers?
Even though one of the earliest traces of a working foiler is credited to Thomas Moy, an English engineer who installed foils on a boat in the Surrey Canal in 1861 to study aerodynamics for airplane wings and, as a fluke, actually invented the foil (He noted that when the vessel was towed, it lifted “quite out of the water”.)
A while later, another pioneer William Meacham described his own foiler experiments in a March 1906 edition of the Scientific American magazine. And that same year, Enrico Forlanini was seen racing his hydrofoil craft across scenic Lake Maggiore in Italy.
And Alexander Graham Bell? Seems he read the article and decided to try it out for himself. By 1906, Bell was using floats on some tetrahedral kite experiments for trials over water at Beinn Bhreagh, his summer estate in Nova Scotia, Canada.
No wonder Alexander Graham Bell always insisted that “Ahoy” should be the way to answer those early telephones. Thomas Edison, it turns out, won the contest with “Hello”…But that is another story.