No catamaran builder on the planet has put more boats on foils.
Since 2018, Aquila Power Catamarans has fitted its Hydro Glide® foil system to more production boats than any other builder in the world, and a new video filmed at the Sino Eagle shipyard in China, where every Aquila is built, sets out exactly why. It's a story that begins with a single, quietly radical idea: a fixed carbon fibre wing, spanning the space between two hulls, doing a job no moving part could do as cleanly.
The foil started life as an option on the 36 Sport, back when it was a $30,000-plus upgrade for owners chasing an edge in range and fuel burn. It has since become the standard fit-out on the 42 and 46 Coupe, is available across the 42, 46 and 50 Yacht range, and Aquila now builds its 70 Luxury flagship foil-capable from the outset. It's the rare piece of marine technology that has climbed a builder's model range rather than trickled down from it.
The engineering behind that climb traces back to Morrelli & Melvin, the California design studio holding two multihull America's Cup design credits and previous work with Emirates Team New Zealand, who spent years shaping and reshaping the foil for each hull it sits under. Aquila's Chief Designer Jure Zule puts the physics simply in the video: "What we achieve with the foil is reduced resistance, improved efficiency and improved comfort of ride." A yacht-sized foil is broad and rounded, built to lift serious tonnage the way a cargo plane's wing lifts freight. A Sport or Coupe foil is slimmer, built for a lighter hull already running faster.
"When we started developing the Coupe series, we knew we wanted to include foils as an option for owners," says Jean Raas, Aquila USA's Chief Product Officer and Chief Executive Officer. "Once we realised how much our foils improve fuel efficiency and ride comfort, upwards of 35 percent improved fuel efficiency on the 36 Sport, we decided to make them standard on the Coupes." It's a rare admission from a builder that an option was so good it made itself obsolete.
Independent testing backs the claim up. According to BoatTest, a foil-equipped 36 Sport ran 16 percent faster at full throttle than an identical boat without one, and 37 percent faster at 4500 rpm. Yachting Magazine's reviewers described crossing chop in a 46 Coupe as feeling "akin to a magic carpet ride." Boating Magazine, reviewing the original 36 Sport, likened the fuel savings from the foil to bolting on an extra 200 horsepower without the extra weight or thirst.
None of it requires a computer. The dihedral shape stabilises itself, no active control, no moving parts, and Aquila's own engineering notes describe the system delivering a 25-to-1 lift-to-drag ratio against a conventional hull's 4-to-1. Whether that appeals depends on how you boat. Aquila's own guidance is blunt about it: cruise at higher speeds and cover real distance, and the foil pays for itself. Potter around at low revs close to shore, and the standard hull is all most owners will ever need.
For New Zealand buyers, the range sits with Whitehaven Marine, Aquila's official Australia and New Zealand dealer, though which specific foil configurations are held locally is worth confirming directly with the dealer rather than assumed from the wider lineup. Two of the foil-equipped models, the 46 Yacht and 42 Coupe, picked up design awards on this side of the world earlier this year, foils cited among the reasons why.
What's harder to ignore is the pattern underneath it all: a piece of technology that began as the kind of expensive extra most owners politely declined has, inside less than a decade, become the thing an entire boatbuilder now measures itself by.
