According to the RYA, there are two other crucial Fs that apparently need their own article as the mantra of today is that 'Foiling is the Future' (of sailing). There is plenty of evidence to support their assertion, as foiling dinghies are increasingly apparent and even the most grounded of observers can hardly fail to see how many foilers, of various shapes and sizes, were on display at the Dinghy Show. Like the RYA, the media love foilers to the point that the number of pictures they feature in are quite disproportionate when considering the number of boats involved.It helps of course that foiling is highly fotogenic (another F there if you spell it like that), but at the same time there are signs that just as with the skiff revolution of the 1990s, that foiling may already be reaching something of a plateau. So much of the regular dinghy sailing that goes on, both in the UK and elsewhere takes place at locations that are simply not 'foiling friendly'. It now seems likely that foiling will continue along its current trajectory as part of the move towards high-tech, high value and high performance elite end of the sport. Yet those doomsayers who hold the view that foiling is little more than the latest fad, are missing the fact that foiling has actually been around as long as conventional racing dinghies. The understanding of foiling and the practical experiments that have seen boats starting to fly have come courtesy of some amazing innovators who are very much the equal of those who drove the development of conventional dinghies.

If we go back in time by more than 150 years, the principles of hull performance were still in their infancy, with some of the great technical minds of the day, such as William Froude, exploring the relationship that exists between a ship's hull and the water it floats in. As sail gave way to steam, with engines that became ever more powerful, there would be the need to develop many of the rules covering wave making and skin friction that are still in use today.