Foiling information for pilots

Hydrofoil status light: pilot's guide

The boat has no screen. Everything the foil controller needs to tell you comes through two things:

• the status light (one bright RGB lamp) — tells you the state, all the time
• the beeper in the throttle unit — sounds only when you need to do something

You do not need to know how the controller works to use this guide. Read the light, listen for the beeps, act on the table.

The one thing to remember

SOLID RED = CUT THE THROTTLE

Ease the throttle right off and let the boat settle down off the foils.
Do it first, ask why afterwards. The boat will not do this for you.

The controller never takes the throttle away and never snaps the foils to neutral at speed — that would be its own hazard. You are the safety system. The light and the beeper are how it asks you to act.

How to read the light

The light says two separate things at once:

Signal	What it tells you
The colour	How healthy the system is — always live, whether or not the enable switch is on.
Steady or blinking	Blinking = not flying the foils (standby or refusing). Steady = flying the foils now.

So the colour tells you what you'll get before you flip the switch. Red is deliberately much brighter than green and yellow, so it reads in daylight: green and yellow mean "nothing to do", red means "act".

The states

Light	Meaning	What you do
Blinking green	Everything healthy, standby.	Flip the enable switch when you're ready to foil.
Steady green	Foiling under full control.	Nothing. This is normal running.
Blinking yellow	Standby, but not fully ready yet.	Wait. Normal for roughly the first half-minute after power-up. If it stays yellow, see Yellow below.
Steady yellow	Foiling, but running degraded — a backup has been lost.	You can keep going, but you have no spare. Stay conservative, come off the foils sooner rather than later, and get it looked at before the next run.
Blinking red + counted beeps	It is refusing to engage. Flipping the switch will do nothing.	Count the beeps and use the refusal table.
Blinking red, no beeps	Not ready. Normally just starting up — the attitude estimate isn't running yet.	Normal for the first half-minute after power-up; wait. If it stays red, flip the enable switch: if it's a real fault it will start beeping a code you can count. (Safe to try — a refusal leaves the foils neutral.)
Steady red + long repeated blast	ALARM. Something failed while you were foiling.	CUT THE THROTTLE. Come off the foils. Don't re-engage until it's been checked.
Steady red, no beeps	The controller has lost the connection to the throttle unit and rear foil. It cannot beep at you — that's why the light alone has to say it.	CUT THE THROTTLE. Come off the foils. Do not foil again until it's fixed.

Refusing to engage: count the beeps

Blinking red with a repeating group of short, low beeps. The number of beeps in the group is the fault code. The group repeats after about a second and a half of silence, so you get as many chances to count as you need.

Beeps	What's wrong	What you do
2	Its own settings were changed and haven't taken effect yet.	Power the autopilot off and on, wait for the light, try again. If it comes back, don't foil.
3	Its height reference isn't set up correctly, so it cannot trust the ride-height reading.	Do not foil. Needs a technician — this is a configuration fault, not something to work around.
4	It cannot trust the enable switch itself.	Do not foil. Needs a technician. Note this code sounds even with the switch off — there is no trustworthy switch reading to keep quiet about.
5	The autopilot's motion sensors disagree with each other. This is a fault, not a warm-up — waves and wake do not cause it.	Do not foil. Power off and on once to rule out a one-off. If it comes back, needs a technician.

A refusal is always safe: the foils go neutral and stay there. Nothing is happening behind your back.

The alarm: steady red, long blast

A long, high, loud beep, about a second of tone every three seconds — clearly different from the short low counting beeps. You'll also hear the autopilot's own buzzer.

There is only one alarm. Whatever caused it, your action is the same, so the controller does not make you tell alarms apart at speed:

CUT THE THROTTLE. COME OFF THE FOILS.

Causes are things like the boat losing its sense of attitude, a motion-sensor fault, the autopilot dropping out of its stabilised mode, or both height sensors going quiet. The foils keep working on the last good information while it alarms — they are not thrown to neutral, because that would be worse at speed. But it is telling you the information it is flying on is no longer trustworthy, so get off the foils.

The alarm stops on its own the moment the fault clears, and the light goes back to green or yellow. A self-clearing alarm is still a real event — it happened. Come in and have the log read before the next run.

Yellow: what it means

Yellow is "working, but not perfect." Common and harmless reasons:

• Just powered up. The height estimate takes roughly 20 seconds to become usable. Yellow then green is the normal start-up sequence.
• One height sensor quiet. Two are fitted; either one alone is enough to fly on. Yellow is telling you the spare is gone.
• Roll-test mode selected. In this test mode the light never goes green — that's by design, not a fault. If you didn't intend to be in a test mode, get it switched back.
• An internal health check not passing.

Yellow while standby (blinking): wait, or find out why before you launch.

Yellow while foiling (steady): finish up conservatively; don't start a new run on yellow.

Normal start-up, in order

1. Power on. Light comes up red or yellow, blinking — this is expected.
2. Wait. Nothing is required of you. The attitude and height estimates come up over roughly the first 20–30 seconds. You do not need to hold the boat still, and chop, wake or being under way do not affect this.
3. Light settles to blinking yellow, then blinking green after around 20 seconds.
4. Blinking green = ready. Flip the enable switch.
5. Light goes steady green. You're foiling under control.

If step 3 never reaches green, do not launch — read the light and the beeps from the tables above.

If the light itself looks wrong

The light is refreshed constantly while the controller is alive, and it always either blinks (standby) or sits steady (engaged).

Do not foil if:

• the light is completely dark, or
• the light is frozen — it never blinks and never changes colour when you flip the enable switch.

Either means the controller isn't running or the lamp is broken. With no controller you have no ride-height control and no warnings of any kind — nothing will tell you when something goes wrong. Get it checked.

Pre-launch check: 20 seconds

1. Light is alive and blinking (not dark, not frozen).
2. Flip the enable switch off and on and confirm the light changes between blinking and steady. That proves the switch is being heard.
3. Launch only on green.
4. Know before you leave the dock: solid red means cut the throttle.