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The Birds and the Boats
siimat writes: "Wow, a bat-winged sailboat! Richard Dryden has produced
"a variable geometry mast and sail that can adapt intelligently to changing wind conditions, and fold away conveniently after use without the need to dismantle.
The inspiration has come from the remarkable wings of bats and birds."
Too bad you won't be able to buy one until later this year..."
You completely missed the whole point of the rig. It is not efficiency but it's ability to automatically adjust to the wind conditions.
The reason why sails are not used in commercial watercraft is the fact that handling sails requires much more men than handling a huge diesel engine does.
One of their patent applications suggests that they are attacking this exact problem.
Antti S. Brax - Old school - http://www.iki.fi/asb/
I missed the part on the website where he indicated that he was going after the Little AC.
I disagree that a lack of efficency spells doom for this idea. Let's face it, the Little AC, formula 400, A-class etc etc, are extremely fast and efficient but commercial disasters. Compare them to, say, a Hobie 16. Some people race them, but 90% just want to splash around and anything that makes that easier to do has a chance to succeed, even if it won't appear on very high-performance craft anytime soon.
and the vast monohull community... they're still so in love with wood...
Wood is so repairable. Its fine to use high tech materials, but what happens when they break in a remote part of the world?
You may not sail to the West Indies, but the next owner might, so wood has a higher resale value.
Wooden monohulls have a life well over 60 years with proper maintenance. Glass fibre does not.
I think stainless steel's pretty cool, but in the cold climate of Northern Europe, I'm not sure cool is what you want!
The reason why sails are not used in commercial watercraft is the fact that handling sails requires much more men than handling a huge diesel engine does.
Hmmm... interesting. For some reason I always thought that the reason commercial ships didn't have sails was because commercial ships have hulls that are more suited to cargo placement than speed/seakeeping, requiring much more power to plow the brick of a ship through the water than sails could ever give.
Take, for instance, a tanker, where the block coefficient (the ratio of the displaced volume of the ship's hull to a rectangular block having the dimensions of the ship's length, breadth and draft) approaches 1. That's honestly a brick, and unless you want it to travel at a disgustingly slow speed, you really need more than sails.
Forgive my antagonistic, sarcastic post, but that's crap.
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fear the wrath of the naval architect...