Wave Powered Boat to Sail From Hawaii to Japan

CaroKann writes "In the middle of May 2008, Kenichi Horie, an adventurer known for such feats as paddling a pedal powered boat 4,660 miles from Hawaii to Okinawa in 1993, will be sailing a wave powered boat from Honolulu's Hawaii Yacht Club to the Kii Channel in Japan. The boat, a 3-ton catamaran named the Suntory Mermaid II, works by virtue of the fins located at the front of the boat. These fins "generate thrust force by moving up and down like the tails of dolphins and whales and absorbing the energy of the waves." The system can propel the boat no matter which direction the waves come from. Because the wave propulsion system absorbs the energy from the waves, a passenger on the boat will experience a smooth ride. With a top speed of about 5 knots, the journey is expected to take about 2 to 3 months."

Comments

Wave powered boat

[Feef Lovecraft]

If the top speed is 5 knots, a sail would be faster at some points, I must just be missing something...

Re:Wave powered boat

[MMC Monster]

Don't forget:

• Hybrid wave/wind powered options are possible.

Let's do the math

[Ancient_Hacker]

let's try to calculate how man horsepower you can get from this scheme.

• Let's assume they have a 550 pound float at the end of a xx-foot beam.
• And assume there's a three-foot wave going by every five seconds.
• You probably don't wnt to be out in a 3-ton catamaran in much bigger waves that that.
• And assume you have some differential flotation going on so there's three feet of motion between the float and the boat.
• So you have 550 pounds moving 3/5 of a foot per second.
• That's a not very whopping 0.6 horsepower.
• Just about enough to move the float at a knot or two through the water.
• Of course it would be easier to just cut loose the float.

Re:Let's do the math

[MITguy21]

On a really small scale you can "make your own waves" -- see the Pogo Foil. I rode it once, lots of fun. http://www.ocean.washington.edu/people/faculty/parker/pogo_foil.htm

Smuggler's dream

[gregor-e]

I can see modified craft like this becoming automated, slow mules for smugglers. Since there is no need for a sail, they can ride low, leaving almost no visible, radar or sonar signature. Just put a generator and some electronics for navigation, and you've got a virtually undetectable smuggle-bot.

Re:Smuggler's dream

[Calinous]

Sonar signature? Check, as close to nothing as possible (you might still have transients if the moving equipment starts to squeak).
Radar signature? If you make it entirely from plastics (or at least the hull), you could get that
Heat signature? The surface of the boat will heat/cool faster than the surrounding water. But if you put a generator on it, there will probably be a heat signature.

Re:Smuggler's dream

[Anonymous Coward]

Radar signature? If you make it entirely from plastics (or at least the hull), you could get that

Sailboats are already so hard to detect on radar that it's a problem. Most sailboats have radar reflectors installed in order to be seen by bigger vessels. One would think that the aluminum mast would suffice but since it's round it doesn't. The reflectors are ridiculously small compared with the mast but they have numerous sharp edges, which make them visible (my boat is 22 ft with a 33 ft mast but the radar reflector is just 2 ft).

Between Smart And Genius? Orders of Magnitude

[curmudgeon99]

This is just a brilliant idea! The boat is propelled no matter the direction of the waves, and the side effect being that the boat is mostly insulated from the wave motion? How f'n brillian is that! As I have always said, the "difference between Smart and Genius is not just a few iffy percentage points, it's orders of magnitude.

Re:Between Smart And Genius? Orders of Magnitude

[TheRaven64]

It's a shame that kind of thing has never been commercially exploited. At 70 miles per hour, you could get across the Atlantic in two days. Not fast enough for business travel, but I wouldn't mind a relaxing two day sea voyage as an alternative to 7 hours on a plane. Given some bandwidth and a reasonably comfortable cabin I could work en route.

Propulsion for artificial islands

[Phoenix666]

I saw something on the Discovery Channel a long time ago where Ballard proposed artificial islands. Wave-propulsion would be an ideal way to move the beasts around.

Interesting facts about boats and cruisers

[mclearn]

At 3 tons, this boat is very light. A 3 ton boat can be flipped very easily by a rough wave. Coupled with the fact that this is a catamaran, you have a boat that is equally as stable upside down as it is righted. Our boat is 12 tons without food and equipment (we have about 1.5 tons of spare parts and tools alone!) -- 8 tons of this is keel weight. It cannot flip over and stay upside down (unless the keel breaks off).

As for the stmt that says it will absorb the energy of the wave making for a smooth ride: don't believe it. That's like saying your knees can absorb the energy of your uneven surface. If there is more energy than can be absorbed, you will experience a rough time standing up. Same thing applies here. Do you know how much energy is in a wave? Think about the Tsunami on Boxing Day 2005. Think about wave-absorbing power plants. The amplitude of the wave doesn't even matter: it's a combination of amp. and freq. I've been in waves that are 60 feet tall, but they're 500 feet apart. This makes for a smooth, duck-like, enjoyable, infinity view when you crest, and a rather enclosing feel when you trough. :-)

Interesting facts: 5 knots is quite slow, but manageable. A knot is about 1.8 km/hour, so we're talking about 9 km/h which is actually slower than a human can run. Captain Cook sailed around the world at about 2.5 knots. He literally went around at walking speed.

As an aside, you can always tell the difference between the cruiser boat and the bay-sailer simply by the sheer amount of shit attached to every surface. :-) Also, look at the size and number of anchors. If there are two or more anchors: cruiser. If the anchor looks like it should be grounding the USS Enterprise: cruiser.

Does anyone else remember Gausefin?

[jamrock]

I remember reading an article in Popular Mechanics or Popular Science back in the mid to late seventies about an experimental wave-powered boat named "Gausefin". What stuck with me all these years was how cool the craft looked. It was a sleek monohull with a low deckhouse, not a catamaran like Suntory Mermaid II. Imagine the dream-like shape of a sailing yacht, but without the masts or sails. The fins that drove the vessel were flexible, and were the only moving parts of the propulsion system; there were no hinges or springs.

Does anyone else remember the Gausefin, or have any information about what happened to this craft? I haven't even been able to find it with Google, and I'm beginning to wonder if I imagined the whole thing.