Filling hulls with helium

[Collin]

Weird thought I had about a way to decrease the weight of racing boats...


Since racing sailboats are stripped down to nothing and you have a lot of interior empty space, couldn't you seal it off and fill it with helium? You could reduce boat weight by thousands of pounds.

Seems like it would work??

[michael pierzga]

Originally Posted by Collin

Weird thought I had about a way to decrease the weight of racing boats...


Since racing sailboats are stripped down to nothing and you have a lot of interior empty space, couldn't you seal it off and fill it with helium? You could reduce boat weight by thousands of pounds.

Seems like it would work??

Its been tried.... the helium filled yacht fetched the windward mark, crew slipped down below to snatch a spinnaker, then began to laugh uncontrollably as they hoisted the spinnaker upside down. No performance gain.

Cases of beer kept cold and low in the bilge is the only way to insure top performance. .

[ldigas]

Originally Posted by Collin

Weird thought I had about a way to decrease the weight of racing boats...


Since racing sailboats are stripped down to nothing and you have a lot of interior empty space, couldn't you seal it off and fill it with helium? You could reduce boat weight by thousands of pounds.

Seems like it would work??

By "thousands of pounds"?

[Collin]

Yes, thousands of pounds....I think haha

Since only very large boats with lots of interior volume would be trying to get an advantage by turning their boats in to carbon fibre balloons

[tunnels]

Originally Posted by Collin

Weird thought I had about a way to decrease the weight of racing boats...


Since racing sailboats are stripped down to nothing and you have a lot of interior empty space, couldn't you seal it off and fill it with helium? You could reduce boat weight by thousands of pounds.

Seems like it would work??

Sail boats must be fast because they carry tons of lead just to keep them in the water so they dont take off and get blown away . !!!

[alan white]

Originally Posted by Collin

Weird thought I had about a way to decrease the weight of racing boats...


Since racing sailboats are stripped down to nothing and you have a lot of interior empty space, couldn't you seal it off and fill it with helium? You could reduce boat weight by thousands of pounds.

Seems like it would work??

If what you're saying is true, helium would be illegal to give to kids in their balloons. They would constantly be disappearing into the ionisphere.

[ldigas]

Originally Posted by alan white

If what you're saying is true, helium would be illegal to give to kids in their balloons. They would constantly be disappearing into the ionisphere.

Always reminds me of that fella that tied a bunch of balloons to a couch, and off he went.

They managed to get him down after a while, wanted to charge him, but they didn't know what )

[Collin]

Originally Posted by alan white

If what you're saying is true, helium would be illegal to give to kids in their balloons. They would constantly be disappearing into the ionisphere.

I may be over estimating the internal volume.

15 cubic feet=1 lb of lift from helium

How many cubic feet are we talking about in a supermaxi yacht?

[thedutchtouch]

for every 1000 liters of air you could replace with helium, your boat would only be ~1.1 kg or about 2.4 pounds lighter.

helium is 0.00018 g/ml
air is 0.0128 g/ml

not worth it.

[Submarine Tom]

Make the boat bigger then so it could hold even more helium!!!!

-Tom

[Corley]

I've heard that they filled the hulls on the America's Cup Deed of Gift trimaran USA-15 with helium to raise it on it's waterline for measurement purposes. It was just a measurement trick not a serious attempt at increasing performance and no helium was in the hulls when racing. The extra effort required to seal the gas in the hulls would not be worth it on most boats and the weight saving would be minimal but they were worried that USA-15's waterline would be too long hence the squeaky voice gas.

[michael pierzga]

For measurement purposes we lighten her up for measurement with an imported, South African built, anti gravity tractor beam.

Cheap to operate and gives you a real edge on the race course.

[Submarine Tom]

Ohhhh, I get it.

And I always thought a tractor beam was how wide the tractor was...

-Tom

[Doug Lord]

Helium was used in the USA 17 Super Tri for the last Americas Cup according to Sailing World and Scuttlebutt: USA-Technical Details-Helium used

[kapnD]

Lead in the keel, helium in the mast?
How about a helium filled kite attached to the top of the mast?
This thread got me wondering about the possible uses of helium and the necessary storage of bottles associated with its use, and the question that hit me is, is an empty helium tank heavier than a full one?
Why arent the tanks stored on the ceiling instead of the floor?
Happy Holidays!