get home kite sail

[Guillermo]

Fanie,
From my point of view, kite control problems are probably not very easy to solve for a 'fit and forget' system. I have been following closely the Skysails concept since several years now and I have organized three presentations of the system to commecial fishing vessels owners and engineers here in Galicia, unluckily with no success up till now.

Skysails have spent more than 12 million euros through a decade in the developing of the system and they are yet at the first commercial tests stage. On his side, Kiteship has run out of business after many years of hard work, in spite of their knowledge and efforts.

To develope a fully reliable, simple and affordable system has proved to be not such an easy task to achieve. But keep on trying.

Best.

[Fanie]

He he... I saw that guy kayak kite sailing on youtube. Each time the wind changes, that canoe goes right after it.
Sailing like that can get you up on drunken sailing charges...

Here's my opinion on the kite sailing.

All these guys have only one thing in mind and that is to make money. Since it is a 'new' idea the race is on to be ahead of any one else out there, and they want to do it today and make the trillions overnight.

I see it here with guys developing other things. They don't do research, certainly not enough and expect to be successfull and they all just want to become rich very quickly. I guess what I'm saying is they see the money and not the product. Keep in mind everyone is an expert on everything, and certainly the guy with more money knows even more.

It's a bit like the guy who has the biggest dcik but has no real use for it

I have one customer that is doing such a development (not on sails) and each time he gets here and want some 'magical electronic' thing that is going to solve his problems, I realise there are too many unknowns that he has not investigated. When I point them out, he doesn't know, he hasn't done or he hasn't investigated. This guy has no chemical knowledge, yet he is putting together something chemical. Do research and gain knowledge first... Nah, will take too long...

Long time to make a point.

There were millions of 'land' kites built to today, if I look at he ease and the performance, just as an example, what my friend's kite can do. then I ask myself what are these other guys trying to do...

Start small and get the basic principles in order first then proceed to go bigger. To me it's like they want to build tankers before they even try a smaller boat to make sure it works properly only brcause there's money in it.

The key to successfully put kites up there is going to be in the control of it, and you have to do it on a moderate scale first.

The guy with his kayak certainly didn't hink it through properly, he just wanted to be pulled around for fun. There are other canoes on youtube being pulled by kites, but those were just for fun.

Imo it is more than possible to make a proper controller for a kite. I certainly won't like the tank monstrosity on my boat and the continuous hands on steering is out, maybe if you want to begin racing already although I don't know who against.

I want to point out what I said before. You cannot handle a 20 sq meter kite properly let alone a 200 sq meter kite, then go down to a managable size first. Doesn't matter if it is too small, but get the basics right first then find ways to increase the kite area. The guys doesn't have a single kite up that works properly that I have seen, yet the figure 8 aerobics it must be able to do is already expected.

So, bugger the wings, just go fly off the cliff...

What does it mean you cannot handle a 200m² kite? Skysails does it, and very successful. They do not play with unmature ideas, they did some 12 years of proper development before the first system was sold.
Money over night looks different.
Regards
Richard

[Guillermo]

I certainly back up what Richard is saying. Skysails has painfully gone all the way up from a humble beach kite (as Fanie demands) to the commercial stage in full scale for merchant ships, risking a huge amount of money in the process for a decade or more. Presently they are flying kites developing over 300 HP under full control for days on end, and their plans are to come up soon to powers in the range of thousands of HP.
Your criticisms are not well funded, Fanie.

Cheers.

[Fanie]

Your criticisms are not well funded, Fanie.

Probably not. So why aren't we seeing kites for other boats as well ?

[Guillermo]

I think the answer is easy: precisely because to develope an efficient, easy to deploy and retrieve, fit and forget system has proved to be very very expensive.

Cheers.

[Fanie]

If they are going to be too expensive why do we bother then

That was answered too Fanie. I think I made it clear, that we just need some patience. These systems will become cheaper in the near future.

[Fanie]

Imo it's already written of by most as too expensive, too complicaed, too uncontrollable and too long to wait for.

Originally Posted by Fanie

Imo it's already written of by most as too expensive, too complicaed, too uncontrollable and too long to wait for.

By most does´nt mean by experts. It is neither complicated, nor uncontrollable, not too expensive (not a single one shipping company in the world would buy it if it was), and it is available off the shelve. (actually they started production recently so, one cannot assume it will get cheaper within the first days of production)

It has only one serious disadvantage:
It does not fit your imagination of such a system! sorry..............but this may convince you!?:
http://s2.streamingfarm.tv/streaming...0_1000KBit.wmv

As Guillermo does, I follow this development since almost 12 years now, and if we tell you it works, you may believe that we know what we are talking about. And it is a fact that wealthy shipping companies like "Beluga Shipping", "Oltmann" "Wessels" and the "Zeppelin" group invested a serious amount of money in that technology, there are no day dreamers amongst them.

If your launch is not within the next year, be patient, it will come down to be affordable (at least for a boat range above 20 m) And please mates do´nt argue about this "upper class" restriction. Bear in mind that almost all of the safety features in our cars have been brought on the market in the "Mercedes S class" top models at the first time (a car of the same value as a house!), today all of them are standard features in every "rolling ashtray".

Regards
Richard

[brian eiland]

Have a look at these YouTube presentations posted over on this other subject thread:

New Age Trawler/Motorsailer; Kite assisted PowerYacht

[brian eiland]

kite dinghy

[brian eiland]

..from another subject thread

Originally Posted by Munter

The kite you say it is similar to looks like an old style C-kite. These kites have a limited ability to depower through the action of easing the bar. This means you will need to be VERY CAREFUL with how you fly it as you will not be able to instantaneously depower. Instead you will only be able to depower based on where the kite is in the wind window.

I would recommend the use of the newer style bow kite which, through the use of bridles on the leading edge, allows the rider to adjust the angle of attack instantaneously and so effect much more immediate depower. The bow kites are also generally substantially easier to relaunch.

I don't mean to dump on your selected equipment but you should be aware that there are big differences between the various kites out there and some will be far more suitable than others for the task of pulling boats.

Good luck with your experiments but read up on kite safety before you do anything with the 20m kite.

[Fanie]

Mmmm Brian, I can see a LOT of headings in the newspapers reporting mysterious disappeances of boaters.... and reports of 'discovered' boat captains found surfing off the coast of some foreign country... Unshaven of course.

Wrt kiting this video was a real inspiration for me !!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtY4bcI_fM0

[brian eiland]

Originally Posted by Fanie

Wrt kiting this video was a real inspiration for me !!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtY4bcI_fM0

Thanks Fanie, that was inspirational