New propulsion sytems for ships

[Guillermo]

To have a look at SkySails' kite flying aboard a 55 m vessel, visit their page: http://skysails.info/index.php?L=1 and scroll to the bottom of the page where you'll find a link to download the video.

SkySails is seriously pointing towards the fishing vessels market. Stephan Wrage, SkySails chairman, performed a presentation to galician FV owners a couple of weeks ago, raising a big interest.

[Guillermo]

Here an interesting initiative from the USA: The Hybrid Fishing Boat Project
http://www.hybridfishingboat.org/index.html.html

Because she's a sail boat, here estimated ratios for her (Unloaded):

Ballast/Disp Ratio W/Disp = 0,54
Displacement/Length Ratio D/L = 131,05 (Too light, in my opinion)
Sail Area/Disp. Ratio SA/D = 21,94 (Almost a racer!)
Power/ Disp. Ratio HP/D = 4,91 HP/tonne (Pretty high for a fuel saving boat, but probably needed for maneouvres)
Hull speed HSPD = 7,75 Kn
Potential Maximum Speed PMS = 9,31 Kn
Velocity Ratio VR = 1,2
Capsize Safety Factor CSF = 2,07
Motion Comfort Ratio MCR = 18,75
Angle of Vanishing Stability AVS = 172,04 º (Wow!)
Heft Ratio HF = 0,68
Roll Period T = 2,02 Sec (Too low)
Roll Acceleration Acc = 0,22 G's (very high)
Stability Index SI = 0,58 (Comfort: 1 – 1,1)

[Kiteship]

Thanks for pointing this out, Guillermo. It's the first I've heard of the project.

I know these guys well; they have something worth looking into. Tom Wylie is well known on the US West Coast for his catboats. They are very fast (ratings bear this out), extremely easy to sail and are known for lasting a long time. What more could one ask for in a commercial boat? One could talk about pros and cons of every piece of these boats (many do, about the yachts), but the facts remain--fast, easy to sail (very, very easy), long lived. They really, *really* got the cat-rig concept down; the boats are sweet.

I'm jazzed to hear they are doing fishboats. I wish them the best of success.

Dave Culp

[Guillermo]

Dave,
I find the idea an exciting one, but for most fisheries such a big mast and sail will be a drawback, in my opinion. Maybe it's fine for trips going back and forth to fishing areas, but once there and fishing with not so good weather, maneouvres may become complicated, because of wind induced drifting and heeling (high mast and high position of sail when lowered). I find it difficult, i.e., to handle a traps line or a gillnet over the side, with boat suddenly heeling in the gusts and quickly drifting over the line or net. Even with the help of the engine, fishermen will need to masterize again the art of sailing, which I am not sure if they will like at all.

Another possible problem is that of making sail a big solar cell. That's going to be probably expensive and I do not see how to reef or lower the sail several times without damaging solar film....

Also global price, with mast, sail, solar film, diesel-electric, etc., is going to be high and payback time for the overcost has not yet been evaluated. Most important thing. I wish them luck, too, but I have serious doubts about the concept's commercial feasibility.

Maybe you could try to talk to them and convince them to use a kite instead of a masted sail. Much better option, from my point of view.

Cheers.

[Guillermo]

Now, analizing her ratios when loaded (I asume two crew, 400 lt fuel, 1 tonne fishing gear and 2 tonnes payload), we get:

Ballast/Disp Ratio W/Disp = 0,32
Displacement/Length Ratio D/L = 217,78 (Quite low for a displacement fishing boat, in my opinion)
Sail Area/Disp. Ratio SA/D = 15,63 (still plenty of sail power)
Power/ Disp. Ratio HP/D = 2,95 HP/tonne
Hull speed HSPD = 7,75 Kn
Potential Maximum Speed PMS = 8,2 Kn
Velocity Ratio VR = 1,06
Capsize Safety Factor CSF = 1,75
Motion Comfort Ratio MCR = 31,16
Angle of Vanishing Stability AVS = 133,61 º (still pretty good)
Heft Ratio HF = 1,14
Roll Period T = 3,14 Sec (much better)
Roll Acceleration Acc = 0,09 G's (much better, but could be even better)
Stability Index SI = 0,9 (much better)

Numbers are now better from the comfort point of view.
And comfort for fishing is a very important thing. A good quality of movements make work aboard easier and safer.

This boat seems to be comfortable only when fully loaded. Comfort related numbers can be even better with higher fishing gear or payload weights. With traps (quite heavy) maybe they could go up to 2500 kg for gear, but that's only applicable for the trips, because when fishing, traps are most of the time under the water, where they are supposed to be...

But maybe I'm totatlly wrong, as there are fishermen involved in the project. I've contacted Hedley Prince and I hope to get regular updates from him and maybe have the ocassion of discussing with him these matters.

Interesting project, indeed.

[brian eiland]

Originally Posted by Guillermo

Dave,
I find the idea an exciting one, but for most fisheries such a big mast and sail will be a drawback, in my opinion. Maybe it's fine for trips going back and forth to fishing areas, but once there and fishing with not so good weather, maneouvres may become complicated, because of wind induced drifting and heeling (high mast and high position of sail when lowered). I find it difficult, i.e., to handle a traps line or a gillnet over the side, with boat suddenly heeling in the gusts and quickly drifting over the line or net. Even with the help of the engine, fishermen will need to masterize again the art of sailing, which I am not sure if they will like at all.

Also global price, with mast, sail, solar film, diesel-electric, etc., is going to be high and payback time for the overcost has not yet been evaluated. Most important thing. I wish them luck, too, but I have serious doubts about the concept's commercial feasibility.

I tend to agree with you Guillermo. I don't think it's commercial viable at all...maybe only in the charter market for sportfishing. But then ask me about that....fisherman just don't go for anything with sails on it. Look at my sportfishing catamaran concept....REAL tough sell. And this thing could be real easy to handle while fishing under sail as you only need to roller furl the central sail. And it doesn't heel, and it manuvers fantastic under power.
http://www.runningtideyachts.com/gamefishing/

Guillermo, I saw your first posting to this forum and it prompted me to add a reference to another forum posting on fishing under sail, just to see what reaction I would get. I also sent Hedley Prince an eMail to let him know of the additional posting of his concept.
http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/general-sailing-discussion/1548-gamefishing-sail-under-sail-power.html

I thought to myself a long while back, I had just spent 18 years trying to sell the multihull concept to monohull sailors, and now I was going to try and sell a fishing guy a boat with sails on it; I must be crazy!!

[Guillermo]

Originally Posted by brian eiland

....fisherman just don't go for anything with sails on it..... and now I was going to try and sell a fishing guy a boat with sails on it; I must be crazy!!

Tell that to me! I'm trying to convince them to fly kites! (I'm afraid I'm much more crazy than you are!)

[sharpii2]

Originally Posted by brian eiland

I thought to myself a long while back, I had just spent 18 years trying to sell the multihull concept to monohull sailors, and now I was going to try and sell a fishing guy a boat with sails on it; I must be crazy!!

Dear Brian:

Maybe. Maybe not. Or maybe just a tad bit ahead of the times.

I imagine when my four year old Godson becomes my age, there will be hundreds of sportsfishermen of your design concept out there. Maybe they will be called 'eilands' or 'eiland boats'.

I think you already have earned your place in yacht design history(along with Tchetchet, Piver,Wharram, and Crowther. Your concept, as a sail powered sports fisherman can hardly be bested.

It's just that petroleum is still too damned cheap right now.

Hang in there.

Bob

[Guillermo]

Here the answer from Hedley Prince to our letters on the Hybrid Fishing Boat project:

"Dear Guillermo & Brian
Thank you for your interest in our hybrid fishing boat project. I was very interested in the excellent analysis of Tom Wylie's Catfisher design in the Boat Design Forum.
I have been a Wharfinger for the Port of San Francisco for about 10 years, where my job is to manage Fisherman's Wharf. We have over 100 active commercial fishing vessels permanently berthed in San Francisco, and many more that berth here temporarily during a fishing season. Fishing is year round in San Francisco. In the winter it's crab and herring, in summer it's salmon and tuna. The big trawlers and small Asian long-line boats fish whenever weather permits.
The Catfisher design is not suitable for crabbing, trawling or for netting herring, but I believe it would be ideal for salmon and tuna trolling as well as long-lining. Because of the greater distances traveled, and the need for a refrigeration system, a viable tuna boat would need to be larger than the 38' boat drawn, but for salmon trolling, it's about the right size. I like the simplicity of the cat rig. Compared to a traditional sail plan, it's like the difference between an automatic transmission and a stick shift. There are only two lines controlling the sail -- the halyard to raise and lower the sail and the sheet to trim the sail. The sail is self tacking and also self stowing in the wishbone cradle. I also like the fact that there is no mainsail boom to get bashed in the head with and no standing rigging to get in the way. Few of the fishermen around here know or care anything about sailing, so it has to be simple.
I would expect that when the Catfisher is actually fishing, the sail will be down and the boat will be moving along under power. The real fuel savings will come from transiting under sail from port to port or from port to where the fish are and back. The salmon trollers fish between Central California and the Oregon border (about 300 miles) and go offshore as far as 50 miles looking for salmon. That's an area of about 15,000 square miles. This year is especially difficult for the local salmon fishermen because in addition to higher fuel costs, the season has been severely restricted by government regulators.
Under current conditions, it would make no sense for a fisherman to invest over $300,000 in a hybrid fishing boat. Things could change however. If, for instance, fuel costs continue to go up, season restrictions are lifted, government or private foundations give cash incentives to trade old polluting boats for clean boats, or if tariffs are imposed on imported farmed salmon, the investment might start to make sense.
In the meantime we are going forward with our project. We have a fund raising plan in place and we expect to get some good publicity in the near future from an article in the science section of the New York Times about fuel efficiency in commercial fishing boats, and another article in Soundings magazine about diesel-electric systems for boats.

Regards,

Hedley"

[Guillermo]

LE TOUR DU MONDE EN 80 JOURS A L'ÉNERGIE RENOUVELABLE!

Longueur: 30 mètres
Largeur: 16 mètres
Poids: 10 tonnes
Surface des panneaux solaires: 180 m2
Puissance de l'installation solaire : 30 kW
Vitesse moyenne: 10 noeuds, soit 18,5 km/h
Vitesse maximale: 15 noeuds, soit 27 km/h
Capacité: 12 personnes
Cabine de pilotage: 6,50 mètres au-dessus de l'eau

http://www.planetsolar.org/

[Raggi_Thor]

Nice boat :-)
How much energy was used to produce 180m2 of solar cells?

[SeaBirdShip]

Originally Posted by Guillermo

The Jirnov Vortex Engine:
http://generalvortexenergy.net/

Has anyone pulled the patent on this engine? I see some fantastic claims with not one stich of technical information.

SeaBird

[marshmat]

The JVE device is claimed under US patent 5758501, http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...y=PN%2F5758501
The patent appears valid, of course, but I don't believe the device is capable of anywhere near what they claim. The thermodynamic claims are almost certainly bogus, and SeaBird is right that there is no actual information at all on there. It's an interesting attempt, but a failed one, and I can guarantee you'll never see the thing in production.
Engine efficiency depends on a lot of things, and marketing hype is not one of them. They claim 72% theoretical and are expecting in the 50% range; I seriously doubt they will get over 5-10% if they ever get the thing working. It takes millions of dollars and thousands of hours of labour on the part of dozens of engineers to get a few percent gain in the efficiency of a gas turbine. That a small group, with no engineering knowledge whatsoever of thermodynamics or fluid mechanics, and incapable of writing a coherent web page, could somehow blow 50 years of tedious optimizing out of the water with a single prototype, is hard to believe.

[brian eiland]

Originally Posted by Guillermo

Tell that to me! I'm trying to convince them to fly kites! (I'm afraid I'm much more crazy than you are!)

So I guess you've heard that 'go fly a kite' jeer a few times,

[Guillermo]

yes, That Jirnov Vortex Engine sounds like a fiasco. By the news in 2005 (http://pesn.com/2005/04/25/6900086_J...rtex_Turbine/), they should have developed a 125 HP unit by March 2006, having supposedly received 1 million bucks from the USA Navy, but I've found nothing else in internet and the site (awful!) remains excatly the same as it was many months ago