Turbo sail - 100 knots?

[antonfourie]

I could do, as long as you have enough air, I guess that the opposite force would also help tp balance the boat, I assume that this would be in conjunction with a stiff breeze

[frosh]

Hi all, Are you taking this 100 knot B-S seriously? I certainly am not. Seeing the whole comedy routine seems to running out of puff I thought that I would come clean now. The increase in the sailing speed record has been folllowing a logarithmic curve with an infinity end point in time somewhere around 51 to 52 knots. I don't honestly believe the sailing speed record in water will ever get close to 100 knots, just as I believe that a runner will never do a 100 meter dash in 5 seconds!

[antonfourie]

LOL ... of course not, but then it is fun to discuss these impossibles, I mean you could always strap a jet engine to the boat to create the blast of air, but that could be cheating

[Burmzie]

Okay I am still a newbie at this, but I was thinking about your ideas of a 100 knot sailboat. It is very interesting what a group of people can come up with. I am have no naval design experience, but I do know that the quickest way to speed an object up is to reduce the friction, whether it be air friction or tire friction, or water friction. What if you were to install a simple line or groupings of airlines in the hull of said sailboat. You could harness the wind at the top of the mast by way of a windmill (of sorts), to power a simple compressor. You wouldn't even need to use electricity. Much the same as an air hockey table works. I know someone will say, "you can poke hole in the hull of a boat". I think if you could somehow design a one way valve on each of the outlets, water would not flow into the boat. Of course this is just an idea. Anyone who feels the need to slaughter this idea, please feel free to.

[frosh]

Hi Burmzie, Something along this line has been done and tested in Australia around 35 years ago. I think it was on the little fully decked skiff the VJ or its bigger cousin the Skate. Both classes are still actively raced.
The way it was done then was that a series of tubes were set in a line from port beam to starboard beam about half way down the length of the hull.
The tubes ran from the deck through to the bottom skin of the hull.
The idea was that a venturi effect at speed sucked air downwards and mixed it with the solid water under the hull creating a less dense air/water mixture. The aim was to reduce skin friction on the planing surface of the hull and increase high end speeds.
Only very few boats were built with this innovation, so we can only conclude that it was not a practical success. However your idea is a good one in theory.

[sharpii2]

Originally Posted by antonfourie

It is only a matter of time, I am sure that climbing Everest sounded just as crazy before they got around to doing it .....

So did building a perpetual motion machine.

Bob

[frosh]

Got to agree with Sharpii 2. 100 knots under sail with the boat in water is in the same ball park as the perpetual motion machine!

[antonfourie]

Yeah I figure that too, but then keep this in mind and we can check in 20 years to see if they are any closer.

[Guillermo]

The guy who says 100 kn under sail are possible is Simon McKeon, from Melbourne. He ran Yellow Pages to its 46.52 kn record (held for lomger than anyother). He's tryin again with Macquarie Innovation. His last attempt failed because of a failure in a minor piece in the sail which lead to its destruction.
http://www.ronstan.com/marine/story.asp?story=1668
Simon states:
"We're not spending time thinking about this, but I don't believe in barriers. Our boat does three times the speed of wind, our little America's Cup boat did four times the speed of wind. Ice boats are a good indicator that the wind is not the limiting factor, the difference is that they are running on a hard surface."

[Vega]

Originally Posted by Guillermo

but I don't believe in barriers. ....Ice boats ara a good indicatos that the wind is not the limiting factor, the difference is that they are running on a hard surface."

I didn't think about the ice boats. Seems strange but probably he is right...even so 100m/h without the boat taking off, would have to be a completelly new thing, kind of a cross between a sailboat and an airplane

[frosh]

Ice boats ara a good indicatos that the wind is not the limiting factor, the difference is that they are running on a hard surface."
And that is a HUGE difference!

[antonfourie]

Yeah but water tends to get to be quite hard a 100Kn too

[frosh]

Agreed! water is pretty hard at 50 knts also if you face plant off your water skis. Interesting that the density of ice is less than water but friction is so much less on this medium. Something about a solid physical phase I guess.

[antonfourie]

mmm, wonder how far we are away from "teflon" for water or something super slippery ?

[SeaSpark]

To anyone who missed this thread:

Morphing foils concept