New Age Trawler/Motorsailer; Kite assisted PowerYacht

A further 'step to the past': This week the Kathleen & May, a 108-year-old triple-masted wooden ship arrives in Dublin carrying a cargo of 30,000 bottles of French wine.

http://winebysail.canalblog.com/

Cheers...(hic!)

 

Dan Tracy's kite propulsion system (we have seen videos from his tests not that long ago at this forums) has now gone into commercial stage for vessels under 40 feet in length. See: http://www.kiteforsail.com/

Cheers.

 

I like the idea of using kites more than using sails. For one you get rid of the bulky mast, stays and a lot of clutter.

My friend has one of these fancy kites, you can fly it any direction you like including to windward, and may even be better than sails.

I have read some previous comments on the use of kites, and I was wondering how easy they would be to control to fly in the direction you want.

My friend's kite has two handles, by twisting either up or down with the wrist you can control the height and direction of it. This could be done with electric motors, but how to sense the action of the kite for control feedback, and how to deploy and reef such a big kite is another question.

If a sensable way of doing this can be found the size can be even larger than sails, make more power and have better windward performance.

Sure beats rowing good grief

The kite will also have the added advantage of adding lift

 

Eh come on guys, my arms are numb. Who'se turn is it to fly the kite

 

Thinking about this lately, I envision the dinghy davit center mounted on the foredeck just in front of the cabin windows on a large, sportfishing style vessel. With a non-free-spooling windlass at the bow, you run that anchor line through a pully in the davit. With the davit fully extended and pointed straight-up, you release the sail...letting line out with the foot controls at the windlass.

So, what's the start-up expense? You already have big dollars in a nice windlass and even more in a nice davit. Buy a sail and hope the wind blows in the direction you're headed...would make for a fun trip!

TC

 

Nothing new

Shades of the clipper ships. The old square riggers flew kites from several masts only they were more closely tethered, but the bottom of square sails were loosely secured by lines which could be set to take advantage of wind direction. The top gallants and top royal sails were definitely kites. I would seem that some good information on modern day kites can be gotten from the whaling museum in New Bedford, Mass and other museum dedicated to tall ships around the world. After all, some of these ships did set some long distance speed records.

 

Nothing new

Shades of the clipper ships. The old square riggers flew kites from several masts only they were more closely tethered, but the bottom of square sails were loosely secured by lines which could be set to take advantage of wind direction. The top gallants and top royal sails were definitely kites. It would seem that some good information on modern day kites can be gotten from the whaling museum in New Bedford, Mass and other museum dedicated to tall ships around the world. After all, some of these ships did set some long distance speed records.

 

Drinking and Driving

I don't know about flying a big kite while drinking the cargo of wine....

 

Kite-Assisted Fishing Vessel

Something like this?....
....kite assisted fishing cat
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?t=20319

....with this athwartships fishing deck
http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/general-sailing-discussion/1548-gamefishing-sail-under-sail-power-4.html

 

I like that you like kites!! Let's like each other.

Anyway, it just occurred to me that weight is weight no matter if it's carried by the hull or by a kite. I wonder how the kite picking up some of the mass burden translates into performance decrease. Anybody with a 12-pound brain want to take this on?

 

Actually I have an older sportfishing guy who wants a vessel he can fish with and his son is a committed oceanography prof...need to combine the two subjects. But need some more funds committed to Oceanographic Research to help share the cost of a new build.

Years ago I wanted to get involved with Ocean studies, but there was no money available then either...so I ended up in nuclear sub stuff for the defense industry.

I'm not excited about any 'production run' of any boat below 60 feet at this point in our economy.

That's interesting

The kite is just an assist or slow propulsion for those long trips that you are not worried about speed, and/or, you are concerned about total fuel capacity to make a certain trip. I wouldn't be concerned about a 'keel' for the kite boat, nor thrusters.

Best of luck to your search for this vessel. BTW, have you given consideration to a used vessel and doing a few mods?

 

I've Been Dreaming Too

I just joined this forum, and I am thrilled to find that a lot of others are thinking about the same kinds of ideas as I. I was sure others were ahead of me, but my concern that it might be hard to find such minds now seems a little naive.

I've been dreaming of a tri-hull, designed like a sailboat to minimize power requirements and without any ambitions of going super-fast like a muscle-boat, but unashamed of cruising long distances propelled by its brushless electric motors, with batteries continuously charging from solar panels and wind-turbine generators. But it would also be capable of cruising long distances using sail power, having a modest mast/sails rig, enough to move it right along in stiff winds, as well as kite propulsion. It remains to be seen which propulsion would be employed the most, but the idea of always having non-petrol backup propulsion is very appealing.

Whenever I watch kitesurfing in action, I cannot help thinking that some of that could be applied to moving larger, more comfortable craft. So at one point I constructed some small, somewhat crude imitations of those kitesurfing kites, and had some fun fooling around flying them at the beach, and imagining bigger versions driving my boat, like they drive the kitesurfers, except without the wave-jumping and whatnot. So my kites have 4 control lines, 2 on each end of the kite, attached to 2 sticks serving as handles. Controlling the kites, flying them around, is more fun than video games. I tried to experiment with exploring the wind-window that some of the kitesurfing sites talk about a little bit. You can turn the kite sideways and drive it quite a ways upwind, but when you get up there and can't go any further, it's not pulling very hard anymore, nothing like it does when you're zooming across from one side of the wind window to the other.

But I guess I'm kind of a dope on this, because I still haven't reached an understanding of how such a kite, especially when oriented sideways, compares with sails on a boat flown from its mast. It would seem that not being constrained to a mast should be an advantage for the kite, on all tacks, but from my observations it seems like the kites are at their best when reaching, and that's what kitesurfers do the most of, just like windsurfers.

I can see how a single-string kite attached to a boat would be good for broad-reaching to running in a stiff wind, and I've viewed the pics on the kitesail website, but I suspect that a 4-string kite has greater potential to become the main power source for a boat on all tacks. I'm suffering from a great deal of ignorance; for one thing I have not tried kitesurfing myself. But I bet some people in this forum have.

 

Welcome to the forum Justin.

You might also pay occasional visits to this other one as well.
http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/general-yachting-discussion/8127-new-age-trawler-motorsailer-kite-assisted-poweryacht.html
I try to cross post some of the submissions as there are those members of one or the other forums that don't visit each other, yet have interesting submissions to make

 

Brian,
The guy who owns the local windsurfing shop is a friend of mine and likes to tinker with stuff. We've been meaning to experiment with something on my F-36 Trojan but the damn boat doesn't have a davit. So, we were gonna rig something from the bridge...not sure how. I'll have to replace the windlass rode as well to experiment with a small kite...something lighter. If I had a windlass with a horizontal capstan, it could be done manually without worrying about being taken swimming....but I don't.

http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg120/juiceclark/IMG_0590.jpg

http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg120/juiceclark/CHorseNew-1.jpg