Build A Power Boat , Powered By Wind

I think here is a good place for Game Over for this thread. It is a shame that so much good information has been poured in here, especially by Jeremy Harris. Maybe someone will gather it to the Wiki some day.

Lurvio

 

This reminds me of the downwind faster then the wind dispute. The people who suggested this idea were pounced upon by nearly hundreds of "experts" who insisted it wasn't possible, citing all kinds of reasons why it was not possible - many of them spurios. However, they did it, and now these experts, who are the kind of people who will shoot any new idea down, are notable by their silence. It could be similar in this case. However, it does not seem likely that Windboat would get any backing for his idea at this stage. He needs to build something that proves the point, on a smaller scale, a "proof of concept" if you like.
History is littered with inventions that people said "couldn't be done". Windboat has already mentioned the Wright Brothers. That was a notable case. H. G. Wells the famous author is recorded as having said in 1902 that man could never fly. The next year in 1903 they did. Many said that Whittle's jet engine could not sustain itself etc. etc.
The idea is a sound one, the figures may be wrong, but the idea is laudable. I think what annoys the objectors is that Windboat is asking for backing.

 

eh no.

People defending the "faster than the wind" argument were approaching it from rational explanation and tried to help other understand the catch of the non-intuitive dilemma.

The defenders of the dilemma were not right because they didn't give up and stuck to their guns. They stuck to their gun because they knew they were right. And they tired to explain why.

Here we have a fellow who thinks running 150kw engine for 20 minutes constitutes fun times that people are willing to experience and then wait a week and experience it again.

There is no parallel of those 2 topics in my opinion.

And yes people can be 'negative Nancies' when it comes to to 'new' things. Mostly because things are not so 'new' and the challenges are well known and 9 times out of 10 (99 out of 100) the ideas are dead ends only fueled by lack of knowledge.
Its kind of like a bad artsy student film - might feel revolutionary to the 20yo film maker but for someone with experience it looks like all the other piece of crap by people being unique (and ending up being like all the other uniques).

 

Whether the idea is a sound one or not will be decided by the market demand - if it ever gets to the market.
What annoys the objectors (me included) is the complete lack of evidence that any informed, serious and reliable calculations regarding hydrodynamic, aerodynamic and energy sides of the project has been performed before claiming that

The most that can be said, at this point is that the authors have styled, sketched or fancied a boat with a wind turbine. Far from having designed it, as some fundamental technical issues appear to have been completely ignored.

This situation is completely different form the DDWFTTW (http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/propulsion/ddwfttw-directly-downwind-faster-than-wind-25527.html), which has a solid theoretical and practical base and has been mathematically proven. The boat in this thread, unless some radical modifications of the SOR are accepted, can work but is highly unpractical, antieconomical and unlogical.

The operative costs and potential dangers of this design are such that I wouldn't accept to own a boat like this even if I was given one for free. But if you truly believe in this project, then please help these guys from Taiwan and invest some of your earnings into the research. You could try to find other 20 believers and together you'll be able to put a sum required to make this project come true. If you are truly convinced that the "experts" here are all wrong and that this boat can work and have a market, one day you might even become a very rich person.

Cheers

 

The "downwind faster than the wind" critics simple failed to understand physics, in a similar way to the author of this thread. In that case people were confusing velocity and power and failing to understand the transformation that was occurring that made the idea feasible. I doubt any of the critics on the "downwind faster than the wind" thread had any real understanding of the physics involved, but were relying on their own preconceived views (which were incorrect).

I agree that the idea of a wind powered electric boat is a sound one, but with the present state of the art in terms of battery technology it is one that will only work for a narrow range of operating conditions. If the power requirement can be reduced and the operating duty cycle (in terms of time spent cruising vs time moored) isn't too great then the idea will work. If the charge system was augmented with a solar array then it might be a little more viable.

What won't be practical is the scheme outlined by the author of this thread. The battery energy storage is far, far too little for the desired motor power and the desired motor power seems to be a random guess made without any understanding of the hull resistance characteristics. This in turn means that a wind generator of a size that the hull could handle won't be able to charge the battery pack up within a realistic time scale.

Like some of the other threads that appear here from time to time, this boat seems to be a dream, one that is laudable in terms of desired outcome but which is wholly unachievable with current technology as it is presently designed.

Jeremy

 

It might be better to mount the wind-turbine on land next to the mooring (I know not all places are suitable for this). Then when the boat is taken out it is not encumbered by the windmill on its decks - and augmenting it with solar panels would also be a good idea.

 

So at the end the original idea is not really so sound?

 

Yeah down with the naysayers!

 

Actually they didn't do it, someone else did and they just tried to take the credit for it. Also they spammed numerous sites attempting to entrap people with a counter intuitive argument and then bash them rather than provide the detailed analysis like Jerry has here.

I see absolutely no correlations with presenting someone elses idea as your own in as rude a manor possible and winds failure to understand the basics of electric propulsion systems.

yah gotta compare apples to apples

 

Actually it was the refusal to provide the promised analysis and the fact that they were taking credit for someone elses idea that got a lot of folks going. Ricks analysis was flawed and by the time those guys came along promising a detailed analysis and then refusing to live up to that promise meant that some of us simply didn't give it much thought and instead pointed out the moral and ethical failures of the presenters

for me it required some analysis of how it worked in order to believe that it worked and rather than provide that analysis ( after saying they would ) the folks presenting the idea began a campaign of ridicule and lies in response to it being discovered to actually be someone elses idea. One could hardly be expected to consider the information realizing that the source of that information being in such poor standing

got ugly fast cause presenting someone elses idea as if it was your own and being caught out at it was obviously very embarrassing for them just as I was somewhat embarrassed to find after going elsewhere for the details that it in fact did work. Given the ethical failures of the presenters I was very hesitant to believe what little information they grudgingly provided.

its an interesting physics trick but one that could have and should have been presented in a polite and respectful manor

 

That's true. There were at least two people who did it before. One was a ride-on machine and the other more recently was demonstrated in model form on Youtube. They must have gone into hundreds of different forums just to stoke up the controversy. Then claimed it was their own idea because they "didn't know" it had been done before. Well, inventing something that has already been invented doesn't really count for much.
Windboats idea is interesting because it hasn't really been tried. Although admittedly he hasn't gone into it and it's just a dream at this stage. Takes a lot of experience to develop something completely new. He used the word "designed" which was a little short of the truth. He meant dreampt up.

 

No no , this idea is completely acheivable right now, I don't see any reason why this boat couldn't sail - except for the way in which it's been presented by the OP. The concept has already been proven , did any of you click the YouTube link I posted earlier? It shows a windmill powered catamaran sailing along quite nicely, it's just a mechanical coupling instead of electrical- so what, the idea will work...

It's just that besides being totally unworkable in the manner it's been envisioned so far, in reality it would be extremely difficult to sell boats like this, compounded more so by million dollar price tags... Who is going to spend such money on a short range, ugly, slow, noisy, maintenance intensive machine??? It's workable just not desirable...

 

From my perspective I look at these things a little differently.

I have and do work in the area of angel funding. Where we put together a group of investors for a company that shows potential but has a lack of money to either produce a prototype, or fund early manufacturing. So in theory this is exactly the type of project I am interested in. Combined with a lot of commercial contacts in the boat building industry, I am actually well placed to bring something like this to market.

However I have seen dozens if not more 'green' boats, and while some of them have limited practical usage, all of the ones that I have been involved in at a minimum have a few similarities. First I need a energy consumption budget that can be fueled by the available renewables. Or a statement about the use of non-renewables and the balance between them. Here no such plan is available.

Secondly there needs to be a SoR that the boat can fulfill, including where it has advantages and disadvantages compared to other more traditional options.

Third there needs to be engineering work done to indicating the new idea is at least theoretically possible, and a statement of the work needed to confirm or deny the assumptions as well as an expected cost to do the rest of the engineering, and the development.


For this boat we have none of this. The only thing that we are even close too is a SoR that indicates the boat can barely operate long enough to get out of the harbor before it needs a week or two to recharge the batteries. This is not an acceptable usage profile for anyone. So the boat has no value. Combined with wholly unrealistic price numbers, no idea how to even determine the parts necessary, no appreciation of the limitations, and despite some good recommendations by members no willingness to look at the design critically.

In short what I see as an investor is a guy who thought up an idea, but has no idea what the realities are, or how to make it work. This isn't a boat design it is an idea though Up at a bar after a few too many cocktails, and no concept of reality.

Even the 'design' posted is something out of a sketch program, not a real engineering work.

 

well then stumble you'd do a back flip over ( and yes I actually did really invent it myself ) my patent

trying to sell it right now and its definitely getting some interest but its also such a new concept that to fully develop the idea requires some pretty deep pockets and no I'm not asking for money but you might have some good advice for me.

on the previous note and just for the record
I was wrong about that faster than the wind thing, I"m ok with being wrong from time to time its how we learn, if your never wrong, your not challenging yourself
but I didn't lie cheat or steal and I certainly didn't join a group of people marauding the internet abusing people. I think when they came on offering to explain in any level of detail how there device worked and I asked for a dynamic analysis is when they realized that this was no group of fools. One thing I've learned on this site is that the quality of people tends to be really high. Bumping into those folks was pretty much the low of my experience here and I believe our friend and valued contributor Rick Willaby ( sorry I'm sure I'm spelling it wrong Rick ) left due to there disrespectful treatment. I know I sure gave ole Rick a hard time once or twice but always in good fun just like the rest of us. Those guys were just malicious.

OK done
I don't want to start anything up again, its really not worth it.

OK Stumble I've got a killer patented idea and if your interested fire me a non disclosure form and I'll spring it on you, no strings not asking for any money cause I'm just looking to sell. I think you'll fall over backwards when you realize the possibilities tho

 

Boston you are fighting windmills there.

Rick et al credited other people for the history of the device. Yes they were sometimes abbrasive but that easily happens when you have spent months of people telling you that you are a scam/fraud/idiot and when most of these 'critics' gave typically 5 seconds worth of attention before they deiced it does not work.

I spent significant amount of time explaining the phenomenon from different angles and received a lot of flak from the skeptics and always the explanations were somehow short of credibility to be worthy of thought (though they were right).

And you have to admit that you did not have an open mind in the FTTWDDW topic. It is quite hypocritical to blame the proponents from non gentlemanly conduct when one wasn't quite acting to that standard either.
I do not exactly remember your contributions and will not bother looking it up either. But I do know that there were a lot of people who tried to help other understand and got flak for it. I am pretty sure that describes how you participated. And I do not remember apologies for rudeness or thank yous for the ones who helped you understand.

enough of off topic ranting.