The Efficiency of Sails

just a thought: make solar sails for outside intergalactic use?

 

That, Yipster, is the very next step. You are right!

 

Be careful, solar sails only Works during the day..........

 

but isn't it always day in space...solar wind and all. 'Course once outside the influence of solar wind you have the Galactic wind...and outside of that, the Intergalactic wind. WAYYYY too much Science Channel me thinks..

Steve

 

nah, just an old thought for a bimini
with todays techno it should be possible to weave a textile from a solar tread
think of all the possible applications...

 

www.drudge.com - solar ship

 

Love the Drudge Retort, but where's the solar ship?

 

Almost there, Yipster
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2002/03/28_solar.html

We may live to see it!!

 

www.drudge.com/news/69950/sagans/solar-ship-set-launch

 

Thanks for the consideration of my rig. Looks like we may be putting it on a new-build 65 tri, and possible a very large European cat. Details later

 

Dear D'Artois:

The reason designers stick with 'traditional rigs' is because they deliver, in DOD parlarence, more bang for the buck. Traditional rigs can usually be made out of some pretty crude and inexpesive stuff and still work (not as well as with expensive and sophisticated matteriels however). More modern rigs require industrial materials such as 1x19 wire and dacron to work at all. Experimental rigs such as 'wing sails' require even more advanced matterials. They may make sailing easier but most likely make it much more expensive as well.

Exceptions to this principle are rigs that are derived from traditional types but take advantage of the better understanding of aerodynamics that is available to us 20th and post 20th century peoples.

The 'Skye rig' appears to be one example. It seems to be a modern derivitive of the chinese lug. Instead of using battens that hang on one side of the mast, they appear to use airfoil shaped ribs that wrap around it. It could probably be made from the same matterials as the original and is therefore an example of a modern derivitive as opposed to a modern design based on modern matterials science. I think its cool. This sail should have most if not all of the vertues of the original as well as being much more efficient.

I expect to see many more gaff, lateen, square, sprit and lug (including Chineese lug) sails and modernized derivitives of them as the 'Oil Age' winds down and modern industrial materials get more and more expensive and hard to get.

Bob

P.S.- Is sailing really difficult? a friend of mine taught himself to sail on my home built scow (probably one of the worst built boats ever) in a single afternoon (with no instructions at all) . There are really only a few concepts and techniques to learn in order to get your boat anywhere you want on the pond (the best place tp learn). I, myself, am a self taught sailer. And I learned more from one sentence I read in a sailing magazine than I ever did reading a bunch of books. The sentence simply read: "Let the sail out until it starts to flap, then pull it in just until it stops."

 

It's the way I learned to sail too - it started at the Seascouts, small rowingboat type of (in Dutch) "pieremachochel" a multichine steel/wood traditional design.
Before I bought my first sailingyacht I had a few motorboats, but nothing was good enought to stay for longer periods cruising the North Sea, so my first sailing yacht came, a 40' Frans Maas design - a real top of the bill boat, nothing more seaworthy than that one. Windforce 10 around the Dutch Isles does one wishing not to be born, but this boat could endure it without giving a shrink.
Frans Maas'designs are still my favorite, no better boat for the long distance cruiser, on one line with Dick Koopmans Sr desins, also a desiner whose designs are centered on safety and comfort, with no rules in mind that may spoil the concept of a boat.
Among the real sailors those boats are toprated and very few are on the market and if, they fetch a much higher price than their original buildin costs...
Sailing is not just a hobby, it is a lifestyle that crawls in your blood.
So I can understand Bernard Moitessier, passing the finish line setting course for a new circumnavigation....
The sensational feeling when you for the first time senses the Atlantic waters, strolling around in he biscaya area where the waves will crush on you from all sides, where you have to tack about to avoid the breaking waves....
That all is sailing. People that have circumnavigated the world do not come back being the same person.

 

Dear D'Artois:

What does one of these puppies look like. Is it half keel, three quarter keel, or full keel? Is it round bottom or does it have chines? Is it a mast head sloop, cutter, or ketch? Or is it traditionally rigged. Is it light, medium, or heavy disdplacement?

Its interesting to note that some of the best voyaging yachts are designs most of us have never heard of. I suppose that is, because the only thing we're going to hear about are great aceivments...and great disasters. Fast and finicky start with the same letter.

Bob

 

Dutch Designs

Dear Bob, (Sharpii 2)

Most of the present yacht designers, like Gerard (Gerry) Dijkstra, Van de Stadt, Dick Koopmans, Dick Zaal, Frans Maas, Jac. de Ridder, are known within a certain international incrowd. Others, like De Voogd, Robert Van Dam (Nordia) do have a name that goes over the ocean.
Just now, I give you a few examples, boats designed AND build by Frans Maas.
Frans Maas is one of the very few yachtdesigners and builders that can work in any material - n'importe quoi.
As I say, he is one of my favorites because he makes fast, comfortable and safe boats that even after 30 years of intensive use still look good.
With my Frans Maas 40'I have been in life threatening situations, but the build of this boat was in such a way that I came out alive.
Here are a few of his boats:
The first one is the well-known 40'; the 2nd one is an modern design from the 'late '90's; the 3rd one is a top view of the 40' (note the placement of the companionway); the 4th one is a modern 50', so is the 5th one.

 

D'Artois, what's the point of the reverse transom? Is it just a style preference, or does it have a purpose?