>>>> Come back Cutty Sark, all is forgiven.
>> A mast on a conventional sailing vessel tacking sideways or up wind
>> applies a lengthwise torque to the vessel creating a list that spills
>> the wind out of the sails.
>> The new cup race boats have tilting keels that counter the bending
>> moment and keep the mast vertical and go 50 knots, about as fast a
>> nuke airfraft carrier.
> The 'traditional' modern solution to that is multiple hulls, although
> that has the penalty of what might be politely called a second stable
> orientation. �I didn't mean that we couldn't improve on the performance
> of the tea clipper, I meant that maybe we need to revisit the use of
> commercial sailing ships when oil gets unaffordable. � Imagine what the
> East India Company could have done with carbon fibre masts, automated
> sail handling and modern aerodynamic theory. And radar.
And dacron, refrigeration, GPS, a trolling motor to get around
port, . . .
They would be spending money like drunken sailors if they had access
to a modern dock store, trying to trade all kinds of now unobtainable
or illegal stuff for it, whale oil, ivory, diamonds . . .
> Mind you a kite has several alternative stable configurations too -
> stalled, aback, in the water, and knotted. �It's all very well designing
> for clear weather and flat seas, unfortunately commerce doesn't wait for
> good weather, or confine itself to the trade wind zones. �
You don't need to eliminate the use of fuel, just reduce it as much as
possible.
The vessel would still have back up power.
The hard part would be deploying the kite.
> It would be
> nice to imagine a kite with a control system that could fly it through a
> hurricane without breaking anything
Most masters are pretty good at avoiding hurricanes.
Bret Cahill
