>>>>> 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.