Big Ships Back Under Sail

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CJH 10/19/2008 4:16:25 PM

The age of sail ended partly because steam ships required fewer crew members and less training/experience amongst the crew.

Of course now we have automation, robotic technology and advanced materials. Imagine a computer actuated sailing ship with lots of carbon fiber and titanium.

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doggtag 21st century sailing: not your great-father's 12-knot schooner anymore 10/19/2008 5:37:03 PM

The SkySail is so new and revolutionary, as of yet there isn't a good homepage up for the company (was still under contruction).

So, luck has it that Popular Science magazine has the goods on it,

even though their magazine had its article on the SkySail some months ago.

{ ht*p://www.popsci.com/category/tags/skysail }

Yes, with today's automation and computer control, the system has proven to self-deploy and recover with minimal direct human intervention (providing everything works as it should).

Certainly has a lot of potential, especially considering it's quite scalable to larger vessels (but wouldn't count on seeing it pulling along a USN destroyer anytime soon!...)

Despite sailing generally being looked at as "antiquated" technology at least as far as the 21st century is concerned,

there is still a lot of interest in high performance sailing, and using the latest technology has to offer to take wind powered ships into areas early man never dreamed of.

Case in point: the Volvo Open 70 70-foot racing yachts have recorded speeds, by wind power alone, of 39 knots!

(another link courtesy of Popular Science...

{ ht*p://www.popularmechanics.com/outdoors/boating/1681731.html }).

Now I don't see us returning anytime soon to three-masted schooners and other wind-powered ships that rely solely on wind power for propulsion (at least not for anything other than expensive pleasue craft),

as there are instances when there is a dead calm about the waters and a given commercial cargo vessel may travel even a few days at sea without any noticeable wind.

Also, a lot depends on the fact that a wind blowing the opposite direction you want to be going in isn't going to help much,

at least as far as typical sails are concerned.

In those such instances, we can borrow an idea from the legacy of Jacques Cousteau, whose ship the Alcyone was equipped with two turbosails that used wind moving around a curved vertical airfoil section that effectively works somewhat like an airplane wing or helicopter rotor, but assists in pulling the vessel forward rather than up.

The main shortcoming of the turbosail design, unlike the SkySail, is that the turbosail is always there, taking up valuable deck space, wheras the SkySail can be fully retracted into a compartment and is out of the way when not needed.

There have been numerous incarnations of airfoil designs replacing standard "soft" sails in sailing vessels.

One of the most infamous (depending which side of the race you were on) was in the winged catamaran Stars and Stripes which was used in the 27th America's Cup Challenge in 1988.

Working just like an aircraft wing, the sailfoil on the Stars and Stripes worked moreso by creating forward lift (or more accurately, pull) even in head-on winds, whereas normal sails catch the wind from behind to do the most working in pulling a ship forward (if I'm understanding that one description correctly).

But rigid wingsails (sailfoils), just like turbosails, still have the disadvantage when compared to SkySail, where these rigid designs are always there sticking vertically out of the ship, unlike SkySail's retractability when not needed

(which is a primary reason why the turbosail never fully caught on with the worldwide commercial shipping designers,

as these rigid sails would've encumbered the operation of pierside shipping container cranes and other cargo gantries).

However, sailing tech isn't done yet: a Turkish design team is in the process of creating a nautical X-craft (almost literally) called Volitan (link also courtesy of Popular Science

{ ht*p://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2008-06/sun-powered-sailboat }),

which has found a novel way around moving the sailfoils out of the way when not needed to catch the wind, by retracting them almost like insect wings along the hull sides.

If that weren't enough, Volitan is also to be equipped with solar panels built into the sailfoils.

Between SkySails, TurboSails, and the ingenuity of people such as Volitan's designers with sailfoils,

it's doubtful that the 21st century will see the end to wind-powered ships, either,

and I can only wait in wonder about the next fascinating design that nautical engineers wow us with next (that actually has practical application in addition to wow factor for how cool it looks).

I'm wondering if widescale adoption of the SkySail concept could have one interesting side effect: in efforts to strut their eco-friendly stuff and generally show off their creative colors,

could we see the owning companies outfit each of their SkySail-equipped ships with a unique sail whose colors, patterns, and distinguishing images could actually become an effective means of identifying specific vessels on the open seas (not unlike how some nations outfitted certain vessels of their sailing fleets with uniquely-patterned sailcloth designs)....

Seeing a very large brightly colored sail that contrasts with the ocean horizon could actually aid in rescues at sea, as the large sail could be seen from far greater distances than two surface vessels could visually spot each other otherwise.

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