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With the technology we have today, why couldn't self-drying, self-folding, self-stowing sails be used to make ships even more efficient? Edit: there actually i
by studius 6y ago
With the technology we have today, why couldn't self-drying, self-folding, self-stowing sails be used to make ships even more efficient?
Edit: there actually is a ship called the Oceanbird[1] with telescopic metal sails.
[1]- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZVDs4n_a0M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZVDs4n_a0M
- Tade0 6y agoBecause that's a fairly hard problem comparing to just tacking two rotating columns.
- studius 6y agoThere's a patent for a memory metal sail[1], telescopic sail mast[2], automatic retractable sail[3], and many others[4]. Also, there's the Oceanbird[5], a modern car-carrying ship with telescopically retractable metal sails. [1]- https://patents.google.com/patent/US9481432B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US9481432B2/en [2]- https://patents.google.com/patent/DE202011101489U1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/DE202011101489U1/en [3]- https://patents.google.com/patent/CN103086280B/en https://patents.google.com/patent/CN103086280B/en [4]- https://www.google.com/search?q=telescopic+sail+patents https://www.google.com/search?q=telescopic+sail+patents [5]- https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/swedish-collaboration-unveils-world-s-largest-sail-powered-car-carrier https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/swedish-collabora...
- curtainsforus 6y agoAll this complicated, fiddly tech, vs. two spinning bits of metal. I know which one I'd be more confident in...
- frederikvs 6y agoPerhaps they could, assuming somebody is willing to make the necessary investment to develop what you describe. However, it will probably be a complex system, and like most complex systems, it will be fairly fragile. Compare that to these Flettner rotors, which are essentially "a tube and a motor".