3 ms·
That first one (the current record holder?) still looks surprisingly traditional, with a recognisable mast and all. A couple of decades ago I read about a recor
by mcv 3y ago
That first one (the current record holder?) still looks surprisingly traditional, with a recognisable mast and all. A couple of decades ago I read about a record targeting "sailing boat" that really stretched the definition of both sailing and boat; it looked more like a glider plan on a central stilt that would flip over on every tack and was only able to sail upwind. (Perhaps counter-intuitively, these speeds are only possibly upwind; you can't go downwind faster than the speed of the wind.)
So I'm a bit surprised to see the current record holder still looking recognisably like a sailing boat. That trimaran contender still looks pretty normal, although if it uses a kite, that's definitely interesting.
But that Syroco! That's really pushing the definition of sailing and boat beyond recognition. It looks closer to kite surfing. Or a glider with a kite instead of wings that only seems to be touching the water because otherwise it wouldn't count as a sailing boat anymore but as a plane. Though I suspect that board/hydrofoil is still necessary to control the course.
- saberience 3y agoThis is incorrect, for a long time now the latest sailing yachts have been able to sail downwind faster than the speed of the wind, in fact averaging 1.8X the speed of the wind with peaks of 2.0X the speed of the wind. There has been considerable research in this area. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-performance_sailing#Multihulls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-performance_sailing#Multi...
- mcv 3y agoIs that straight downwind or broad reach? Broad reach I can understand, because there's still a sideways component to the wind. If it can also be done straight downwind, I'd love to understand how.
- gcanyon 3y agoI doubt this is how sailboats are doing it (if they're doing it) but one way is (I think) to make the airfoil itself cut across the wind while the "boat" goes straight downwind. See these videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyQwgBAaBag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyQwgBAaBag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCsgoLc_fzI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCsgoLc_fzI
- mcv 3y agoThe explanation in that first video with ships sailing on a cylindrical ocean being analogous to a propeller was really great. But from what I understand, that's not how their car actually works, because they're actually powering the propeller from the wheels and expecting the propeller blowing backward to push the car forward, and not the wind moving past the blades in just the right way to pull it forward.
- gcanyon 3y agoI think my analogy still holds: the vehicle in the video wouldn't work if the wheels were used through a mechanism to simply push the air directly backward. That would be like having a square-rigger-style sail and using a fan to blow air at it. Instead, the thing that makes the vehicle work is the ability to use the mechanical(?) advantage of the prop slicing through the air at an angle to improve efficiency. Just as regular sails working at an angle to the wind can move downwind faster than a balloon (illustrated in the video) the angled prop can be used to move the vehicle downwind faster than the wind, but only by moving at an angle to it.