jmoorebeek

6 ms·

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by jmoorebeek 3y ago
This sounds like a great proposal, and those 50-seat aircraft are the backbone of the mountain communities I grew up around in the PNW. Is there any loss in effectiveness in using standard atmospheric air (thanks to N2 and other non-oxygen
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by jmoorebeek 3y ago
Feel free to contact us via our website, we'd certainly be interested to chat!
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by jmoorebeek 3y ago
Feel free to reach out to us via our website, I'd be more than happy to keep this conversation going!
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by jmoorebeek 3y ago
I'm practicing my fiddle skills, maybe by Series A I'll be ready for my soundcloud debut.
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by jmoorebeek 3y ago
Lowering the sails will be critical to safe operation in bad weather. The deployment process will be easily reversible, so that within a few minutes you can go from full sail to fully stowed (or any place in between), likely with emergency
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by jmoorebeek 3y ago
From our early investigations, many cargo ships already maintain sufficient moveable ballast (ie: water tanks) in order to handle dock operations, that they can also handle the roll moment from the sails. Maintenance is on our mind too. The
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by jmoorebeek 4y ago
Our current prototype is a 1/50 bench model using off-the-shelf tape measures. We're working on rapidly scaling that up to test on our Lido-14. I'm sure others will try to copy the concept, but as the comments have shown ther
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by jmoorebeek 4y ago
Yes, I can't say that we have absolutely everything figured out so far, but we have a decently complete model. Windage, changes to draught, and GM are already factored into our models at the root level, and while we may need to still t
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by jmoorebeek 4y ago
I totally agree that route optimization takes on a whole different dimension now! For our early models and numbers, we're just benchmarking no change in route of speed, to really highlight the baseline benefits of sails. However, there
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by jmoorebeek 4y ago
I like the deeper sheath idea, but we moved away from that early on for a few reasons. A major one is cargo-handling, because you rapidly hit limits on how high the cranes can lift containers away from the deck. They can't start moving
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by jmoorebeek 4y ago
This is definitely a place where we think we can leverage modern automation processes. No need to add additional crew to manage the rigging, and the system should be able to manage itself safely.
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by jmoorebeek 4y ago
While a container ship doesn't have a keel per-se, it does have about 200m of flat plate length sticking into the water. At small angles, that flat plate can actually have a decent lift to drag ratio. Historic sailing vessels also ma
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by jmoorebeek 4y ago
We actually plan to go a step further, and power these containers from an internal battery pack. We can then recharge the pack passively when deployed (small wind turbine or solar). Of course we can optionally hook up to ship power if it&#x
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by jmoorebeek 4y ago
We agree that a permanent installation would be awesome, but we came across some difficulties with that idea in customer conversations. First is the number of containers you permanently displace might mean you never recover your investment.
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by jmoorebeek 4y ago
We're looking at steel partly for durability, but also if we're going to be rolling up the sails a lot then fatigue limits become a lot more important. Cost is key too - I'd love to make this from CF, but price goes way up. F
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by jmoorebeek 4y ago
I agree, the roll moments are a huge design challenge! We're looking at multiple avenues to bring those loads down to the deck: - The double wide container already has a longer lever arm to provide righting moment - We plan to incorpor
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by jmoorebeek 4y ago
From our first analysis, applying the thrust through the container seems doable; the containers are secured to each-other and the ship via mechanical "twistlocks", which are designed to handle not just ship loads, but also truckin
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by jmoorebeek 4y ago
Of course, there will be limits on the wind speed the structure can handle. Flexing of the structure will be designed in, similar to how a 787 wing flexes by design under load. For stronger gusts, aside from design margin, we are also looki
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by jmoorebeek 4y ago
Not yet. Our first prototype is a bench model without the necessary structure to handle full loads. We're working on the detailed design to get on the water now.
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Launch HN: OutSail (YC W23) – Wingsails to reduce cargo ship fuel consumption
527 points by jmoorebeek 4y ago|269 comments