Big kites if true
Hoist the mainsail and shiver me timbers.
“What differentiates it from other wind solutions,” says Bernatets, “is that the wing is not just pulled by the wind and countered by the ship.” Instead, it flies in figure-of-eight loops, which multiply the pulling effect of the airflow to give what he calls “crazy power.”
“Plus, we fetch the wind 300 meters above the sea surface, where it’s 50% more powerful,” adds Bernatets. The combination “explains why the power is tremendous for a system that is very compact, simple on the bow of the ship, and can be retrofitted on any ship, not just new ships,” he says.
A 300m line holding turbulent sail kite would never have the chance getting tangled or snapping and killing someone when it whips back
Yeah there’s similar problems for the ropes that anchors are attached to as well, so they shouldn’t be using those either.
“What differentiates it from other wind solutions,” says Bernatets, “is that the wing is not just pulled by the wind and countered by the ship.” Instead, it flies in figure-of-eight loops, which multiply the pulling effect of the airflow to give what he calls “crazy power.”
That’s an innovation over square-rigged ships, sure, but not so much over fore-and-aft-rigged ones (where the sails act like aerofoils).
If they really were kites, ships could sail across the sky.
They are literally kites—not sails. I’ve never seen a sail flying 100 ft above a ship before.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasailing
…
parasail
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinnaker
When a vessel is running (meaning moving in the same direction as the wind) it can fly a spinnaker, which is just a kite on short lines.
And the load on its sheets is enormous. Oh boy can it cause a problem if anyone makes a mistake handling it! Now imagine the load from the kites proposed. I wonder if that is even feasible with today’s materials.
Edit: did some reading around. So it seems at current level the system can be used as a supplementary propulsion saving some fuel. Ahoy, mates, we are back and our sails are higher than ever!
When it comes to material stresses the sails can always be scaled down, but off the top of my head kevlar and zylon would be good candidates for getting the biggest, toughest sail in an economic fashion.
If you want to go down a related rabbit hole take a look at the sails used in regattas. The technology and money that goes into them is ridiculous.