273 replies to this topic

[Wing sail]

Is this the Perfect Catamaran?


"Winged technology has as many advantages for the 40-50 foot boat owner and
operator as it does for the superyacht operator. It's hands free, it's
safe, it's green and it has lower maintenance costs. It takes virtually no
manpower to keep a wing upright and to monitor the controls, yet traditional
soft sails require knowledgeable bodies to make sail changes and to trim
them. Thin-filmed solar sheets reduce fuel costs, because you're not running
engines all of the time to recharge batteries. It's a lot less expensive to
replace individual panels on wing elements than it is to replace old sails,"
said an enthusiastic Pete Melvin who is looking forward to seeing winged
multihull fleets of all sizes circling the globe.

Computer controled WingSailTM and sail-by-wire capability what are your thoughts?

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[Munter]

Rather than assuming that everything is glorious and will be cheap and trouble free how about demonstrating a working prototype?

Statements like "thin film solar panels will be cheaper than replacing sails" really make me question the credibility of this post.

[THOR]

lets see you built a 1 million dollar multi with fixed wings put some solar films into the wing and have a cute computer do the calculation whats fast ....

I am old fashoined I like to pull on strings to go forward .... Im at a computer right now and I am lookin at one almost all day ,, i dont like computers that much

savings over cloth ??
if you can spend a million for a big multi you can as well buy real sails ... how would that wing fair in 60 knots of wind somewhere hanging on a mooring ball ????

I am old fashioned .... no lead but old fashioned

thor

[Trevor B]

What's it like at a windy anchorage, or trying to dock at StFYC in 25 knots?

[Pete M]

What's it like at a windy anchorage, or trying to dock at StFYC in 25 knots?

just fine at the anchorage I would guess - if it is allowed to weathervane 360

at the st francis - all is good until trying to get on the weather side of the dock, and the control vane thingies get stuck on the piling

[justonemoreboatplease]

What the he**?

Did John Walker join M&M or what?

Munter and Thor have doubts and want a working prototype.

Well, I am old enough to have seen this built (absent the solar aspect) and fail in the market place. Google Walker wingsail or something like that. Think the boat name was Zephyr. It held up in breeze and indeed was easy to operate (they even had some english prince guy back - yes, back - it into a slip all by himself. So easy a prince can do it... LOL.

I am really pulling from out of my ass but if I recall the basic boat had to be heavy to deal with loads from the free standing rotating rig and so sailing performance was less than stellar compared to multihull standards. Maybe after the Peter Goss thing (can't recall the name) that is not so anymore. Anyway, it was built, it sailed (easily) and weathered some serious storms and offshore crossings. And the market said...ZZZZ.

The solar aspect is interesting... but now you need heavy batts to store the energy. Thanks but no thanks. Don't want the weight and don't have big power needs on multi. Not so sure this is the perfect catamaran. Interesting stuff (solar wing sail) but I wonder if it would better fit a canter mono cruiser than a multi.

Anyway, WTF do I know.

Just - odd

[Mid]

there has gotta be FAR TOO MUCH windage up there , 'specially when you don't want it

[hokie]

http://www.yachtworl.../United-Kingdom

[THOR]

its inspirational alright
for that coin I would get me a used gunboat ..any size any color
thor

[Mud sailor]

I thought Walker as soon as I saw it

All I remember is that millions of dollars went into it, all very hi-tech

http://www.solarnavi.../wing_sails.htm

[codezero]

Hehehe, a cheap thin film solar panel would be a much more impressive innovation than the wingsail itself...
Anyway, that reminds me of something I always wanted to know about wingsails...
... how do you reef such thing???

[St. Phoquallyall]

Spam, spam, spam, spam,
Spam, spam, spam, spam,
wonderful spam,
beautiful spam...

[Wing sail]

Spam, spam, spam, spam,
Spam, spam, spam, spam,
wonderful spam,
beautiful spam...

Far from Spam



How do you reef, simple you luff the upper wing and it becomes a (wind vang) all most no drag
then you use the lower half of the wing for speed. Now this is the SIMPLE explanation for those who do not understand
the Aerodynamics of a wing
the overall drag of a wing is less than a conventional Rig

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[blunted]

Hehehe, a cheap thin film solar panel would be a much more impressive innovation than the wingsail itself...
Anyway, that reminds me of something I always wanted to know about wingsails...
... how do you reef such thing???

Well for all the cynics this is my short reply, as an avid fan of wings and a guy who has used them a little bit I will speak in their defence. If you don't know why I like wings use the little search button thingy up in the corner on my name "blunted"

Drag: Actually it has way less drag, all the time, Plain and simple square foot for square foot, a decent wing, Which I am sure if Duncan has anything to do with it, it is, has about twice the power and half the drag of a regular sail and mast set up period. Thats what makes them so nice to use. It probably has the same or less drag than a round section of mast of the same thickness and height (Granted that is pretty thick)

At the mooring, weather vaning is indeed the way to go. No doubt there is engineering challenges making it stand up and work pretty all the time, but weather vaing really does work. I would imagine the tail feather on it keeps it from "luffing" or getting into an oscillating feedback loop, so it could be kept settled down very easily in that configuration.

Reefing: You simply take out the camber in the wing, meaning the angle between the front and back element of the main wing section, make her flat and you de-power considerably then just ease the sheet thingy or in this case re-trim their tail feathers I guess as main sheets are passe in this set up.

I cannot tell you how great it is to sail a boat with a wing sail, only 4 lines and you can have all the control over your power etc that any soft sail mast combo needs twice as many controls to achieve. Twist, camber, leach twist and angle of attack and whamo, you have it all. No traveller, no no vang, no halyards, no worrying about rig tension except to keep the boat from racking all the time, its so much cleaner.

Methinks from looking at this rendering that they have foregone the Cogito / Alpha style internal twisting carbon spar in favour of something with less sophisticated twist control, which would make it potentially lighter and easier to build strong, but its tough to say without seeing it in action.

Suffice to say for a few years we too have been thinking about autonomous vehicles with wings and I myself get concerned mostly about hurricane force winds and how to deal with those. Easiest would be to deploy a sea anchor off the bow and let the thing weather vane to leeward of the anchor and ride it out. With a fat ass platform under the wing like they have here that thing is not in a rush to get upside down unlike a C-class balancing act.


Signed: Wingnut

[blunted]

One other benefit, amongst many, for a wing system, particularly on a cruising yacht:

Its soo fucking quiet, it makes no noise at all, no flapping, slapping, luffing, banging halyards, just a little wave noise on the hulls.

Sailing the C-cat on a light air day is like meditating because it is soooo quiet on the boat. Such a pleasure.

[codezero]

Nice post Blunted and WingSail.

I am very well aware of the potential for low drag of wings, having worked on racing solar car designs myself (which also explains my outrage at "cheap thin film solar cells"). I am sure a wing with zero angle-of-attack can have a drag as low as a traditional rig without any sails, but you have to agree that the perspective of facing strong shifting winds without being able to pull down your sail is a bit scary...

Hey, but since you guys are taking the time to talk about wingsails, I'll take advantege of it:

How's the performance on a broad reach? What's nice about conventional sails is that they form a deformable foil. As Blunted stated it, they have much more control lines, but their geometry is (at least AFAIK) much more configurable.
A wingsail, as I see, is a symmetric foil, which is not very efficient option for extreme angles of attack. Is the trailing edge mobile (with the analog of "flaps" on aircrafts)? Or those boats are so damn fast that they never see apparent wind at extreme angles?

[Y-Bar]

http://www.yachtworl.../United-Kingdom

Nearly one and a half million dollars for a 43 foot tri. Thats going to be sitting around for a looong time at that price.

I guess when i'm dead everyone will be sailing boats with wings. There's enough trouble sometimes with a fabric sail and it only has three attachment points and some strings. I dont like all those moving parts particularly the multiple winglett thingies hanging off the back of the main wing.
If anything fails. Is this type of rig that allows you could climb up and fix problems?.

The answer to the first post. I dont think it is the perfect catamaran.

[blunted]

Nice post Blunted and WingSail.

I am very well aware of the potential for low drag of wings, having worked on racing solar car designs myself (which also explains my outrage at "cheap thin film solar cells"). I am sure a wing with zero angle-of-attack can have a drag as low as a traditional rig without any sails, but you have to agree that the perspective of facing strong shifting winds without being able to pull down your sail is a bit scary...

Hey, but since you guys are taking the time to talk about wingsails, I'll take advantege of it:

How's the performance on a broad reach? What's nice about conventional sails is that they form a deformable foil. As Blunted stated it, they have much more control lines, but their geometry is (at least AFAIK) much more configurable.
A wingsail, as I see, is a symmetric foil, which is not very efficient option for extreme angles of attack. Is the trailing edge mobile (with the analog of "flaps" on aircrafts)? Or those boats are so damn fast that they never see apparent wind at extreme angles?

Well the wing we use on the C-class in not one element, its 2 or three depending on how you look at it.

I just call them front and back, the front one having a flap on it that is 15% of the chord of the front part and deflects up to about 20 degrees.

Normally sailing upwind you have about 20 degrees of "camber" bewteen the front and back sections, and the little flap(s) is not off center line at all.

Down hill you have a maximum of 40 degrees of camber between front and back and the number 2 flap kicks in about 15-20 degrees held there by the idlers, which are little fingers that hold the trailing edge of the front section.

So uphill, on the leeward side what you see is a nice fair curve with a little slot half way along the wing. Thats the important bit is that the leeward side is nice and fair with a little slot in it.

downhill, it looks the same, just deeper fatter more powerful and draggy section.

So essentially when you tack or gybe the thing flips inside out and goes the other way.

The point here being that by combining two symetric sections, you get a more powerful assymetric section with the option to power up or de-power. so as for donwhill, you have a big fat deep section that is way more powered up than uphill, so thats what makes it work down hill.

As for apparent wind, it should still be forward of the beam to be useful, any further aft and you're sailing like a retard with the wing, she just does not work well when too deep unless its 4 knots of breeze and then you just drift straight down hill with the barn door up there nudging her along (Not as fast as the wind for those on that other thread)

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[coxcreek]

For the benefit of a number (but thankfully not all posts here) of those who take on the stance of mouth frothing, rabid dog ignorance, solid wing rigs will continue to be refined and developed. One wonders how you turkeys are involved with this site, Sailing Anarchy, the latter term has connotations of free thinking, non conformity and flexibility - but you lot belong on some Fox Noise-like site. And in case the same few frothers here believe I am some sort of wanky, arm chair theorist, I put my money where my mouth is and include some early drawings of my next winter, solid sail, build project. There are problems, but also huge advantages with such rigs.
Venturing into dangerous territory here, but why not? This is Feral Cheryl, a sort of C Class trimaran foiler that I'll begin next southern winter. Inspired by a very rapid, no frills, 7.1 metre Tennant design of years ago called Demon Tricyle - but Feral Cheryl will be quite different, square platform (25 x 25 feet) three element hard sail rig, minimal floats and inverted T foils. The major problem is reducing sail area; either you start off the day (if it is breezy) with the after element down and secured across the platform (with folding racks to support it set off the wing beam trailing section), or have it set up so that it can be safely lowered at sea. I'm envisaging split base second and third element bearings that will allow sideways and aft lowering with halyards. This of course is a major - anyone with ideas out there?
The advantage of solid rigs is well known so the sail area does not have to be so large nor the rig as tall as conventional soft sail setups, and yet you still have higher efficiency and lower drag than normal. The other major problem is getting twist into the rig and yet retaining single unit elements. From my experience with fairly large wing mast/soft sail setups, you can handle large chord rigs if they are fixed fore and aft at mooring - so this boat's first and main element will be near a metre chord; the boat will lie steadily if the foils and rudder are lifted. Sailing is not a problem but you will have to feather the boat if the wind is high. I know, I know, this is dangerous stuff - but can be handled.
This single or double handed boat is for fun and speed and obviously not intended for Round North Island races and the like.

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[St. Phoquallyall]

Seaworthiness?

What happens in a squall? Would you take a wingsail boat to the Roaring Forties? Places where a bare pole is more than one would want up, much less...

[blunted]

Seaworthiness?

What happens in a squall? Would you take a wingsail boat to the Roaring Forties? Places where a bare pole is more than one would want up, much less...

well I would suggest longer bows and t-foil rudders for something like that in the death zone, control through speed up until the death part

[justonemoreboatplease]

Can't wait to get out to the party tonight. Lord, I need a drink.

Don't know why this thread pisses me off so much but its just another example of the BS that SA has become.

Geeze,

In FTA we have ED calling a guys employer because the dude was follwing the rules... crybaby ass!

In SA Clean is forever coming up with documents from LIS and then C&C and then... hats off for the front page note on the interference thing though.

In OA we have fools like Richie/truth or whatever sock puppet the idiot uses this week.

In CA we had DT

In MA we had IF taking a piss on people

In ACA... well the AC is nuts so what can you expect?

And now this.

HEY WING DING... I CALL BULLSHIT.

How much did you pay for the crap on the front page?

Love how you highlight M&M and not mention Harbor... M&M has virtually no mention of this on its website.

Exactly what is M&M's involvement? Tell me, how many crusing or racing cats, or tris, or monos has Harbor designed and launched?

While you are at it, I think its safe to assume that most anyone posting here knows that wings are more efficient than soft sails. And yes, they work. Like I said, Wingwalker or whatever way back in the what 80s, or 90s? Stars and Stripes. A-cats. We get it. Wings work. Now, can you tell me why wing technology is suddenly so great on a offshore cruising or racing boat? Why did Wingwalker fail? What does Harbor bring that is new in terms of wing technology?

What I really want to know about which would be new is the solar power aspect. Tell us all about the cost of the lightweight solar panel fabric that will make up the wing...how much $ per square foot? What kind of power generation can I expect? How big of a battery bank and how much will it weigh to store all this cheap free energy?

Oh and finally, yes, you are soooo right. Fly or sail by wire is certainly the way to go. Sailors absolutely hate tillers and wheels and would so prefer a freaking joystick. I mean, sailing a Wingwalker was not the sterile experience I have ever had but it sure came close.

Look, I am not trying to be an ass but come on. Wing technology has been around for years... no decades. What's new about you? If you really do have a cheap way of covering wingsails with solar power fabric/panels then give some numbers. How much power, how much weight, and what's the cost.

The crap on the front page was just that... crap.

[justonemoreboatplease]

Seaworthiness?

What happens in a squall? Would you take a wingsail boat to the Roaring Forties? Places where a bare pole is more than one would want up, much less...

OK, so its clear I'll call BS on both sides...

Dude, what rock do you live under? Wing walker sailed through a North Atlantic hurricane while crossing the pond something like a decade ago and did just fine.

[Wing sail]

Seaworthiness?

What happens in a squall? Would you take a wingsail boat to the Roaring Forties? Places where a bare pole is more than one would want up, much less...

well I would suggest longer bows and t-foil rudders for something like that in the death zone, control through speed up until the death part

Yes if someone would fund me in a racing version I will sail it around the world in the worst time of the year to see what it can do............ I don’t mind being a test monkey
ok
I spoke with the folks at www.harborwingtech.com and this what they had to say
a 48' from Morrelli & Melvin would do 20knts in 20knts faster if you wanted depending on Materials used all for a $1,500,000
and that includes the tooling, custom design, built in the USA, with all those Giz mos now that will keep up with a Gun Boat
So all they are offering with the testing done on this project the price does not seam to bad
What Do you all think ?

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[Wing sail]

Yes and one more thing
solar film
they are working with www.powerfilmsolar.com to cover the wings with solar panels, I just checked it out and it seems like they have teamed up with another great suplier

[Scarecrow]

Would you stop talking in the third person. You've made 4 posts on SA and they're all in this thread. Its pretty clear where your allegance lies.

[Wing sail]

Would you stop talking in the third person. You've made 4 posts on SA and they're all in this thread. Its pretty clear where your allegance lies.

Thank You, Scarecrow
but I am asking questions , I want to know , learn, seak advise from others
I think a thread is to ask questions and get answers. DOES someone else OUT THERE have a WING??
like M&M if so show me Please, yes Wings have been around for yearsbut know one has done what Harbor Wing is doing if there is someone else tell me
I want a winged powered boat

[Scarecrow]

http://www.solarsail.../technology.htm

[St. Phoquallyall]

Dude, what rock do you live under? Wing walker sailed through a North Atlantic hurricane while crossing the pond something like a decade ago and did just fine.

Asshat: it is a reasonable question. If you can't explain it, just say. Otherwise why don't you be decent enough to just direct me to a link where I can read this story.

[overlay]

Can't wait to get out to the party tonight. Lord, I need a drink.

Don't know why this thread pisses me off so much but its just another example of the BS that SA has become.

Geeze,

In FTA we have ED calling a guys employer because the dude was follwing the rules... crybaby ass!

In SA Clean is forever coming up with documents from LIS and then C&C and then... hats off for the front page note on the interference thing though.

In OA we have fools like Richie/truth or whatever sock puppet the idiot uses this week.

In CA we had DT

In MA we had IF taking a piss on people

In ACA... well the AC is nuts so what can you expect?

And now this.

HEY WING DING... I CALL BULLSHIT.

How much did you pay for the crap on the front page?

Love how you highlight M&M and not mention Harbor... M&M has virtually no mention of this on its website.

Exactly what is M&M's involvement? Tell me, how many crusing or racing cats, or tris, or monos has Harbor designed and launched?

While you are at it, I think its safe to assume that most anyone posting here knows that wings are more efficient than soft sails. And yes, they work. Like I said, Wingwalker or whatever way back in the what 80s, or 90s? Stars and Stripes. A-cats. We get it. Wings work. Now, can you tell me why wing technology is suddenly so great on a offshore cruising or racing boat? Why did Wingwalker fail? What does Harbor bring that is new in terms of wing technology?

What I really want to know about which would be new is the solar power aspect. Tell us all about the cost of the lightweight solar panel fabric that will make up the wing...how much $ per square foot? What kind of power generation can I expect? How big of a battery bank and how much will it weigh to store all this cheap free energy?

Oh and finally, yes, you are soooo right. Fly or sail by wire is certainly the way to go. Sailors absolutely hate tillers and wheels and would so prefer a freaking joystick. I mean, sailing a Wingwalker was not the sterile experience I have ever had but it sure came close.

Look, I am not trying to be an ass but come on. Wing technology has been around for years... no decades. What's new about you? If you really do have a cheap way of covering wingsails with solar power fabric/panels then give some numbers. How much power, how much weight, and what's the cost.

The crap on the front page was just that... crap.

Yep, , bring back the mizzen tops'ls, I say.

[Mid]

hi blunted and Wing sail ,

can't help but think of the vid of the boys trying to slow 'Enza' down off the bottom of NZ , you guys seen it ?

comments ?

[robertmackeralman]

Hehehe, a cheap thin film solar panel would be a much more impressive innovation than the wingsail itself...
Anyway, that reminds me of something I always wanted to know about wingsails...
... how do you reef such thing???

planes can fly at a 100knots. A wing has less resistance than a stayed mast.

[codezero]

planes can fly at a 100knots. A wing has less resistance than a stayed mast.

As I said above, I know very well they do... But as I understand, a "reefed" wingsail behaves somewhat like a wind vane... I've seen wind vanes on strong weather, and I'm not reassured...

But heck, if, as justonemoreboat said, wing-whathisname sails through hurricanes all the time, then I guess it's all right.

[justonemoreboatplease]

[quote name='Wing sail' post='2115216' date='Jan 30 2009, 04:28 PM'][quote name='Scarecrow' post='2115208' date='Jan 30 2009, 07:21 PM']Would you stop talking in the third person. You've made 4 posts on SA and they're all in this thread. Its pretty clear where your allegance lies.[/quote]


Thank You, Scarecrow
but I am asking questions , I want to know , learn, seak advise from others
I think a thread is to ask questions and get answers. DOES someone else OUT THERE have a WING??
like M&M if so show me Please, yes Wings have been around for yearsbut know one has done what Harbor Wing is doing if there is someone else tell me
I want a winged powered boat
[/quote]

How informative. Now I can see why it rates a front page mention.

[quote name='Lew_Sipfher' post='2114692' date='Jan 30 2009, 11:40 AM']Spam, spam, spam, spam,
Spam, spam, spam, spam,
wonderful spam,
beautiful spam...[/quote]

Yep.

[quote name='Lew_Sipfher' post='2115338' date='Jan 30 2009, 06:05 PM'][quote name='justonemoreboatplease' post='2115174' date='Jan 30 2009, 05:53 PM']Dude, what rock do you live under? Wing walker sailed through a North Atlantic hurricane while crossing the pond something like a decade ago and did just fine.[/quote]

Asshat: it is a reasonable question. If you can't explain it, just say. Otherwise why don't you be decent enough to just direct me to a link where I can read this story.
[/quote]

The theory is stated in the thread by many. Weathervane. Less resistance than conventional stayed rig. Can you read? I have no clue where the link to the story is. I'm not the one pimping this thing. It was some time ago. Maybe even before Mr. Gore invented the internet.

[quote name='codezero' post='2115516' date='Jan 30 2009, 10:21 PM'][quote name='robertmackeralman' post='2115484' date='Jan 31 2009, 03:33 AM']planes can fly at a 100knots. A wing has less resistance than a stayed mast.[/quote]
As I said above, I know very well they do... But as I understand, a "reefed" wingsail behaves somewhat like a wind vane... I've seen wind vanes on strong weather, and I'm not reassured...

But heck, if, as justonemoreboat said, wing-whathisname sails through hurricanes all the time, then I guess it's all right.
[/quote]

Not sure what more you guys want. The theory of why it SHOULD work is explained in the thread. The fact that the boat crossed the Atlantic and survived a hurricane on the crossing is a fact.

I was not aboard for the crossing but did "sail" - its actually as far from sailing as anything I have ever done - the boat in breeze. I was amazed how well the theory worked... the rig would adjust as fast as the boat changed aspect in breeze. The wing was contained within the length and width of the trimaran platform so it could be placed in slip. Did not need a mooring. But is was also slow. Maybe it was conservative (heavy) platform build, maybe it was conservative (small) rig size but it was slow compared to other multis I sailed at the time... especially downwind.

Anyway, I still don't get the front page merit of this.

If Wing Ding wants a wingsail boat he can go buy one. There are a few for sale. No doubt its the future and will be as good an investment as the stock market.

If we want to talk wing technology, what is so new here? Why is it suddenly the perfect cruising platform? Anybody...

The solar aspect (if high output, affordable cost, and reasonable weight - its on the wing up high remember) would be new if its for real but nothing yet seems to suggest it is. Numbers anyone?

[Cats Rule]

http://www.yachtworl.../United-Kingdom

Sat there watching this things wing flap back and forth at Saxon Warph a few weeks back, don't seem to have caught on much.

I wouldn't want to be sat in any of these winged boats in storm......

[Ned]

having watched this thing develop from the first model in Mark's Rolls shop many moons ago to seeing the prototype wing sailing around in Pearl Harbor from my office and talked with him at length along the way it's quite amazing what's been accomplished with the automated sailing feature. Wait until the foiling tri gets built.

BTW the older version of this was previously on SA prior to the new forum so for anybody who doesn't remember fuck off newbies.... Glad that's out of the way.

[harryproa]

G'day,

One of my clients has been working on a similar idea for a while.
see http://harryproa.com/gallery.htm then click on "proposed 18/12m with wing sail", then "external view". The other quick time views are also worth a look.

The engineering for this boat is almost complete, then the build will be put out to tender. Should be a fun project and boat.

The owner commented that it is also "fly by wire", but as he does not trust electronics (he works with them on a daily basis) the wire is reliable, easily repalced Teleflex Morse push-pull wire.

regards,

Rob

[codezero]

planes can fly at a 100knots. A wing has less resistance than a stayed mast.

As I said above, I know very well they do... But as I understand, a "reefed" wingsail behaves somewhat like a wind vane... I've seen wind vanes on strong weather, and I'm not reassured...

But heck, if, as justonemoreboat said, wing-whathisname sails through hurricanes all the time, then I guess it's all right.

Not sure what more you guys want. The theory of why it SHOULD work is explained in the thread. The fact that the boat crossed the Atlantic and survived a hurricane on the crossing is a fact.

Hm, did I sound like I was asking for more?
I was just pointing that I've seen weathervanes rotate widely under strong winds, the "it just works as a huge weathervane" does not reassure me too much... BUT, if the boat DID cross hurricanes, then I'm more convinced.

[BeachbumII]

with 2 seconds of thinking I come up with 3 problems.

The wing blocks the sunbathing when you are moored.
The wing will be noisy turning around all night long if you are tied to a dock
You cannot dock next to a sailboat or a high motorboat. If the wind turns, those guideflaparms ( or whatever ) will be caught on the next boat. Probably you can only anchor with the boat.

[St. Phoquallyall]

one boat, one hurricane, so what? We all get lucky once.

more statistics please

[Wing sail]

G'day,

One of my clients has been working on a similar idea for a while.
see http://harryproa.com/gallery.htm then click on "proposed 18/12m with wing sail", then "external view". The other quick time views are also worth a look.

The engineering for this boat is almost complete, then the build will be put out to tender. Should be a fun project and boat.

The owner commented that it is also "fly by wire", but as he does not trust electronics (he works with them on a daily basis) the wire is reliable, easily repalced Teleflex Morse push-pull wire.

regards,

Rob

with 2 seconds of thinking I come up with 3 problems.

The wing blocks the sunbathing when you are moored.
The wing will be noisy turning around all night long if you are tied to a dock
You cannot dock next to a sailboat or a high motorboat. If the wind turns, those guideflaparms ( or whatever ) will be caught on the next boat. Probably you can only anchor with the boat.

harrypoa...... thanks for posting this is what I wanted from the thread.. all about wing questions and answers, Ideas, thoughts, input

Beachbum.............. sunbath in the nude you will get more Sun,.............. Noisy. from what I hear it will be quieter than a normal rig.................... Harbor Wing`s wing will not go past the beam of the boat and can rotate 360 degrees so the claim

more info for us all
http://flapdoodledin...L/Wingsail.html

I glad we have cars other wise wagons and sails !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Attached Files

•  350px_Sail_wagon_edit1.jpg   22.18K   23 downloads

[blunted]

hi blunted and Wing sail ,

can't help but think of the vid of the boys trying to slow 'Enza' down off the bottom of NZ , you guys seen it ?

comments ?

Comments, hmmm, well if you take something into the deep dark ocean you're likely to get your ass kicked occassionally. I don't know for sure you could survive in the thing, thats a function of the stability of the platform, to the windage of what's up in the air, reagradless of what type of thing it is, carbon tube with wires holding it up, wing on a stick, or a windmill made of popsicle sticks and used condoms, who really cares?

What I do know is you can make a wing really low resistance in the breeze. What I also know is that if you allow it to weather vane, e.g. completely free wheeling 360 turning capability, you might stand a chance in a lot of crazy conditions. In the c-cat, we don;t have that benefit because we have shrouds and they keep the wing from truely weather vaning. So if the breeze starts to honk above our designed wind speed limit (20 knots true) we have limited options, one is to anchor, or equivilant tethered off the tender, two is to sail uphill slowly. We can keep it under control with a full flattened wing in a lot of breeze if we simply head upwind slowly. Let the top twist where it wants within 5 degrees also helps. That is our escape plan if we ever get creamed by a squall or similar conditions, even if it means sailing across the lake till we get to a weather shore, its better that contemplating any kind of gybe in 25 knot plus conditions.

If we bear away in those conditions, frankly its fucking scary, we go stupidly fast and then all of a sudden your bows feels about 80% too short because she really wants to pitch pole. Having a 45 foot tall rig on a 25 foot long boat will do that, especially when you carve all reserve bouancy out of it. Its 50% less scary with decent rudder foils, but christ, you are still going really fast with the wing thing flattened against the shrouds.

So pitching moment relative to the platform stability is really critical. I was not being facetious when I said just drop a sea anchor and bob along with the thing weather vaning, at that point it would not matter if your hulls were pointed downhill or uphill, as long as your wing was to leeward of the sea anchor, it could presumably hang in there if the platform was reasonably stable. Sounds like a good experiment actually. I just so happen to have a 5 foot tall wing in the basement I was going to put on a one tack wonder for speed trials, but I should try the sea anchor thing one day to see what happens to it in big seas a stupid breeze. At least I know it would not flog itself to death like a fabric rig.

The one thing missing in this equation is spinnakers etc. If you are a racer, the bottom line is you throw up as much sail as the rules and conditions allow to go as fast as you can handle. C-class wings evolved because 300 sq ft is frankly not enough to go downhill fast on a 25 foot cat, so they simply optimize what you've got. so if a cruisy boat has a wing to make it go nice, in a lot of conditions, it may well be that no it does not go as fast downhill as some soft sailed wonder that can throw up an acre of canvas when they feel like it. Last I checked however that was not waht the guys are designing for. It strikes me they are shooting for #1, Ease of handling, halyards and heavy sheets loads are the worst part of cruising, so score one for thw wing there. 2. Ease of handling and reasonably quick, again, one for the wing, most of the time, 3. Fly by wire, again, the wing looks pretty good by that measure, its a lot easier for a computer to suss out what angle to stick a wing at to make it generate power properly than it is for a computer to figure out a proper sheeting angle for all conditions.

I have no doubt it (wing) would be more expensive, could be made faster by any number of means, and could be a pain to deal with in a few circumstances. But as far as I can tell it is successful against the design criteria laid out by the design build team. Sure other things could be cheaper, faster, perhaps more relaibel, but they would also have all the same drawbacks that every other string, sticks and fabric set ups out there today.

So I applaud there efforts at A. Trying something new, B. Trying it out for different uses, C. Not listening to whining little conservative faggots and luddites who piss on any idea they did not think of or that does not fit there limited view of the sailing universe.

I have no doubt there is plenty of totally legit criticisms of this boat / concept, particularly in extreme conditions. I know I have my own, but for what it is, it looks pretty cool and might really work the way they say it does.

Bravo to harbor wing,

[BeachbumII]

Harbor Wing`s wing will not go past the beam of the boat and can rotate 360 degrees so the claim

At least the wing in the picture wont do so.

[Wing sail]

Harbor Wing`s wing will not go past the beam of the boat and can rotate 360 degrees so the claim

At least the wing in the picture wont do so.

sorry for not being clear the tail section retracts in so the wing will not go past the beam and they say that will let it luff freely and if you want to reef they said let the Top part of there wing luff and trim the lower half

[Y-Bar]

Harbor Wing`s wing will not go past the beam of the boat and can rotate 360 degrees so the claim

At least the wing in the picture wont do so.

sorry for not being clear the tail section retracts in so the wing will not go past the beam and they say that will let it luff freely and if you want to reef they said let the Top part of there wing luff and trim the lower half

If you are out in the middle of the ocean and one of those many wing connections or wingletts break how do you go up or out on the wing to fix it.

[blunted]

Harbor Wing`s wing will not go past the beam of the boat and can rotate 360 degrees so the claim

At least the wing in the picture wont do so.

sorry for not being clear the tail section retracts in so the wing will not go past the beam and they say that will let it luff freely and if you want to reef they said let the Top part of there wing luff and trim the lower half

If you are out in the middle of the ocean and one of those many wing connections or wingletts break how do you go up or out on the wing to fix it.

You don't, you let a little robot you charged up with those nifty solar panels go and fix it a-las R2D2

[Cats Rule]

Harbor Wing`s wing will not go past the beam of the boat and can rotate 360 degrees so the claim

At least the wing in the picture wont do so.

sorry for not being clear the tail section retracts in so the wing will not go past the beam and they say that will let it luff freely and if you want to reef they said let the Top part of there wing luff and trim the lower half

If you are out in the middle of the ocean and one of those many wing connections or wingletts break how do you go up or out on the wing to fix it.

You don't, you let a little robot you charged up with those nifty solar panels go and fix it a-las R2D2

AKA your stuffed, nice. Chandleries better start selling wing repair kits

[Y-Bar]

Harbor Wing`s wing will not go past the beam of the boat and can rotate 360 degrees so the claim

At least the wing in the picture wont do so.

sorry for not being clear the tail section retracts in so the wing will not go past the beam and they say that will let it luff freely and if you want to reef they said let the Top part of there wing luff and trim the lower half

If you are out in the middle of the ocean and one of those many wing connections or wingletts break how do you go up or out on the wing to fix it.

You don't, you let a little robot you charged up with those nifty solar panels go and fix it a-las R2D2

You will need to come up with something better that that if you think you are going to flog these things in the multi market

[Wing sail]

nasayers pundents

ask M&M or Harbor Wing your self............................. I did
I also know about walker,poa,omar, and a host of others that are trying to make it work
there is one thing........................ I believe all these wings cam be RETROed on any cat
if you wanted

[Steve Clark]

DOES someone else OUT THERE have a WING??

Why yes I have a wing. I have had one for some time and am building another in a little bit.
I know the developers of the Harbor Wing and most of the other people who have designed and built successful wing sails for a number of boats.
If you really wanted to ask me, I see no reason why a wing cannot survive around the world voyaging with the same reliability and safety of any other sailing rig. You have to get past a few pretty significant misconceptions however.
SHC

[vmg]

DOES someone else OUT THERE have a WING??

Why yes I have a wing. I have had one for some time and am building another in a little bit.
I know the developers of the Harbor Wing and most of the other people who have designed and built successful wing sails for a number of boats.
If you really wanted to ask me, I see no reason why a wing cannot survive around the world voyaging with the same reliability and safety of any other sailing rig. You have to get past a few pretty significant misconceptions however.
SHC

steve,
I don't think that anyone has too much of a problem with sailing with a wing. you have proved that it is the most efficient way to go.

the hang-ups come when the trip is over and the boat is left unattended. What's the longest that you have let yours without a minder?

[Peter Johnstone]

Great to see people pushing the boundaries with free thinking. God bless Walker and all of the other wing nuts. Very cool ideas and possibilities. If it does work in practice, it will take a marketing genius to undo the damage of the Walker efforts. When I co-created the retractable bowsprit, a very simple idea, it still took years to gain acceptance in the marketplace. Wish I patented that for the years I did starve. This harbor wing sail is a much bigger idea to swallow and accept.

It is not so great to see M&M ripping off the Gunboat look in various non-Gunboat projects. Not happy.

Always thought the C-Class could use some downwind sails. They do not look special in VMG downwind mode. Limited sail area. I understand all the efficiency etc, but couldn't those C wings benefit from a big screecher for VMG downwind? How does a C compare to the formerly Olympic Tornado for VMG?

[fredo]

Always thought the C-Class could use some downwind sails. They do not look special in VMG downwind mode. Limited sail area. I understand all the efficiency etc, but couldn't those C wings benefit from a big screecher for VMG downwind? How does a C compare to the formerly Olympic Tornado for VMG?

Peter,

Sure a C Class would probably benefit their downwind VMG by hoisting a big screecher, but the class rule limits sail area to 300 square feet, and we choose to put that all in the wing. So if you hoisted 750 extra square feet, sure you might go faster downwind, but you wouldn't be a C Class. In the same way, my International 14 would go better if I added two feet to the beam, and two feet to the length, and a wee bit of sail area while I'm at it, but it wouldn't be a 14. Or perhaps a J-105 that was a lot like my C Cat would be quicker, but it's then not a J-105.

So many of the interesting developments in any class come precisely because of the limitations imposed by the class rules and then, as you well know, if they have further merit they are often picked up in other applications.

I don't know how our C Cat would go downwind against a 2008 Tornado. they have more sail area, but we have a better rig. We have longer, lighter hulls, but our gybing angles are not as good. I suspect we'd do fine if both boats went around the whole course. But that's not the point. We'd probably lose to a Volvo Extreme 40, or an ORMA tri, and surely we'd lose a race against Speed Rocket on their course in their conditions. We usually beat the local Lasers. They are all different boats, but if they have as much fun with their sailing as we do with ours, then everybody is going home with a smile.

Fred

[Steve Clark]

I never leave Cogito unattended with the wing up.
But I never leave any boat unattended with the sail up.
As Blunted suggests, the problem with C Cats is that they have shrouds and they weigh next to nothing.
In many ways, the C Cat is the dumbest place to perfect the wing because of the limits imposed by the no minimum weight and the need to be a catamaran.
Free stand the wing and let it rotate 360 and life gets much more sedate.
Patient Lady 2, which had a 360 spinning wing, lived for the entire season with the wing up. The boat was staked down and the wing just took care of itself, feathering into the wind.
Once when they were caught out in a big squall they ran off under "bare poles" that is with the wing oriented 180 degrees to the bow, went down wind at about 7 knots in 30 knots of breeze.
So I think there is hope.
The problem I see with doing this on a multi hull is that there is a specific limit to tipping over, and in 70 knots, it doesn't take much of an angle of attack to tip the boat over.
So you might need to have some sort of spoilers for storm conditions, or decide that a ballasted mono hull might have better survivability when coupled with a wing sail.
But this is a multi hull thread, so I can't start talking about canting keels and wing sails, but that is what I am thinking....
SHC

[Peter Johnstone]

Fred, understand a little about the class stuff. My mind just wandering about the overall effectiveness of the wing, and how it stacks up with the T. Wouldn't you be curious to try adding a screecher and seeing just what would happen with that combo on the C?

Steve, I visited an interesting former Israeli fighter pilot and engineer in Turkey a year or so ago. He had fitted a conventional keelboat with a freestanding wing mast. The wing was a hoistable soft sail mounted around carbon hoops that created the leading edge. The wing could be hoisted and lowered. It's asymmetry shifted from tack to tack. The kinks were not ironed out completely, but I thought that combination was really interesting on the keelboat. Not too far off what you describe, but with the added feature of being able to drop the sail.

[Steve Clark]

This Guy?
I have seen what has been published on the web about this effort, and it has some merit. I'm not sure it really gets ball all the way to the goal line however.
In my plan going sailing is as simple as hooking the sheet to the boom.
I would probably move toward a wing that was actually larger in area than the comparative soft rig.

With regard to adding sail area to the C Class, this has been done, with predictable results. The boat sails deeper on the runs at the same speed. Not much of a surprise there. If you could count on adding lots of area, you could/ would not worry as much about the high lift requirements and would have a very clean ( probably unslotted) flapped foil with a high aspect ratio. This would be very fast upwind and would rely on the extra area for down wing performance.
When we considered a class rule change to allow down wind sails, we recognized that the wings would not go away, but the boats would just become even more expensive because you would have to have spinnakers as well.
It seems that the limited sail area class is a hard sale these days. I personally thing that trying to get the most grunt out of a square foot is an "problem worthy of attack." Buying more yard goods on the other hand is too much like eating fried eggs with a spoon.

[IC youth movement]

This old girl has been sitting on a mooring with its wing up down in Mexico somewhere since the cup:

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=krEkR85o6tM

One hell of a tourist ride.

[blunted]

Lying at anchor, for god knows how long, hey wait, it's still upright, after god knows how long!

 SS_at_anchor_in_Mexico_001.jpg   875.45K   199 downloads

[fredo]

Fred, understand a little about the class stuff. My mind just wandering about the overall effectiveness of the wing, and how it stacks up with the T. Wouldn't you be curious to try adding a screecher and seeing just what would happen with that combo on the C?

Peter,

You know more about "the class stuff" than I do, so I am sorry to have been a bit jumpy but, to me, the lack of sail area is virtually the defining feature of the C Class. That, and a few guys who got a bit too excited about overcoming the problem and started building wings.

Sure, I've wondered what it would be like, especially when we started in the class. I think about it a lot less now. First comes the screecher. How big? Now, if we just tweaked those bows, and quick as a flash I'm designing a new boat and asking myself what limit will I impose on this new baby? Size? That's as arbitrary as 300 square feet. Cost alone? I don't worry about adding downwind area any more. I really enjoy sailing the C. (Well, who wouldn't?) It's a lovely boat with a pretty neat solution to having so little sail area, and it works awfully well.

And like you, I definitely wonder, from time to time, how we would stack up with a modern T Cat downwind in different conditions. I'd be curious to find out. If I do, I'll report back.

Fred

[Wing sail]

This Guy?
I have seen what has been published on the web about this effort, and it has some merit. I'm not sure it really gets ball all the way to the goal line however.
In my plan going sailing is as simple as hooking the sheet to the boom.
I would probably move toward a wing that was actually larger in area than the comparative soft rig.

With regard to adding sail area to the C Class, this has been done, with predictable results. The boat sails deeper on the runs at the same speed. Not much of a surprise there. If you could count on adding lots of area, you could/ would not worry as much about the high lift requirements and would have a very clean ( probably unslotted) flapped foil with a high aspect ratio. This would be very fast upwind and would rely on the extra area for down wing performance.
When we considered a class rule change to allow down wind sails, we recognized that the wings would not go away, but the boats would just become even more expensive because you would have to have spinnakers as well.
It seems that the limited sail area class is a hard sale these days. I personally thing that trying to get the most grunt out of a square foot is an "problem worthy of attack." Buying more yard goods on the other hand is too much like eating fried eggs with a spoon.

Fred, understand a little about the class stuff. My mind just wandering about the overall effectiveness of the wing, and how it stacks up with the T. Wouldn't you be curious to try adding a screecher and seeing just what would happen with that combo on the C?

Peter,

You know more about "the class stuff" than I do, so I am sorry to have been a bit jumpy but, to me, the lack of sail area is virtually the defining feature of the C Class. That, and a few guys who got a bit too excited about overcoming the problem and started building wings.

Sure, I've wondered what it would be like, especially when we started in the class. I think about it a lot less now. First comes the screecher. How big? Now, if we just tweaked those bows, and quick as a flash I'm designing a new boat and asking myself what limit will I impose on this new baby? Size? That's as arbitrary as 300 square feet. Cost alone? I don't worry about adding downwind area any more. I really enjoy sailing the C. (Well, who wouldn't?) It's a lovely boat with a pretty neat solution to having so little sail area, and it works awfully well.

And like you, I definitely wonder, from time to time, how we would stack up with a modern T Cat downwind in different conditions. I'd be curious to find out. If I do, I'll report back.

Fred

Peter,Steve, Fred

Thank you for posting .......this is what the thread is about I do hope you will contribute again


Regards
Wingsail

[blunted]

So I applaud there efforts at A. Trying something new, B. Trying it out for different uses, C. Not listening to whining little conservative faggots and luddites who piss on any idea they did not think of or that does not fit there limited view of the sailing universe.




So after mulling it over for a few days I have to apologize for my use of language in repsect of this post. It was unfair to my friends, associates and emoployees who are gay to use the term faggots in such as way. Most of them are bold enough to embrace challenging thoughts and brave new ideas in a way the people I was flaming would not, and to associate them in this way was inappropriate. So I humbly apologize for that.

Also I must apologize to Fred as I would not want to bring his wonderful c-class program into disrepute due to my bad behaviour.

Cheers

Flame on!

[nroose]

Seems to me that there should be many ways to make a wing sail more seaworthy.

One would be to have it be retractable. Fold it down to the deck.

Another would be that since wings are so efficient, have one that has the same power as a sail you might use on that boat, and it will be much smaller.

Also, the loads on the sheets will be much less, which will make heavy weather easier. And since you will be faster, you can sail out of danger more easily.

Surely, though, a wing will be heavier than a sail.

[notallthere]

how about an OTIP (c-class) style wing on an open 60?

would it be feasable to lock it horizontal while at rest?

boat is too heavy to just "take off"

[Big Show]

Surely, though, a wing will be heavier than a sail.

Yes, but it's an apples to oranges comparison. You need to account for the combined weight of the mast and sails when comparing the 'traditional' set up to a wing.

Even if you are able to rotate the mast (a la IMOCA 60) the wing is still more efficient/weight... And it's oh-so-quiet.

Based on my very unscientific observation, a soft sail set-up would prove superior to a wing in very light DDW sailing (which is no fun anyway). Additionally the traditional set up would be nice at 40 degrees south in an IMOCA 60 or VO 70 when it's blowing 50+ and you need to reduce canvas while still keeping in mind you're "racing."

BTW, it is possible to put a wing in the piss and race the next day. YMMV.

[Swell Guy]

Hehehe, a cheap thin film solar panel would be a much more impressive innovation than the wingsail itself...
Anyway, that reminds me of something I always wanted to know about wingsails...
... how do you reef such thing???

Well for all the cynics this is my short reply, as an avid fan of wings and a guy who has used them a little bit I will speak in their defence. If you don't know why I like wings use the little search button thingy up in the corner on my name "blunted"

Drag: Actually it has way less drag, all the time, Plain and simple square foot for square foot, a decent wing, Which I am sure if Duncan has anything to do with it, it is, has about twice the power and half the drag of a regular sail and mast set up period. Thats what makes them so nice to use. It probably has the same or less drag than a round section of mast of the same thickness and height (Granted that is pretty thick)

At the mooring, weather vaning is indeed the way to go. No doubt there is engineering challenges making it stand up and work pretty all the time, but weather vaing really does work. I would imagine the tail feather on it keeps it from "luffing" or getting into an oscillating feedback loop, so it could be kept settled down very easily in that configuration.

Reefing: You simply take out the camber in the wing, meaning the angle between the front and back element of the main wing section, make her flat and you de-power considerably then just ease the sheet thingy or in this case re-trim their tail feathers I guess as main sheets are passe in this set up.

I cannot tell you how great it is to sail a boat with a wing sail, only 4 lines and you can have all the control over your power etc that any soft sail mast combo needs twice as many controls to achieve. Twist, camber, leach twist and angle of attack and whamo, you have it all. No traveller, no no vang, no halyards, no worrying about rig tension except to keep the boat from racking all the time, its so much cleaner.

Methinks from looking at this rendering that they have foregone the Cogito / Alpha style internal twisting carbon spar in favour of something with less sophisticated twist control, which would make it potentially lighter and easier to build strong, but its tough to say without seeing it in action.

Suffice to say for a few years we too have been thinking about autonomous vehicles with wings and I myself get concerned mostly about hurricane force winds and how to deal with those. Easiest would be to deploy a sea anchor off the bow and let the thing weather vane to leeward of the anchor and ride it out. With a fat ass platform under the wing like they have here that thing is not in a rush to get upside down unlike a C-class balancing act.


Signed: Wingnut

I don't know if you are the same "Wingnut" that I'm thinking about, but if you are, people should listen to you. I am thinking of the Dirt Sailor, who built "Wingnut" a class 3 & 4 winning land sailer out of wood and sailing with hard wings for some years now. There is an excellent video on You Tube from the cockpit and also an article about him, his boat and his homebuilt wind tunnel in Wooden Boat Magazine a few months ago.
As a side note to the other story on SA about "Blockhead"... another team of "Wooden Anarchists" featured last year in "Wooden Boat" built a really sweet coldmolded dinghy with a very nice and current twist on the gaff rig in carbon. Don't laugh at a gaff rig too quickly... it was reefable, with very advanced twist control for the sail head and was designed and built to cut to windward very efficiently. The boat was built lighter than 'glass and with much less waste than carbon... check it out. _/)

[blunted]

Hehehe, a cheap thin film solar panel would be a much more impressive innovation than the wingsail itself...
Anyway, that reminds me of something I always wanted to know about wingsails...
... how do you reef such thing???

Signed: Wingnut

I don't know if you are the same "Wingnut" that I'm thinking about, but if you are, people should listen to you. I am thinking of the Dirt Sailor, who built "Wingnut" a class 3 & 4 winning land sailer out of wood and sailing with hard wings for some years now. There is an excellent video on You Tube from the cockpit and also an article about him, his boat and his homebuilt wind tunnel in Wooden Boat Magazine a few months ago.
As a side note to the other story on SA about "Blockhead"... another team of "Wooden Anarchists" featured last year in "Wooden Boat" built a really sweet coldmolded dinghy with a very nice and current twist on the gaff rig in carbon. Don't laugh at a gaff rig too quickly... it was reefable, with very advanced twist control for the sail head and was designed and built to cut to windward very efficiently. The boat was built lighter than 'glass and with much less waste than carbon... check it out. _/)

No, I am a generic wingnut, meaning I am simply nuts about wings, that's all. You could probably shorten it to I am simply nuts.


some shots of OTIP, just to keep things fresh and lively here.

 otip1.jpg   26.3K   257 downloads

 otip2.jpg   31.77K   120 downloads

 otip3.jpg   94.67K   108 downloads


That had to suck for those guys.

[MR.CLEAN]

Hey blunted, can you tell us more about that boat?

[codezero]

Nice pics Blunted.
Is the wing more or less prone to breakage during capsizes (when compared to a traditional rig)?

[MauganNacra20]

I believe Ben Hall capsized his hard-wing'd A class at the worlds a year ago and didn't sustain any damage.

[catgirl]

There are enough 2-up spinnaker Tornados that the basic (non-wind speed adjusted) Multihull Portsmouth Number of 59.0 should be pretty well established. The 1-up old Tornado basic rating is 63.9 for a difference of 4.9.
http://www.ussailing.../tables08mh.asp

There aren't enough C-Class Cat data points for the inactive classes Portsmouth Numbers at the inactive classes list at http://www.ussailing...ables08mh-I.asp to have the basic rating brackets removed, but old Portsmouth Numbers for older C-Classes might still give an idea of whether a C-Class could beat a modern Tornado.
Old C-Class basic ratings are lasted as,
C Class w/Reacher (51.7)
C Class (Custom) (72.5)
C Class (Wing Mast) (57.7)
C Class Cat (Soft, Uni) [60.5]

So, it seems an old winged C Class with a 57.7 rating "should" beat a modern Tornado with a 59.0 rating around a course. The ratings are pretty close though, so maybe the modern Tornado might be faster downwind and slower upwind, however I would suspect that recent C Class Cats are a fair bit faster than the older styles which may have been included in the inactive classes of the Portsmouth Database.
I would suspect that the most recent C Class Cats are sufficiently faster that they would beat a modern Tornado downwind.

Interesting to see how much faster the inactive C-Class with a Reacher is rated. You would expect that such a boat is not a C Class anymore because of added sail area of the reacher, but there must be some data points in the database to suggest that a reacher added to an older C Class Cat is faster than an older C Class without a reacher.

What is not in the database is how much faster recent C Class Cats/wings are than the 57.7 base rating shown.

That said, throwing up mountains of cloth to get better VMG deep downwind in a breeze seems a crude solution compared to the elegance of a modern wing.

[blunted]

Nice pics Blunted.
Is the wing more or less prone to breakage during capsizes (when compared to a traditional rig)?

When I speak of my fear going downhill in a breeze it has nothing to do with serious personal injury due to a wipe out, it has everything to do with letting the wing get anywhere near the water. Period, full stop.

Our wings are extremely fragile. This is a function of the class rule, or lack there of, for weight. No weight limit means build everything as light as we dare. So when we set a sailing limit of 20 knots true, we mean it, because she is really not designed to be taken out in anything much more than that at all. Above 25 knots you can see parts starting to fall of the wing and then it gets ugly very fast and Fred starts seeing a wildly accumulating bill for all the work required to fix it.

Getting upside down, or sideways for that matter would cost about the same as the replacement cost of my house should it burn down. I don't live in a tent either, I have a perfectly nice home in downtown Toronto. You could get yourself a very nice little Farr 40 program for the cost of one of the wings we use. So wipe outs are the ultimate no-no for us.

That having been said, we have dropped the rig on PL VI 3 times in the last 4 years, all due to rigging failures and in 2007 Jason and Pete dumped the boat doing a double wild thing down hill and in all cases the boat sailed the next day. Simply put, that wing is pretty tough by comparison to the newer wings, and about 40% heavier. Its also more than 20 years old which is a testament to the guys who designed and built and re-built it. So before anyone spouts off about how fragile wings are, its just a function of design, wieght, and approach to building them that really matters. PL still has great bursts of speed too. In fact it has clocked higher outright speeds than Alpha probably due to our caution with Alpha and our faith in PL being such a tough old bird.

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[blunted]

Hey blunted, can you tell us more about that boat?

I don't know too much about it myself other than what I read as a kid.

The theory is pretty straight forward, goes like this...

It has a permanently assymetric foil mounted on a stick, and you flip it from tack to tack. The assy foil is made up of a couple of panels like other C-class wings which allows for huge power generation, downhill in particular. As it is an Assy foil it has higher lift and lower drag than say Alpha's or Cogito's basic multiple-symetric foils because it is optimized for one direction and does not have to turn inside out to work on each tack, it simply gets flipped over. Thus, properly speaking it is a flip-tacker. So it should, pound for pound, square foot for square foot, be more powerful and less draggy than Alpha by comparison.

Unfortunately this design approach has a few draw backs, one is the inability to twist the wing to deal with gradient from top to bottom of the wing. If they had this, it could have potentially been a very potent weapon downhill.

Two, the whole flippy thing, the crew presumably has to pull about 50 feet of "tack line" in through the tack or gybe to flip the thing over. Not so bad given how fast you could pull in a sheet on a big boat, but harder on a platform as unstable as a c-cat. Upwind not too dangerous, downhill in a puff???? Ahh, I would be nervous. The scariest part on a c-cat is always when the wing "hooks up" and kicks into gear, you had best be secured to the boat and right ready to trim that thing out if need be. on O-tip I have trouble imaging how that would work some days.

What else, three, you are suspending your wing about 20' in the air thus moving your COG up consdierably during maneuvers. Not to say it cannot be done, but it ups the risk factor at the worst possible time in your day.

Four, due to the shape, e.g. rectangular you never quite get an optimal vertical distribution of wing area, I still like more down low because it means lower pitching and heeling moment. With this think you have a really fat leech up in the breeze, which is probably great uphill on a nice light day and somewhat scary going downhill at 22 knots.

So I would suggest that the concept has plenty of life left in it. I certainly have more than a few sketches of flip-tacking boats in my pile of ideas, but it has a few liabilities as well.

Also seen here is wingmill, same idea, different team.

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[Peter Johnstone]

Steve, that photo is the rig and boat I tried. If you went solid wing on a keelboat, would you balance it? And go freestanding? I remember watching Eric Hall's J90 with the freestanding wing mast zooming all over the place on a mooring, and that was not even a wing sail. What are your thoughts on solving that situation? Stern moor?

Fred, I understand the technical draw/appeal of the C's. When I have gotten into A's, I always find myself drawn to the pictures of Landy's A sailing with an asym. It simply looks awesome. Very deep and very fast. Maybe it is my 210 lb frame wishing to always be pressed downhill. I never mastered Steve's form of getting the leeward hull out. What was that form called?

Coming back to cruising multis, a bi-plane rig or ketch rig with freestanding wings would really interest me. Having spent a year or two out there just sailing, and many many passages, I really prefer the KISS approach. Things have to be bomb-proof out there. The Harbor wing sail would remove the risk for multi newcomers on a highly powered up platform, so I see real possibilites for its appeal. For me, I think I would want to avoid all things electronic or computer based. If you guys were to do a wing on a crusing multi, what would the surface be fabricated out of to be reliable and to withstand UV? Tedlar?

[Lanikaisailor]

I am a newbie and don’t usually post but thought that someone that has sailed on Harborwing’s “HWT-X1” could add something to the mix. I have been able to help Mark and his team as a safety consultant on many of their tests over the last two years. I am not a rocket scientist but have got to drink cocktails with the two doctors of Aerospace engineering that have worked on the boat. From what I gathered, the wing on HWT-X1 has less drag than a round object or mast 1/10th the size. http://www.soe.ucsc....kaim_config.pdf
The boat has sat out at the dock in many local storms here in Hawaii and done fine. This is dirty gust over 45knots.

Let me first start out by explaining that HWT-X1 is a proof of concept prototype and not meant to show everything that can be done with the technologie. She is a Stiletto 27 extended to 30’ with the stock 14’ beam. She has a 36’ wing that is way too powerful for her needs (David Hubbard is a racer) if you watch closely in the video on http://www.harborwin...oducts_demo.htm you will see that the top four panels don’t even have film on them. She is full of batteries, motors and computers and weighs over 4000lbs (she is a crude prototype, sorry Mark). The boat can still fly a hull. She can sail comfortably up wind at 25degrees of true, feathers at 20 and stalls at above 19.

This boat can sail by itself! It is totally autonomous and shows that the technology is viable. Is it the correct platform for offshore cruising? No, but she has sailed in over 6’-8’ seas with winds up to 42knots apparent and lived to tell about it. I was there watching, and yelling at the engineers to shut if off before it could flip (this was before the computers knew to turn down the thrust in certain conditions and before the load cells where installed.)
On another test, this boats computer system compensated in a strong gusts and adjusted trim so as not to flip a half of a second before the observing sailor on board hit the chicken switch.
Has there ever been another time that a computer has saved a multihull from flipping?
For that matter is there another boat that can tack, jibe, sail backwards, reef, while holding a perfect course without any people involved?
This is a real program with real sailors behind it. Stan Honey still has the speed record with the boat of 13.4knts close reaching.

Everyone asks about hurricanes, and there is some mention of taking one of these into the southern ocean. My opinion is that you could design a G class multi with wings that could handle the task, but most sailors don’t try to go there. Would you take a Moorings 42 down there? Could a wing boat with these technologies survive a hurricane, I think maybe. Not all boats out there now do.

Bottom line is that the wing is easy to use and self trims so that you can concentrate on driving the direction that you want to and not have to worry about the sail trim. This has been hard for sailors to grasp; the direction of travel doesn’t change trim. The wing is always maximized for the angle of attack or thrust desired. It is the fastest way to reef that there is. The wind speed comes up the angle of attack is trimmed down.

Aloha

[rattus32]

Seems to me that there should be many ways to make a wing sail more seaworthy.

One would be to have it be retractable. Fold it down to the deck.

Another would be that since wings are so efficient, have one that has the same power as a sail you might use on that boat, and it will be much smaller.

Also, the loads on the sheets will be much less, which will make heavy weather easier. And since you will be faster, you can sail out of danger more easily.

Surely, though, a wing will be heavier than a sail.

And sure, there are possible solutions to rerf a wingsail (a la the Omer winsail), but that doesn't change the point that in all likelihood the wind sail luffed has *lower* drag than the mast alone!

My guess is that barring near-hurricane winds, you're better off with a wingsail up rather than reefed.

At the extreme end, inertial and possibly shear issues become a factor (i.e the sail can't reorient itself to the wind quickly enough due to mass, or top and bottom are experiencing differing wind directions) and some form of reduction becomes a requirement.

Mike

[FastIdiot]

Coming back to cruising multis, a bi-plane rig or ketch rig with freestanding wings would really interest me. Having spent a year or two out there just sailing, and many many passages, I really prefer the KISS approach. Things have to be bomb-proof out there. The Harbor wing sail would remove the risk for multi newcomers on a highly powered up platform, so I see real possibilites for its appeal. For me, I think I would want to avoid all things electronic or computer based. If you guys were to do a wing on a crusing multi, what would the surface be fabricated out of to be reliable and to withstand UV? Tedlar?

I think the concept of either building a purpose built cruising cat, or properly retro-fitting an FP, Lagoon, or Leopard with a wing. I think this could make a lot of sense for the charter market.

By interfacing the wing controls with the electronics and GPS, you could automate all of the Sailing "Work" and allow the people to focus on the more important things that go on on cruising cats.. !!

The idea of dialing in the software to optimize the wing for the conditions would be cool. You could also set it up so that the initial polars and targets could be updated by the accumulated data so that it could "learn" from the actual performance data.

It could also tap into the power boat market by removing some of the bariers keeping the power boat people out of the sailing market.

Think about it. A newbie can simply jump onto the boat, initiate a pre-programmed "Flight-Plan" and as soon as thet are free of the dock, they could just hit the "Easy" button and fire up the blender.

Assuming the windage in "Vane" mode is less than a conventional rig, this could prove almost idiot-proof.

Add some electric sail drives running off lithium polymer batteries charged up by those groovy solar panels on the winds and on top of the dodger and now you've got something really cool.

Throw all of that on one of Peter's Gunboats, and you just might have something that would get even my attention..

[Steve Clark]

Peter,
Because Blackwing's mast doesn't feather, and because it is big enough to generate a significant amount of lift ( IE driving force) it sails the boat around. If it feathered , this would be less of a problem, but because all the wind never comes from exactly the same direction all of the time, Eric has solved the problem by rotating the mast 90 degrees so it is always stalled. An alternative would be to build in spoilers, like sailplanes have) that could be deployed to kill off the lift, or by having a mesh of something like pool noodles that you would hoist up the wing when not in use. In any event, the wing must be able to freely rotate 360 without hanging up on anything.

The second point is that while it sure would be fun if someone walked up with a few million to build the Grand Experiment, this really isn't the way to figure this stuff out. It would be much better to start small and simple. A 20-30 foot trimaran would probably be the ideal platform. Building wings that are suitably robust for recreational service, at least on the face of it, shouldn't be much of a problem. But I can only say that, I haven't proved it can be done.
The end game, from my perspective, is very attractive. Going sailing would consist of clipping on the sheet and dropping the mooring. In many ways simpler than using a motorboat. There would be no yo-heave-ho stuff, which might be offensive to some, but from the ease of use standpoint the boat would be da bomb.

Another thing to try would be a hybrid yawl. Since the mizzen acts at practically no angle of attack when beating, a wing would be much better. A mizzen basicly never comes down when cruising, and the wing would be a great steadying sail at anchor. And by being further aft, it isn't likely to sail the boat around as much on the mooring. So one could bget some of the benefits and learn more about where the tiger traps are hidden without a whole lot of risk.

SHC

[Kenny Dumas]

Very interesting thread guys, thanks!

Blunted, if you get around to experimenting with what happens downwind in a big blow, would it be too crazy to transfer some of the sea anchor force to the masthead? Imagine for a thougt-experiment that you just tethered a sea anchor from a masthead halyard. Seems a little weird, but it would have to reduce the probability of pitch-poling. A bridle between the masthead and a stern point would be more manageable and allow a reasonable balance of forces.

Anybody ever tried a drogue or sea anchor from an elevated load point?

[Steve Clark]

If your wing goes 360 the best strategy is to feather the thing to 180 ( that is with the trailing edge straight over the bows) ad aim dead down wind. The feathered wing's lack of drag keeps the boat speed slow and running with the wind keeps the apparent wind down as well.
Patient Lady 2, which had a "turn table" that allowed the shrouds to rotate with the wing, was able to ride out a pretty violent squall on LIS this way. Duncan says she blew down wind at about 7 knots in 30+ with no drama.
The next level would be to do the same thing, but with sea anchors or warps if you felt the boat was surfing too fast and was likely to get herself into trouble.
Once again on the C Cats, as long as you can let the wing out to 0 degrees angle of attack, you are fine almost no matter how hard it is blowing. You only get in trouble when the wing is pinned against the shroud. Eliminate the shroud, and we figure your survivability would be as good as any other 350 pound 25' catamaran.
SHC

[Lanikaisailor]

The second point is that while it sure would be fun if someone walked up with a few million to build the Grand Experiment, this really isn't the way to figure this stuff out. It would be much better to start small and simple. A 20-30 foot trimaran would probably be the ideal platform. Building wings that are suitably robust for recreational service, at least on the face of it, shouldn't be much of a problem. But I can only say that, I haven't proved it can be done.
The end game, from my perspective, is very attractive. Going sailing would consist of clipping on the sheet and dropping the mooring. In many ways simpler than using a motorboat. There would be no yo-heave-ho stuff, which might be offensive to some, but from the ease of use standpoint the boat would be da bomb.

Steve, I agree with this, Mark at Harborwing and I were talking about what he could do with the wing on HWT-X1 when they are done with her this year. We were discussing putting the wing on a modified Seacart with custom beams to make it 30x30 and possibly adding some of Bradfield's foils for added stability and the obvious speed potential. What do you think? The project would cost under $500,000, anyone out there got seed money to play? Or is there a Seacart that could be offered up for the experiment?
This should be worked out in a smaller size before scaling up for Gunboats or G class madness.

[Peter Johnstone]

Lanikai, that is interesting reading. Thanks.

Steve, if you were doing this on a cruising cat, how complex would you make the wing? How many elements? Think it needs to twist?

[coxcreek]

From my experience sailing quite large chord wing mast/soft sail rigs, running off in a blow with the sail down and the mast adjusted so that the trailing edge points into the following wind, is a reasonable solution. However you have to be very attentive on the helm (as you are in such conditions) and it goes on for a long time (or until you surf into the lee of some island somewhere) - let the boat veer so that the wind comes onto the beam, and the wing mast will quickly power the boat up. However again, with reduced area aloft, you can handle this - and it is quite exciting (although you don't need anymore adrenalin rush in these situations). I was caught like this in my old Bamboo Bomber Supplejack in savage, swirling white, williwaws coming off Moehau, and we averaged 17 knots with no sail set for half an hour. Often I felt the boat would go over and ran off further and further - and the boat definitely slowed and felt quite safe - other times we were doing 25 knots, carrying only 75 square feet of wing. Steve Clark's solution in having unstayed 360 degree rig revolution, is a better way to go, but the other stayed version does work.

[Steve Clark]

Peter:
I would probably go with a simple flapped section, probably without a slot.
This would be the cleanest possible solution and I would make the area quite generous.
In effect trading on cleanliness rather than maximizing lift potential.
This is the exact opposite of the C Class requirement.
I would incorporate twist and would also count on setting down wind sails for off wind performance.
Lanikaisailor, Seacarts are pretty primo stuff. I don't know how easy it would be to modify them to the task.
I was thinking of something more Newick- Val -like.
SHC

[Lanikaisailor]

Lanikaisailor, Seacarts are pretty primo stuff. I don't know how easy it would be to modify them to the task.
I was thinking of something more Newick- Val -like.
SHC

Steve, we were discussing the Seacart for a base platform for HWT-X1’s wing as it would be about right as far as power to weight goes. I would want to see a test bed that kept a similar power to weight ratio like the Gunboat, or better.
The Seacart is the currant peak of build quality and hull shape. This leaves the experiment with no excuses in performance wing testing.
It has demountable beams and new beams will need to be made to handle the freestanding rig and width to put hydrofoils on. Demountable beams allow the new beams simpler attachment points. The floats on the Seacart should have adequate reserve buoyancy in the bows to handle some “edge” testing.
As far as the Primo price of a Seacart goes, we are talking about an over $1million wing, it would be hard to stomach putting it on a less modern design, its already on a 28year old Stiletto.

[oldsailor]

HO ! HUM !!!

It's all been done before.

Just another one re-inventing the wheel.

This one just seems to come up about every 10 years.

[Steve Clark]

Ok do that then.
It's not my approach but I understand.
SHC

[mad]

Lanikaisailor, Seacarts are pretty primo stuff. I don't know how easy it would be to modify them to the task.
I was thinking of something more Newick- Val -like.
SHC

Steve, we were discussing the Seacart for a base platform for HWT-X1’s wing as it would be about right as far as power to weight goes. I would want to see a test bed that kept a similar power to weight ratio like the Gunboat, or better.
The Seacart is the currant peak of build quality and hull shape. This leaves the experiment with no excuses in performance wing testing.
It has demountable beams and new beams will need to be made to handle the freestanding rig and width to put hydrofoils on. Demountable beams allow the new beams simpler attachment points. The floats on the Seacart should have adequate reserve buoyancy in the bows to handle some “edge” testing.
As far as the Primo price of a Seacart goes, we are talking about an over $1million wing, it would be hard to stomach putting it on a less modern design, its already on a 28year old Stiletto.

First price mentioned said under $500.000, above $1million. Can't see how a wing will cost $1million to build?

[blunted]

[/quote]
First price mentioned said under $500.000, above $1million. Can't see how a wing will cost $1million to build?
[/quote]

Well If you make a nice one I could see you spending that easily if you realy wanted to. all depends on what and how, and what it ends up weighing.

Be nice to do it cheaper however.

[Lanikaisailor]

HO ! HUM !!!
It's all been done before.
Just another one re-inventing the wheel.
This one just seems to come up about every 10 years.

Sorry old sailor, you may not have looked at Mark's site, or he needs to make it more clear.
The boat HWT-X1 is a robot! Not some remote controlled craft but an all up robotic sailboat that can sail an area on its own. It senses the wind at 4 different heights and locations on the boat and runs that against inclinometers and load cells all over the place to set and adjust trim. Mix that with GPS, radar and video sensors and it is a powerful platform for what ever recon or research you may want to do.
"Mad" The wing cost over $1mill because of all the research and development of the wing, control hardware and software. A tooled one off should cost less than $500,000 for a similar size, with all the modifications Mark would make based on there research. I hope this helps.

[JT-proawings]

This would be my VERY first post to this forum. But have been working on a wings for a couple of years. AS you can see my concept(s). The target product is a pair of wings (ala biplane) totaling 600 ft2 to propel a cat or proa with a full loaded weight of 5T. Always options to design but I cannot afford major money to build. Applying the KISS principle, the shorter wings allow lower CE, some redundancy, and ability for crew of two to take down the wings without crane. I also know at the Reynolds number for this size I have less impact from induced drag and higher efficiency by applying endplates on the tips to shed tip vortex than possible with a mono wing. Also there has been some study on the efficiency gains by multiple wings into the flowfield which cuts a wider wind cross-section. Still thinking on tapered versus straight wings.

To keep structure simple there is no wing twist or split and hope not to lose too much effective angle of attack with the wingtips, due to the tip wash. Rudders are controlled by single teleflex-morse cable to wingbase where it is split to cable running to each rudder. To improve the coefficient of lift the wing will have a 20% chord-length flap that is ganged to the rudder(s). More rudder, more flap deflection. That keeps it simple and uncomplicated.

On a proa platform it is even more easy since single lever drives the rudders, push lever forward and rudder sets angle of attack for forward motion. Pull lever back and boat stops, eventually goes into reverse. MOB drill is pull rudder lever to reverse and steer back to lost crew. Never leave sight of the crew member.

The design is no more technical than homebuilt ultralight wing. The only challenge is some machining required for bearing rings/ ring collars on the stub mast. Carbon fiber wing nose and dacron heat shrink fabric cover for the rest. Due to new strength of materials, free-standing concepts such as this are well within the means of most boat owners to afford, maintain and operate with incredible simplicity. In addition to near silence, the wings should only need a pump of lube occasionally and repaint with UV paint every 20 years. Wings make a cool place for wild graphics as well. 40 foot billboards.

I do recommend use of tail rudders for self trimming. Despite a a fairly large window for angle of attack 0- 15 degrees, that is not much room for error if you are managing the wing by feel. The only way I know to improve that window is with leading edge slats or slots but that brings a whole new set of design problems. Any ideas out there ?

There is a place for Harbor Wing type technology to get the very best performance possible, but I will be outside with nose in the air and adjust as I desire.  TAPERED_WING.JPG   88.58K   133 downloads

JT

[JT-proawings]

Spinning the wheels forward into the future...........

Does anyone have comment on impact to marinas and their marina-side condos if a significant portion or marina boats have wings, thus blocking their pristine waterfront view ? Possible bans or limitations on winged vessels ?

I can foresee a possible conflict. Even one might be enough to bring complaints.

As well some may be painted with political or commercial messages. Could really annoy.

JT

[Wing sail]

Most of us have done a race or two

"World Regattas" has just picked up a Wing story anyone else have a story or link ?


http://www.worldrega...p?ContentID=170

[justonemoreboatplease]

HO ! HUM !!!
It's all been done before.
Just another one re-inventing the wheel.
This one just seems to come up about every 10 years.

Sorry old sailor, you may not have looked at Mark's site, or he needs to make it more clear.
The boat HWT-X1 is a robot! Not some remote controlled craft but an all up robotic sailboat that can sail an area on its own. It senses the wind at 4 different heights and locations on the boat and runs that against inclinometers and load cells all over the place to set and adjust trim. Mix that with GPS, radar and video sensors and it is a powerful platform for what ever recon or research you may want to do.
"Mad" The wing cost over $1mill because of all the research and development of the wing, control hardware and software. A tooled one off should cost less than $500,000 for a similar size, with all the modifications Mark would make based on there research. I hope this helps.

Lanikai -

I agree. The atonomous nature of the vessal is interesting and new. Having worked with some USNA folks on that exact concept I can very much appreciate the accomplishment.

But, while the military aspects of that is obvious I am not sure I see a need in the cruising/racing segment. What is so new and needed about what HW is up to for racers/cruisers? My impression is that the wing technology is just continued incremental improvements of something that existed for some time, while the solar spect is not yet ready for prime time.

Maybe Peter can explain... what's the big deal?

Just-

[Sailor2]

The boat HWT-X1 is a robot! Not some remote controlled craft but an all up robotic sailboat that can sail an area on its own.

How does it work related to legal issues ?
If the robot violates colregs and has a collision with another vessel, who is responsible ?
And what about the other colreg requirements, like keeping watch ?

[blunted]

Spinning the wheels forward into the future...........

Does anyone have comment on impact to marinas and their marina-side condos if a significant portion or marina boats have wings, thus blocking their pristine waterfront view ? Possible bans or limitations on winged vessels ?

I can foresee a possible conflict. Even one might be enough to bring complaints.

As well some may be painted with political or commercial messages. Could really annoy.

JT

Well then just paint a pretty looking spinnaker on yer wing and all the yobs on shore will think its a reqular vessel.

Personally if I looked out my waterfront condo and saw a wing I would rather see a page 3 girl painted on it.

B

[nige]

Spinning the wheels forward into the future...........

Does anyone have comment on impact to marinas and their marina-side condos if a significant portion or marina boats have wings, thus blocking their pristine waterfront view ? Possible bans or limitations on winged vessels ?

I can foresee a possible conflict. Even one might be enough to bring complaints.

As well some may be painted with political or commercial messages. Could really annoy.

JT

Well then just paint a pretty looking spinnaker on yer wing and all the yobs on shore will think its a reqular vessel.

Personally if I looked out my waterfront condo and saw a wing I would rather see a page 3 girl painted on it.

B

I think he is talking about a marina full of stationary wings blocking marine side condo's - cross that bridge when you get to it obviously....

[JT-proawings]

The boat HWT-X1 is a robot! Not some remote controlled craft but an all up robotic sailboat that can sail an area on its own.

How does it work related to legal issues ?
If the robot violates colregs and has a collision with another vessel, who is responsible ?
And what about the other colreg requirements, like keeping watch ?

My guess is the govenrment takes it lumps. It may not have ANY COLREGS spec identification, much the same as aircraft drones. If it runs over you then see if you can get something out of the government. If you run over it then it wasn't stealthy enough to avoid or it may consider you a combatant and then you might get lumped. Up to governments to resolve payments depending on survivors. Same treatment as any other military collateral damage. Usually agreements between nations are already in place. Should have no expectation the robot military form this will meet COLREGS standards. Think the intent is not to be seen/detected. It will be MILspec for whatever purpose.

JT

[JT-proawings]

Spinning the wheels forward into the future...........

Does anyone have comment on impact to marinas and their marina-side condos if a significant portion or marina boats have wings, thus blocking their pristine waterfront view ? Possible bans or limitations on winged vessels ?

I can foresee a possible conflict. Even one might be enough to bring complaints.

As well some may be painted with political or commercial messages. Could really annoy.

JT

Well then just paint a pretty looking spinnaker on yer wing and all the yobs on shore will think its a reqular vessel.

Personally if I looked out my waterfront condo and saw a wing I would rather see a page 3 girl painted on it.

B

I thought about pretty spinnaker looking paint scheme. Don't know how paint will affect longevity due to heat. Wings will be mostly sealed for good aerodynamics, and my personal need to lower and float them off, prior to hauling. So not sure yet on the impact of heat inside the wing(s). Something to consider during fabrication.

I agree if it's a picture should be a pretty one!

JT
I think he is talking about a marina full of stationary wings blocking marine side condo's - cross that bridge when you get to it obviously....

[Sailor2]

The boat HWT-X1 is a robot! Not some remote controlled craft but an all up robotic sailboat that can sail an area on its own.

How does it work related to legal issues ?
If the robot violates colregs and has a collision with another vessel, who is responsible ?
And what about the other colreg requirements, like keeping watch ?

My guess is the govenrment takes it lumps. It may not have ANY COLREGS spec identification, much the same as aircraft drones. If it runs over you then see if you can get something out of the government. If you run over it then it wasn't stealthy enough to avoid or it may consider you a combatant and then you might get lumped. Up to governments to resolve payments depending on survivors. Same treatment as any other military collateral damage. Usually agreements between nations are already in place. Should have no expectation the robot military form this will meet COLREGS standards. Think the intent is not to be seen/detected. It will be MILspec for whatever purpose.

JT

So are you saying Mil doesn't have to obey law, or just that if they don't, nobody get charged or that someone will, but they just don't care ?
Have there been any collisions between civil aircrafts & Mil drones ? If yes, have there been court cases due to that, and with what results ?
Just think that several birds can bring a big airliner down, and drone is heavier and bigger and could still be stealthier. So are those a bigger threat, or do they only fly those on airspace which is restricted from civil aircrafts. Not talking about war zones here, but about practising in piece time over USA.

[Ilan Gonen]

Thank you Peter Johnstone and "wing sail", for inviting me to contribute my thoughts to this forum. I read it all and I think that it is a very interesting thread. For a full disclosure – yes, "I am the guy" (according to Steve Clark) who developed "Omer" the Soft & variable wing sail. Also, I sail a monohull and have no experience in catamarans.

As a soft wing sail developer, I would like to present a different approach, that not only deals with the mechanics and benefits of wing sails, but also deals with the question: what purpose is a wing sail good for.

To this forum there is no need to explain that wings have better lift/drag ratios than sails, therefore wings provide more driving force to the boat, and also, wing's working angle of attack is smaller than sails angle, and therefore, they have better up wind erformance.

The main problem up to the present time was not the theory. It was the question of how to make an efficient wing, with simple structure, easy to use, reliable, light weight, inexpensive, and good for all sailors in any weather condition. As usual, development means trade offs and compromising, as well as several different approaches to solve a problem.

The first approach was the hard wing. This type of a wing sail is the closest to aircraft wing, it is very aerodynamically efficient, has a better aspect ratio and, very nice performance with very small sail area. The trade offs: you need a complex structure to enable variable geometry of wing's camber (changes of the airfoil shape - ailerons, flaps), it is not reefable, can not be taken down and folded, does not have enough sail area in running down wind, limited in size (I can't figure out a 120'-150' boat with a hard wing on top) and is expensive. To my opinion, this type of wing sail is very good for mid size boats, for extreme speed sailing, for speed record breaking, for racers and professional sailors, and for other exotic uses. Also, small boats like C class and A class catamarans that don't cross oceans and have relatively small wings, can benefit the advantages of hard wing sails. Bad weather - It is true that wings have smaller resistance (drag) than a mast and shrouds of a conventional rig. The question here is not the physics of lift and drag. Sailors have to adopt not only the new technology and the dramatic change from sails to wings, but also to overcome the psychological issue which is to believe that it is OK having the wing up there in strong winds. It is against every instinct we have developed during the years. Think of a yachts with a 30-40 meter long wing in a storm. One can read it in so many posts like the one who summarized it in one sentence: "it is a much bigger idea to swallow and accept".

The second approach is the soft wing sail. This wing sail is made of sail cloth, and if designed properly, it can be hoisted, reefed and folds exactly like a main sail. It is not limited in size, it is easy to handle, simple as any main sail, no complex mechanics, no "tail" rudders, the wing wind vanes spontaneously, simple variable camber (in "Omer" wing sail it is done by changing the angle between the mast and the boom), no hinges, trailing edge twists spontaneously (no need for internal twisting carbon spars), no moving parts, no problems on anchor or in the marina, and it is an inexpensive rig. The trade offs: Soft wing sails are less aerodynamically efficient than hard wing sails, therefore, have more sail area (good for down wind), you have to hoist and fold it, and to keep on with handling sails and sail cloth. I think that soft wing sails are good for cruisers and cruiser/racers, and are suitable and robust for recreational service. Also, soft wing sails are easier to accept by the "normal" sailors and have better answers for the skeptic and conservative ones.

Having a lot of experience in sailing "Omer" wing sail, I can tell that the design goals of much better performance (she is much faster and points much better), as well as making a simple and inexpensive wing sail for the sailor, have been met. Sailing it is a real fun.

I truly believe that wings (of all kinds) are the next step in the evolution of sails. It is not any more a question of weather wing sails are better than sails. They are! The questions now should be: what is the right wing sail for a specific use, what is the right wing for a specific sailor, is the wing well designed for that purpose and, which kind of wing sail is the most cost effective.

Ilan Gonen
Omer wing sail