Fixed Wing Sail

[fixed wing]

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?

 

[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

 

[Rajinder]

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.yachtworld.com/boats/2001/Walke.../United-Kingdom

 

[THOR]

its inspirational alright

for that coin I would get me a used gunboat ..any size any color

thor

 

[Mudsailor]

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.solarnavigator.net/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???

 

[LewSipfher]

Spam, spam, spam, spam,

Spam, spam, spam, spam,

wonderful spam,

beautiful spam...

 

[fixed wing]

:lol:

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

 

[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.yachtworld.com/boats/2001/Walke.../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)



2_part_wing_in_action.bmp

 

[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.