The new age of sail?

[cisforsmasher]

Hey, I have this great idea. Instead of using our engines, we can save gas by using a big kite to pull the ship through the water! Nobody has ever thought of that before!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7201887.stm

 

[UMichfly]

It is a cool idea since theoretically you could get the kites up higher into more substantial winds but the logistical requirements sound like a train wreck waiting to happen. I definitely don't want to be reading NOTAMs for giant kites that move around near shipping lanes.

 

[raptor10]

Computer controlled sails! That is freakin' awesome! But it also highlights the stagnancy of US Shipbuilding and how far behind the rest of the world we are when it comes to things like this...

 

[kejo]

US shipbuilding is virtually non-existent outside of the pleasure-boat and naval defense markets. I will propose that American naval design is still pretty close to the cutting edge, but the construction of most of those large-tonnage merchant vessels gets outsourced to countries like India.

 

[Lonestar155]

Try doing a cat shot with these parachutes hovering at the bow of the carrier. I weep for the future of carrier operations. haha

 

[Swanee]

A high flying spinnaker. This idea has been around the in the offshore sailboat racing community for quite a while. One team actually had the idea to catch the jet stream and use that to cross the Atlantic. Not sure how far they got, but it's a cool idea.

 

[Uncle Fester]

A high flying spinnaker. This idea has been around the in the offshore sailboat racing community for quite a while. One team actually had the idea to catch the jet stream and use that to cross the Atlantic. Not sure how far they got, but it's a cool idea.

Catch the jet stream with a sail? The jet stream is, at a minimum, about seven miles up. That's a shitload of kite string...a little knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing.

 

[raptor10]

Catch the jet stream with a sail? The jet stream is, at a minimum, about seven miles up. That's a shitload of kite string...a little knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing.

True, the unpredictability of high level winds is one of the reasons a flying persistent dirigible got abandoned...

 

[H20man]

This idea is rather unpractical. The concept was around in the 80's and was unfeasible then.

This might be a decent idea for smaller feeder ships, but they mainly operate coastal, and the amount of traffic would not allow for this type of technology to be used.

The size of ships being built today also make the rather ridiculous. When you have ships like Emma Maersk being built, which are bigger than our aircraft carriers, a puny sail won't do much. After being on ships with 3 story engines I find it hard to buy this, especially how much horsepower is required.
I know its wikipedia, but is a good summary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Mærsk

There are also other considerations such as traffic out at sea and maintenace of these sails especially in the days of minimal crewing.

To echo off kejo, the US shipbuilding industry is down the tubes.

A lot of new builds for deep sea are mainly Navy contracts. NASSCO out in San Diego is a big builder with a fair number of contracts. They also have a few civilian contracts, mainly with BP building tankers for the Alaska-California run. What helps keep shipyards in business is the Jones Act. If a ship is to be operated from a US port to US port and back again, or operates inland the ship has to be US built and US crewed. A foreign ship can visit several US ports, in one stint, it just cant take cargo from say Oakland to Seattle.

 

[nugget81]

While we're at it, let's build a space elevator

 

[Swanee]

Catch the jet stream with a sail? The jet stream is, at a minimum, about seven miles up. That's a shitload of kite string...a little knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing.

BMW/Oracle was developing it. Probably more of a "Let's just see if we can do it" type of thing. The kite they were using was pretty small and had some serious cabling. I'll continue to try and find some articles about it. They aren't using it now, so obviously it just wasn't practical/possible.