Sailboat whaleboat who cares, the idea behind this is a good one as an emergency form of propulsion. What if your beloved trawler out of sight of land throws a rod or just quits the bed. Such a sail could change the dynamics of getting to shore safely. All folded up in a neat little pack wont take up much more room tan an extra life jacket.
There is some great information on renewable energy boats out there.. I mean considering they have been in use since, well the dawn of mankind, and they're called sailboats. They're even better without toxic loads of batteries.
do you have any idea just how much high-embodied-energy is in the aluminum mast, not to mention the hundreds to thousand of pounds of high end stainless steel rigging, stainless everything everywhere. All its for is to push you around? You mean it also doesn't produce power? store power? run chop saws, run freezers? And it makes the boat heavier. Solar panels weight almost nothing, and modern EV style batteries weight very little. even gobs of them, especially when compared to mast and rigging, all the hardware, winches, rigging guides.... , the primary diesel motor, the extra fuel everything (weight so much more than electric) Its all extra weight and energy-intensive materials. More toxins go into producing a sail boat of any modest size, vs a electric variant, probably 4 to 1. And its all dead weight that is unproductive when you are at anchor which is what... 90% of the time for most people? 95%?
@@joe4324 I agree with a good deal of what you say, but knocking sail on environmental grounds fails on two points. Modern EV boats are not yet fully there. For instance you can get about 5 knots, out of a boat that costs 250K and has nothing much on it. That is in sunlight without storage capacity. At that price you get storage, but the point is you can't regenerate the batteries in those conditions, with constant running, in the middle of a long cruise. It only works with charging facilities or lots of downtime. So that is not a very robust performance envelope. But you are dising boats that could sail around the world at reasonable speed many times. If you detune the need to something as limited as current EVs, you do not need all the expensive gear you mention. You are comparing a technology that is on the first rung of it's roll out to highly optimized sail technology. If you take that sail tech back down to what people buying a current EV get, you do not need anything like the gear you are refering to. Second. I have been involved in multihull tech for decades, and there are many great ideas out there, but they are all expensive, even the simple ones because they have to be manufactured, there is no way to just reuse existing stuff. You can recycle into your globe trotting multihull, but it is not cutting edge technology. Conversely, at the level of performance that is comparable to what EVs do today, you can completely outfit from a parts bin left over from all the sail boats. I use old rigs from race boats, they are cheap and otherwise destined for the landfill. I not only do not need any kind of new products, but I am actually practicing garbage capture, keeping garbage out of the landfil. No new EV can beat that. And let's be fair, all EV/computer/battery tech is based on military technology, and nuclear power. People are kidding themselves a little in calling it green.
I should add, I very nearly bought a super efficiency tri motorboat, for conversion from 4 strokes and to solar. Could not figure out how to close the deal. I lost the deposit. Cross border issues. But I was serious about it. So I am all for solar. And I would have had something like this. There is a self setting spinnaker, and a proa guy I know is big on kites (they scare me a little).
Theoretically you can get much more efficient tacking with kites. Practically this is very complicated and unreliable. It is fun without a boat though.
For those who decided that filling the fuel tank every time you want to get out of the marina is no longer fun and you really envy the sailing community who only has to gas up once a season.
@@branislavbabic4579sails are expensive to replace and are always exposed to UV rays so they get destroyed in no time, also the lines get destroyed and they need replacement as well. The kite above can easily be put in its bag away in a protected area and pulled out when needed. But the sails even when they are down are always outside exposed to the elements and cost an arm and a leg and a kidney to replace.
I personally wouldn't have a boat like that. But there are a lot of interesting boats that are high efficiency, and solar powered even, where using the wind in some cases makes sense. I almost managed to close a deal on a 37 foot trimaran that ran off two high efficiency 9.9 hp Yammies. Not worth having a spar on, but the ability to sail, or combine sail and power was pretty interesting.
wow , and it seems to work with little Wind , because its not more than 2 -3 Boufor or 5-9 knots . So , if the wind goes up to 10-20 Knots it will work really good !
All you joking about sailboats are missing the fact that the construction needed for a kite is much less than for a sail. A sail mast has to be anchored very sturdily to the boat, but a kite only really needs a single point. Plus a sailboat requires lots of ballast in the bottom to keep it upright. A kite cannot tip your boat over and so doesn't require ballast.
`if you happen to want to run, then great, but I can't see how you can achieve anything else without a keel or foil. This could actually be useful on a sail boat when you are running and don't want the hassle of a cruising chute.
It would be good with a following wind. How far can you get from straight downwind? It seems like a good way to put on more sails with little extra structure. But I wouldn't like this in bad weather.
With a keel or centerboard a kiteboat can hold a windward course that is comparable to a normal sailing keelboat, sailing at 30° either side of true wind. But with this boat? Probably no more than 90. And there be a lot of sideslip.
I wonder if you put something going up the center of the boat and could attcah one or two kite like things to it. Oh wait thats a sailboat. Joking aside.. I would like to try this on my sailboat..maybe pick up a few knots on downwind run
How come you can see prop wash every time the boat is filmed from the stern? Doesnt look like a very effective sail to me but I guess if you broke down far from shore and couldnt get help... better than nothing.
Looks for general movement but seems to lack accurate travel direction. So you're basically wherever the wind takes you. Which is fine if the wind happens to be going your way.
There are some awesome power boats that have 5000 mile range on a tank full of fuel. That's an elite group that can afford sea going power boats but for those that do, a system similar to this is a great back up in case of catastrophic engine failure. Using it to enter the bar and docking isnt happening but if your engine fails half way across the pacific, a kite could get you close enough to get a tow in. There is a way better kite system than this strange kite. They have them on smaller cargo ships. You could usd a better version on a trawler, probably a bad idea for a light wieght motor boat that doesn't go far off shore. Its easy to get help close to shore.
+Doug Ferguson : What, the wind is never blowing against you when you head out ? And it doesn't matter which way the wind is blowing it will always take you to some port somewhere. Of course none of that is the point of the idea anyway.
Right but you can get back to the general direction you want when the wind is blowing that general way. I think it's very useful as a back up or as a way to save fuel when the wind happens to be blowing the way you need to go. As the cost of fuel goes up, this becomes more and more attractive.
Pretty sure you could use the motor, considering you're on a motor boat! I don't think this kite was made to replace a sailboat or motor. Just something used to sail a little on a motorboat, not to far offshore.. (I assume) If it's priced reasonably, I'd give it a try. I didn't know it existed until now.
