[ham] Re: [Rhodes22-list] Gas vs Liquid Battens

[Ronald Lipton]

The wing sail would have a substantial advantage, with a much higher 
lift/drag
ratio than conventional soft sails, providing more power with less 
heeling.
Rigid wing sails have been used in unstayed rigs (1976 Little America's 
cup
for C class catamarans).  In that case the wing sail weighed twice as 
much
(210 lbs) as the soft sail but was still faster in wind speeds greater 
than
10 knots. However the soft sail boat won the regatta. I got this from 
"The
Symmetry of Sail" by Garrett. He aso has several plots comparing the 
performance
of soft sails with wing sails.

I will have to drop out of this thread for a while - driving to 
Pittsburgh for
a friend's son's wedding.

Ron

On Thursday, December 26, 2002, at 02:33 PM, R22RumRunner@aol.com wrote:

> Instead of using the gas as a simple batten, why not make a sail that 
> would
> have the perfect wing shape whenever pressurized gas was injected into 
> it?
> Adjusting pressure for varying wind conditions. For that matter, simple
> pressurized air would work. A small 12 V compressor mounted on the boom 
> with
> a quick connect and another on the Genny's furling system. One push of a
> button to add pressure and another to release it. A miniature pump 
> wouldn't
> add much weight and as long as you weren't try to pressurize a tire they
> would work fine and not add much weight. A simple 12 volt line going to 
> the
> power panel would handle the juice for it.
>
> Rummy
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