Posted: Mar 04, 2011 5:24 pm
zulumoose wrote:Metatron you have not read the article, basically what he is doing is setting a 'sail' to tack angle and then shifting it backwards and forwards rapidly so that it is tacking to both sides equally. He achieves this by having two rigid and opposing sails rotate, ie a propellor.
It is known fact that a sail can outperform the wind speed, if tacking at an offset angle, so if you do this to both sides with great efficiency you can easily go faster downwind than actual wind speed. All he has achieved is to 'trick' the setup with a propellor design such that he can tack while keeping the hull pointed steadily downwind.
It peeves me to no end to be told what I have or haven't read.
While sailing at an angle to the wind direction can, and does, achieve vehicle speeds in its direction of travel that are greater than the wind speed in its direction, in no case does the vector component of the vehicle's velocity in the same direction as the wind equal the wind velocity, let alone exceed it.
There's no such thing as a free lunch.