A future sailboat ?

[WSW2016]

A future sailboat needs to be fast, easy to use and safe.
In general, the safety is defined by redundancy and low probability for catastrophic failure.

Solved with LBVW boat design:

1. “Sails” adjustment with high precision and very fast
2. Fast sails reefing (50% off under 1 minute)
3. Fast de-powering ( 0% camber and 0 degrees attack angle within seconds)
4. Redundant mast (2 masts)
5. Redundant ballast ( 4 – 12 autonomous, internal ballast units)
6. Redundant steering ( 1 rudder + 1 centerboard/rudder)
7. Redundant motoring (flapping with rudders + propeller)
8. Using the wind, sun and waves energies for driving the boat and on-board energy maintenance

Discussion:
The catastrophic failures are in most cases when the boat lose the keel, rudder, mast or buoyancy.
Therefore making these parts redundant improves the safety of a sailboat a lot.

Other catastrophic disasters are when the sailors get hurt by the gears.
The lines are a big problem and on some badly organised boats looks terrible – sometimes less is more.
The winches are the second issue as fingers and hands get jammed already.
The main boom and spinnaker boom are dangerous devices as well.

This is what I like to point out – all mentioned above issues are addressed on LBVW boat.


See www.wabes2015sailboat.n.nu

 

[upchurchmr]

Stay home, don't participate in "dangerous" activity.

Have redundent people on the boat so if you loose or damage one it will not be a problem.

Seriously, all your comments are too simplistic to have a discussion about.
"Fast sail reefing" - how do you propose to do this, and what is it going to fix?
You can reef or take down a sail very fast, just cut the halyard - does that solve your problem?

Nothing you actively do in your life will be perfectly safe. Good seamanship, and a well designed boat will take care of 99% of problems you hint at.

If you don't want to loose the rudder, increase the strength by 50%.

Flapping propulsion - don't waste your time.

#8 is called sailing.

 

[BobBill]

Mr. Upchurch +1.

This wild uptick fits none and sails by child.

 

[Stumble]

Not to mention that your boat doesn't limit cost at all. The easiest way to accomplish what you asked for would be a second fully crewed yacht alongside with a 400' chase boat in case something goes wrong.

There are good reasons why boats are set up the way they are today, and often times a trade off has to be made between safety (as you define it) and cost. With an unlimited budget you can make a boat far safer than most of them are, but no one in their right mind would take some of the very marginal safety advances when compared to the very high expenses.

 

[WSW2016]

Hi Upchurchmr, Bob Bill and Stumble

One should understand how other people might think. Thank you all.
Now I see this safety business in different light.

Take the Yachting World (MAY2016) which I find in my postbox some days ago – they write on front cover: “Why did an Oyster lose its keel and sink?” or little below “…on avoiding a pitchpole...”.
It is what sales!

It is obvious that I need to inform my marketing department that they should stay low when it comes to safety. It is not what sales!

When I designed my boat with lateral ballast and twin wings I got unintentionally the safety too at no cost but is it too much safety?

In sport? Maybe.

When it’s come to our family’s? I doubt!

Best Regards

 

[upchurchmr]

New ideas always face obstacles.
The first one is providing enough information that people can see the point.

The second one is actually having an idea that has some value.
Generally this comes from not knowing the basic principles of the idea you want to change.

So far it is not obvious you can avoid either problem.

Twin wings (mast/ sails) is a traditional solution to making a sailboat, commonly called schooners, ketchs, etc.

Internal ballast is also a traditional solution, the only problem is that it causes the boat to be very heavy and not as stable as a fin keel (external ballast carried low).

You appear to have read one article about a failed design and you appear to believe all similar designs should be avoided. I suggest you should try to imagine how many boats there are with external ballast that did not loose the keel. Perhaps you are trying to fix something that is not typically a problem.

I wish you the best of luck, please keep us informed of your "new" design. I promise to never say a negative word again and will just read with interest.

By the way, why don't you just do without ballast? Catamaran. If you put so little sail one it it has very little performance it will be very stable. A modern day raft - Kon-Tiki perhaps.

 

[mij]

Your rotating rib approach for the wing is ingenious.

 

[CT249]

Look back before 1987, and almost no yachts ever lost keels. It's not hard to make keels, even fin keels, that stay attached.

A little bit of basic probability also helps. There are hundreds of thousands of fixed keel yachts out there, and very few shifting-ballast yachts. Therefore the fact that a certain number of fixed keel yachts lose their keels does not prove that they are less safe than the very small number of shifting-ballast boats. The death and loss toll as a proportion of active boats was almost certainly much higher in shifting ballast boats even before the canters arrived and the rate of keel loss skyrocketed.

Movable internal ballast dates back to before 1850. It's nothing to do with the future - it's one of the oldest ideas in yacht racing and during the period when sailing was a growing sport, it was rejected as dangerous, inconvenient and overly complicated. Just one issue is what happens if the boat tacks or gybes unexpectedly, with the ballast down to leeward. Secondly, most sailors LIKE leaning, just like cyclists, surfers and windsurfers like to lean. Sports philosophers have even coined the term "ilinx" to describe the joy humans feel in being out of balance. So while there are people who like sailing flat, you'll only be appealing to a fairly small market, who would probably just get a cat instead.

By the way, there appears to be no evidence that a wing mast is faster in most monos. People have been trying wing masts of various types since the 1930s and they have repeatedly failed in monos - they only work in a very small number of classes.

As far as safety, in your design no one can go forward without being struck by the rig in an accidental tack or gybe. In a conventional rig, of the sort you call dangerous, you can just keep your head under boom level - you can't do that with a deck sweeping rig.

 

[WSW2016]

Hi Upchurchmr
Writing in the way everybody understands is not easy – I do admit.

About the wings:
Note that masts/spars on my “new” boat are standing as laterally located bi-plane.
The Schooner and Ketch have masts located longitudinally.

Also, two wings on mono-hull:
– one on the starboard
– one on the port side

This should be clear, I hope!
I would like to get along with people who done it before in order to get some experience.
And note that the NEW is how the wing is adjusted with 99% precision at any time.
Sure that the wings are not new, however, bi-plane is well known from aviation but still maybe not on mono-hulls?

About the ballast:
The circular moving lateral ballast producing electrical power on a yacht is probably newer that I think myself.
Note that we can affect heeling and pitch at the same time we produce electrical power.
What part is not clear? I will be more than happy helping to understand.

Best Regards

 

[WSW2016]

Hi Mij

Yes, it is to understand that it is just on development stage for the small model but I do think that it is the first step to being able to set the foil adequate along the whole height.
I can send to you a kinematic simulation (*avi file) of wing section - its funny to see how it works.
My e-mail address is wabes.sailboat@bredband.net

Best regards

 

[WSW2016]

Hi CT249
It is not a big problem with the traditional thinking at all and old boats and theirs keels.
I do believe that you are right in that you wrote.

What maybe is changing it is our ability to control things in the more sophisticated way.
I have 20 years experience in ships automation and 30 years in power electronics.
Sailing is my hobby from early 60´s.
What I do mean by that is that it is not easy to imagine for everybody what impact certain solutions might have.
There are plenty of examples in the history of technical achievements.
I worked whole my life professionally with development so I do have the ability to feel when an idea is universal and impossible to kill on Monday…
Just check how the bicycle was developed during last 200 year to get idea what might be waiting
the yachting being in the middle of the road.
Right now it is a lack of new ideas even plenty of reincarnations arrives.
In the book of C.Marchaj from 1966 second edition, one can find all the latest achievements.

I am not thinking commercially at all – this is giving me a freedom of thinking differently.
But nobody is perfect me included.

A pleasure to hear from you.

Best Regards

 

[gonzo]

I find that the problem with modern boats is not the lack of technology, but rather that there is too much of it on them. A really simple rig will be, in my opinion, safer than all the redundant system. Looks like something requiring a lot of maintenance, repair and care.

 

[WSW2016]

Hi Gonzo

Nice to have you here.
Right, technology is there and this what feels too much is probably the wrong kind and will disappear soon.
As wrong technology example is the hydraulics pumped by muscles of nonsailors. (kind of shifting sand bags but in more modern way)

Simple rig - YES - I sailed Finn and the Sailboards have very high-technology in their rigs and simplicity as well.
Still, the redundancy is not something to be connected with simple or complicated.
It is sometimes just duplication of function - never mind good quality or bad, simple or complicated.

We have 20 fingers - is good!

Now, I got redundancy on my boat design unintentionally and that is always good. (no money paid)
By that I do mean that I NOT added gears in order to get redundancy - they are there anyway for other reasons.

Still you have right about maintenance. Well, things can be done correct and are working flawlessly while other are in low quantities and are pure performers.
And there is a paradox: more is different. More of the same have always better quality - law of the nature.
Note that on my boat the Ballast Units are all the same and the Rotating Ribs are all the same. Then we have a hull and some microprocessors. This part I do not like myself but the technology progress is not stoppable by us mortal. (that what happens to our cars)


By the way - I like to ask you what do you think about waves energy utilisation on board for electrical energy production?
The only thing I heard on this forum is that single wave has little energy. (one wave is lifting 30 000 ton boat only a few meters up....?)

Best Regards

 

[BobBill]

Gonzo +1. Thing is, you gotta do it, sail, to get the idea about something, and then it might be off. Can't tell you how many times I "did" this or that and had to re do it or just start all over.

I like simple, my Finn days were when Elvstrom was hot, masts were wood and strings were few-er...I liked those dinghies. Now, not so sure. Tech sorta takes the fun out of sailing by putting too much emphasis on the tech, if that makes sense, at least to me.

So, I do simple, a lot, and even then it gets complicated, after a few wettings.

Just try not to "overthink" it. FWIW.

 

[WSW2016]

Hi BobBill

Thanks for good advice.
I do know KISS acronym but what is FWIW ?
Never stop learning...

Best Regards