Hello Jürgen,
I was hoping someone would have something to say about this. I would love to see this type of propulsion used on the Euronaut and/or the UC3, so they can get all the bugs out before I'm done designing my first large submarine. ; )' Carsten might even get the German company Skysails to sponsor the equipment and work with him on designing a custom unit. I too would like to one day design and fabricate a live aboard, ocean going submarine, and I don't want to have to do it all under diesel power. It can be very noisy and very expensive.
Skysails is shooting for the towing kites to give the ships about 30% of there propulsion needs. I don't see why a larger kite couldn't be used, like in the YouTube video of the mono hull boat, that could produce all your propulsion, when the wind was good and your heading wasn't to much into the wind.
If you get a chance to watch the Skysails promo video on there site, you will see they are using a telescoping mast to add in the release and reeling in of the kite. It was sorta funny when I first saw that. Because I designed a basically similar telescoping mast and release system for safely releasing a boat pulled parasail. But packing the kite like a skydivers parachute and releasing it basically the same way. A couple of people got slightly hurt once, when I went parasailing, including the poor guy that was trying to release the parasail on the big flat back deck. The wind caught the sail and pulled it towards the water, and when it hit the water, since the boat was accelerating, it dug into the water and broke the rope, but only after a couple of guys got mauled by the rope. I had to jump in the water afterwards to save the kite from sinking, since the one and only deck hand was injured.
In regards to the trimaran sail boat that is using a kite sail, I think they could use a bigger kite and send it higher up, where the wind is stronger and more consistent. At least that is what Skysails is claiming, I'm not a sailing expert. I have a 3 meter SlingShot brand training kit, that had taken me on more then one wild ride. Also when you compare there rigging for controlling there kite, the set-up used by the guy in the mono hull boat looks allot easier to use and fabricate. I can see allot of different ways one could control those lines from inside a sub. Like if it's really windy, raining, and cold, so you want to stay inside. Fast hydraulics, wenches, fast trim tab type electric actuators, stepper motors, or some other powered device could be controled by two internal levers.
Then again you might not want to listen to me, since I tend to go where the wind blows me. I'm full sheets to the wind kind of guy. You don't want to be down wind of me for a couple of reasons. One, if I've been out to sea long enough, I won't smell to swell on the swells, next to the sea shore, and two I'll likely run you over because the rum is gone and I got nothing else better to do. : )' Why is always the rum gone? ; (
Regards,
Brent Hartwig AKA Wheres
From: Juergen Guerrero Kommritz <groplias2@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Towing Kite System
Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 23:23:55 -0700 (PDT)
Hello Brent
The idea of using a kite is very interesting. It has been arround for many years. I had some email discussion with Carsten about this some years ago.
George Pocock 1826 demostrated that it was feasible but only in the last 20 years it is used for many other things. The problem is to start the kite from the water. I believe this was until now the biggest problem to it use in ships. As far as I know there are some reports of Kite sailing for old Polynesia.
The pictures of the C-Bug on the Sea floor make me feel sad it was a nice sub. I believe it was not possible to sell it so it was better to sent it to rest at the sea bottom :-(.
thank you for the pictures.
Jürgen
Brent Hartwig <brenthartwig@hotmail.com> wrote:I plan to usea towing kite system in addition to regular propulsion methods, on my large sub and perhaps on some smaller ones as well. Skysails is based out of Germany.Regards,Brent************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ The personal submersibles mailing list complies with the US Federal CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. Your email address appears in our database because either you, or someone you know, requested you receive messages from our organization. If you want to be removed from this mailing list simply click on the link below or send a blank email message to: removeme-personal_submersibles@psubs.org Removal of your email address from this mailing list occurs by an automated process and should be complete within five minutes of our server receiving your request. PSUBS.ORG PO Box 53 Weare, NH 03281 603-529-1100 ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************
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