Alternative Sailboat Power

[Eddie]

I think this is a Dutch company. They make a full line of electric sailboat kickers, including larger hybrids that have the range of a diesel, charge your batteries,  and then run a fair part of the time on wind or solar.

(from the West Marine catalog)




MASTERVOLT
Aquapella Parallel Hybrid E-Propulsion System
 

$8,539.99

Compact electric propulsion system can be combined with any traditional combustion engine up to 30hp. While the combustion engine is running, the batteries will automatically be charged. Ideal for boats up to 30' that want to use E-Propulsion in conjunction with traditional combustion engines. Includes motor with control, display, joystick and mounting hardware.

Power: 3.6kW
Draw: 48V



Best Use   Boats Up to 30 Feet
Comparable Horsepower   4.8 Horsepower
Features   Joystick Control
Display Included
Output Power   3.6 Kilowatts
Voltage   48 Volts DC
Warranty Details   Two Years

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[RE]

I think AB is spending too much time with Dmitry. 

Here's my response to his latest techno-cornucopian solution.  Not yet approved over on Peak Surfer, you get to read it here on the Diner first. 

https://peaksurfer.blogspot.com/2017/05/atlantic-crossing.html

RE

Another artifact of climate change is bigger seas and more rogue waves.  In even mildly rough seas, you can't hydroplane a sailboat.  You need pretty flat water for this.  So it's pretty unlikely you could maintain a constant hydroplane speed all the way across the Atlantic or Pacific oceans.

Then you have the fact these high tech boats are built from the lightest weight polymers and carbon fiber material, which all have tons of embedded energy in their manufacture.  The computer systems and servos controlling sail trim are extremely complex, requiring the usual kit bag of rare earth minerals and complex manufacturing facilities.

Even if you do build them, they can't carry much payload.  The whole reason they will hydroplane is because there is so little weight being carried aboard.  You absolutely could not build any facsimile of a modern container ship and have it hydroplane.

Not to say of course sail will not make a comeback, it probably will but not the sort of high tech sail you are featuring in this post.  Much smaller boats, and floating in the water not skimming along the surface.  Such boats will not be able to move around the vast amount of cargo container ships do, and thus will not be able to support such a large population moving food around the globe.

There is no techno-cornucopian solution to this problem, the only thing that can bring Homo Sap back into balance with nature and maintain the habitability of the planet is a massive die off of the current population  If you knock off 90-99% of the human population, some of the solutions you write about could work.  They do NOT scale to a population of 7.5B meat packages.

RE

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[Eddie]

I left this comment on Albert's blog.

As a sailor of about forty years, I can fantasize with the best of them. But I personally don't look for Transatlantic passenger sailing to come back in a big way. It will be a matter of cost. Almost nobody will have the money.  The weather factor is another issue.

Bulk freighters today sink at the rate of about one a week. Did you know that?  It's why Lloyds of London is still there. I can see a new kind of sailing freighter being viable, but it needs to be big and cheap. And....have you ever tried to sail  a large vessel into a narrow channel,  or dock a ship without an engine? It presents a challenge even for medium size yachts of 40 feet or so. The old ship's captains had a skill set we really don''t think about much. Crossing the ocean is easy, given good weather, The hard part is parking,

There is nothing I'd like better than to see sailing ships replace air travel, for multiple reasons. I don't mean to be negative, but I'll be skeptical until I see it start to be reality. I hope I live that long.

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[RE]

I left this comment on Albert's blog.

As a sailor of about forty years, I can fantasize with the best of them. But I personally don't look for Transatlantic passenger sailing to come back in a big way. It will be a matter of cost. Almost nobody will have the money.  The weather factor is another issue.

Bulk freighters today sink at the rate of about one a week. Did you know that?  It's why Lloyds of London is still there. I can see a new kind of sailing freighter being viable, but it needs to be big and cheap. And....have you ever tried to sail  a large vessel into a narrow channel,  or dock a ship without an engine? It presents a challenge even for medium size yachts of 40 feet or so. The old ship's captains had a skill set we really don''t think about much. Crossing the ocean is easy, given good weather, The hard part is parking,

There is nothing I'd like better than to see sailing ships replace air travel, for multiple reasons. I don't mean to be negative, but I'll be skeptical until I see it start to be reality. I hope I live that long.

If you just dropped sails on a big container ship and used them during the Blue Water portion of the crossing, this would of course save most of the fuel you need to do the parking job.  The ships would not make the transit as quickly of course, but for most products that doesn't matter, only for perishables.  So I can see hybrids here that would reduce total fossil fuel use by a lot.

International passenger travel would be curtailed by a lot, but most of it really isn't necessary.  As you indicate as well, few people will have the money to be traveling internationally by sail or any other means.  A few Clipper Ships probably would be enough to ship the Elites across the oceans periodically for face to face meetings.

My biggest issue with this post by AB is the suggestion we could use really high tech hydroplaning boats to get the crossing speeds up.  That's just nuts.  Those boats are really fragile and need ideal wind and water conditions to function.  Out in mid ocean in even a mild storm they will go down to the bottom of Davey Jones locker in no time.

It's techno-cornucopianism, and AB is bitten by this bug of Hopium.  He can't bring himself to acknowledge a die-off is inevitable.

RE

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