How cool is this? Sailboat drones....

[H Romberg]

Harbor Wing Technologies - Autonomous Unmanned Surface Vessel - Commercial Applications

They're working with DOD to make a completely autonomous sail powered surface craft. The link is to their recreational version if they can get someone to build it. Talk about an easy boat to sail.

I want one.

The wing stays in place all the time, rotates 360 and the computer flies it to set angle on the wind etc. I can't help but picture this thing with thin film solar all over the wing too, making fresh water, charging the batteries and making hydrogen to run the aux motor. OK, enough pipe dreams. Somebody build this thing now.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by H Romberg

Harbor Wing Technologies - Autonomous Unmanned Surface Vessel - Commercial Applications

They're working with DOD to make a completely autonomous sail powered surface craft. The link is to their recreational version if they can get someone to build it. Talk about an easy boat to sail.

I want one.

The wing stays in place all the time, rotates 360 and the computer flies it to set angle on the wind etc. I can't help but picture this thing with thin film solar all over the wing too, making fresh water, charging the batteries and making hydrogen to run the aux motor. OK, enough pipe dreams. Somebody build this thing now.

So... you want to be an 'Armchair Sailor'....

[H Romberg]

Damned skippy! I'm driving a Hatteras right now. :-D

I just love the idea of a big cat swanning into a crowded anchorage, backing the sail to stop, coming to anchor etc, in total silence except for the guys yelling at them to take the sail down. :-) Which they don't. >:-)

[Roy M]

Very cool, indeed. I went aboard the X-2 and got to look around at all the corners and gadgets. The plan is to have these craft sailing the open seas, patrolling in harm's way. They will be like sailing drones. The X-3 will have hydrofoils and be capable of speeds we can only imagine. And they will be armed defensively, so don't try to board one. That's the Scripps Institute of Oceanography facility on San Diego Bay in the background, just a splash away from my boat.

[H Romberg]

The irony of our navy going back (even in a limited sense) to sail driven vessels makes me want to giggle.