New tech shows its possible to go faster than the wind, dead downwind

[foolishsailor]

Purely in prototype stage and only in a land cart demo, but works. Long article but fascinating read.

Has anyone followed this and seen any future developments? They are going three times the speed of the wind DDW, sure beats a poled out genny...

http://www.sailfeed.com/faster-wind-dead-downwind

Wow!

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by foolishsailor

Purely in prototype stage and only in a land cart demo, but works. Long article but fascinating read.

Has anyone followed this and seen any future developments? They are going three times the speed of the wind DDW, sure beats a poled out genny...

Faster than the wind, dead downwind? | Sail Feed

Wow!

What can I say? As a former skeptic, I am blown away (!) by this achievement! It really is counter-intuitive, but if it works, right out there in public, I'm ready to say that I was wrong in denying the possibility.

Don't know if it has any useful spin-offs for us water sailors, but I'll be interested to where it all ends up.

These guys are heroes!
Thanks for posting this, FS.

Cheers,

Jim

[atoll]

couple that with solar panels and you can even go up hills!

[mbianka]

Yes very interesting. Saw this story a few years ago. Got me thinking (dangerous thing to do sometimes). Hmmm, My boats got an un-stayed mast. I've got electric propulsion. My boat can move 3 knots (calm conditions) using just 900 watts of power. All I would need to do is ditch the boom and sail. Cover the deck with solar panels and rig up a wind turbine that could rotate around the cut down unstayed mast on bearings. Then I say I had better stop thinking about this.