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How to design a sailing ship for the 21st century?

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Re: How to design a sailing ship for the 21st century?

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A tree cannot live forever. Once it is dead all (or almost all) accumulated carbon slowly released back into atmosphere as CO₂ by bacteria. So cutting trees and preserving them from decay is a carbon negative process in a long run.

how is it carbon negative? wouldn't it be neutral? unless the trees were sent underground to prevent release into the atmosphere? or became petrified?

Correct: to make a change we would have to bury millions of tons of valuable wood deep enough that the co2 stays trapped. In short, it would be the opposite of extracting and burning oil.

Re: How to design a sailing ship for the 21st century?

#52
post #48

> Lithium-ion batteries are very compact, but they cannot be considered sustainable and bring safety risks C'mon this is silly. The dominant safety risk of a small vessel (and all of these are small in modern terms) is capsizing in heavy weather, with the loss of all hands. LiFePO batteries, built into a bank with really excellent waterproofing, would be quite adequate to the job. If lithium battery technology in gen…

I've never sailed in blue water, but I thought that modern weather and navigation infrastructure mean bad weather can be largely avoided. Either way fire on board is still something to be avoided.

The electricity still must be distributed around the ship.

Proper weatherproofing can easily make the battery the least likely point of failure in the whole system.

Re: How to design a sailing ship for the 21st century?

#53
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will eventually rot and release its captured carbon.

All trees, even those which are not cut down for constructing a sailing ship, also eventually rot and release most of their captured carbon. Only those which are burned efficiently in a high-oxygen environment turn completely into CO2. In a natural forest, it's true that a tiny fraction of this biomass derived from atmospheric CO2 rots incompletely on the forest floor and is turned into a small amount of carbon-rich…

Tree contains X Co2 => Tree gets cut down without replacement => ship gets made and rots => X Co2 releases into atmosphere. Net Co2 = +X

Tree contains X Co2 => Tree dies => New tree grows in opened up space. Net Co2 = 0

Re: How to design a sailing ship for the 21st century?

#54
post #48

> Lithium-ion batteries are very compact, but they cannot be considered sustainable and bring safety risks C'mon this is silly. The dominant safety risk of a small vessel (and all of these are small in modern terms) is capsizing in heavy weather, with the loss of all hands. LiFePO batteries, built into a bank with really excellent waterproofing, would be quite adequate to the job. If lithium battery technology in gen…

I've never sailed in blue water, but I thought that modern weather and navigation infrastructure mean bad weather can be largely avoided. Either way fire on board is still something to be avoided.

Sure modern motorized merchant vessels generally route around major named storms (except for rare tragedies like the SS El Faro). But if you want to carry cargo reliably for paying customers then you're going to have to sail into bad weather occasionally. Winter weather in the North Atlantic is usually bad and can change quickly. There's no avoiding it.

Re: How to design a sailing ship for the 21st century?

#55

> Lithium-ion batteries are very compact, but they cannot be considered sustainable and bring safety risks C'mon this is silly. The dominant safety risk of a small vessel (and all of these are small in modern terms) is capsizing in heavy weather, with the loss of all hands. LiFePO batteries, built into a bank with really excellent waterproofing, would be quite adequate to the job. If lithium battery technology in gen…

Not a sailor nor a maritime expert by any means, but IIRC Japan now has submarines that uses lithium-ion batteries to power submerged movement. Granted it is mil-spec.

Re: How to design a sailing ship for the 21st century?

#58

> Lithium-ion batteries are very compact, but they cannot be considered sustainable and bring safety risks C'mon this is silly. The dominant safety risk of a small vessel (and all of these are small in modern terms) is capsizing in heavy weather, with the loss of all hands. LiFePO batteries, built into a bank with really excellent waterproofing, would be quite adequate to the job. If lithium battery technology in gen…

Not a sailor nor a maritime expert by any means, but IIRC Japan now has submarines that uses lithium-ion batteries to power submerged movement. Granted it is mil-spec.

Yep. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a344285...

Re: How to design a sailing ship for the 21st century?

#59
If you are interested in an account of how it was to sail tall ships I can recommend “Around Cape Horn” [0]

If you are curious about sailing tall ships. And have the means. Apply to one of these ships [1]. I have gone sailing a couple of times and it’s one of the most rewarding experiences I have had so far.

[0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9tuTKhqWZso [1] https://sailtraininginternational.org/sailtraining/

Re: How to design a sailing ship for the 21st century?

#60

Hundredrabbits are traveling on a sailor ship while working on OSS and many projects, they are also providing many informations about their 1982 boat and about sailing and how they are providing electricity from solar power etc.. https://100r.co/site/sailing.html

What is a sailor ship?
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