How to design a sailing ship for the 21st century? • Hacker News Board

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

#11

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Thu, May 13, 2021, 5:47 AM UTC

gabereiser wrote: post #6

krasin wrote: post #5

I hope we get rid of cargo ships that burn matter. But sails are too high maintenance to be scalable. Last year, as an experiment I've launched a tiny solar-powered boat ([1]). Ultimately, it was too small and underpowered only making ~900km ([2]) before dying. I hope to build a bigger drone boat next, hopefully with an ability to move up to 1 tonne of cargo. Apparently, it's possible, but (unfortunately) requires ve…

Larger sailing vessels (10m+) are actually moving towards solar + hydroelectric with lithium batteries (48v) to power electric engines and generators. Sailing with wind power uses the hydroelectric generators and solar. Motor sailing uses solar and you regen a little bit from hydro or a wind turbine. https://www.sailinguma.com/

The article essentially dismisses lithium batteries as non-sustainable.

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

#12

Post by hindsightbias » Thu, May 13, 2021, 5:52 AM UTC

why_only_15 wrote: post #10

Does anybody have a good book or good resources for nuclear powered merchant marine? Naively it makes sense that nuclear power could support much larger ships and go much faster than diesel, but i don't know how true that actually is.

https://www.amazon.com/Story-Savannah-Labor-Management-Publi...

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/63584

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

#13

Post by shakna » Thu, May 13, 2021, 5:55 AM UTC

krasin wrote: post #5

I hope we get rid of cargo ships that burn matter. But sails are too high maintenance to be scalable. Last year, as an experiment I've launched a tiny solar-powered boat ([1]). Ultimately, it was too small and underpowered only making ~900km ([2]) before dying. I hope to build a bigger drone boat next, hopefully with an ability to move up to 1 tonne of cargo. Apparently, it's possible, but (unfortunately) requires ve…

> But sails are too high maintenance to be scalable.

I'm not sure how true this is, as a number of sail-assisted designs are already in use around the world, and have been for at least a decade. There are even several insurance classifications for large-scale cargo ships that incorporate the various possible sail-assisted architectures.

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

#14

Post by hinkley » Thu, May 13, 2021, 5:57 AM UTC

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #7

krasin wrote: post #5

I hope we get rid of cargo ships that burn matter. But sails are too high maintenance to be scalable. Last year, as an experiment I've launched a tiny solar-powered boat ([1]). Ultimately, it was too small and underpowered only making ~900km ([2]) before dying. I hope to build a bigger drone boat next, hopefully with an ability to move up to 1 tonne of cargo. Apparently, it's possible, but (unfortunately) requires ve…

This. Anachronism is not the answer. These newly built tall ships will never be anything more than in essence a vanity project for brands that want to highlight their environmentalism. If you want an efficient modern cargo sail ship, you should start with freestanding self trimming wingsails. These have roughly 3x more lift vs drag at the same sail area. But far more importantly: they can be controlled entirely by de…

We are going to have to think of a different way of accessing the cargo.

Cargo ships as currently built cede the entire middle section of the boat to cranes. Cranes they won't see until the end of their voyage, or the beginning of the next. The whole rest of the time you can't use the vertical axis for anything else.

Things that slide around tend to break loose in heavy weather, and boats don't stay afloat if the center of gravity moves too far, so sideways seems like a bad idea. I don't know what the solution is, exactly.

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

#15

Post by helsinkiandrew » Thu, May 13, 2021, 5:59 AM UTC

why_only_15 wrote: post #10

Does anybody have a good book or good resources for nuclear powered merchant marine? Naively it makes sense that nuclear power could support much larger ships and go much faster than diesel, but i don't know how true that actually is.

Apart from (Soviet) ice breakers Nuclear powered merchant ships haven't had a successful history. I guess politically most states don't want nuclear technology to spread or let nuclear material into the wrong hands - by their nature cargo ships travel and would be an easy target for hijacking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_marine_propulsion#Civi...

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

#16

Post by coryrc » Thu, May 13, 2021, 6:04 AM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #11

gabereiser wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Larger sailing vessels (10m+) are actually moving towards solar + hydroelectric with lithium batteries (48v) to power electric engines and generators. Sailing with wind power uses the hydroelectric generators and solar. Motor sailing uses solar and you regen a little bit from hydro or a wind turbine. https://www.sailinguma.com/

The article essentially dismisses lithium batteries as non-sustainable.

Which is dumb, because the "saltwater" batteries have manganese cathode and titanium phosphate anode... doesn't sound radically different than lithium iron phosphate.

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

#17

Post by patrickyeon » Thu, May 13, 2021, 6:06 AM UTC

krasin wrote: post #5

I hope we get rid of cargo ships that burn matter. But sails are too high maintenance to be scalable. Last year, as an experiment I've launched a tiny solar-powered boat ([1]). Ultimately, it was too small and underpowered only making ~900km ([2]) before dying. I hope to build a bigger drone boat next, hopefully with an ability to move up to 1 tonne of cargo. Apparently, it's possible, but (unfortunately) requires ve…

That's really cool! It looks like you're in the SFBA (or at least launched your boat from nearby), so are you familiar with Sofar and Saildrone? Do you have a way for people to follow what you're doing, or pitch in? I'd be interested in this (contact info in my profile).

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

#18

Post by coryrc » Thu, May 13, 2021, 6:07 AM UTC

why_only_15 wrote: post #10

Does anybody have a good book or good resources for nuclear powered merchant marine? Naively it makes sense that nuclear power could support much larger ships and go much faster than diesel, but i don't know how true that actually is.

Large cargo ships are displacement hulls (because they are 10x more efficient than planing hulls) but are limited to a top speed proportional to the square root of the length, so they will not be "much faster".

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

#19

Post by _carbyau_ » Thu, May 13, 2021, 6:08 AM UTC

carapace wrote: post #4

Make it big , get it up out of the water. The larger your ship is the more efficient it can be, and the less of it in the water the less energy is needed to push it. So make big big ships with really really big sails. You want the ships to fly with just the keel in the water to steer against the wind. You might think I'm joking or talking nonsense, but look up Alexander Bell's cellular geodesic kites, and Bucky Fulle…

Well ok. But my limited understanding of material science says no. For now at least.

Material strength doesn't scale well to go "properly big big" in the sci-fi sense.

OTOH, I am constantly amazed by what material science keeps managing to do, so I have hopes that maybe one day your dream will be true.

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

#20

Post by patrickyeon » Thu, May 13, 2021, 6:13 AM UTC

Two of the last paragraphs:

> All of this is technically possible, and as we have seen, it would produce less in emissions than the present alternatives. However, it’s more likely that a switch to sailing ships is accompanied by a decrease in cargo and passenger traffic, and this has everything to do with scale and speed. A lot of freight and passengers would not be travelling if it were not for the high speeds and low costs of today’s airplanes and container ships.

> It would make little sense to transport iPhones parts, Amazon wares, sweatshop clothes, or citytrippers with sailing ships. A sailing ship is more than a technical means of transportation: it implies another view on consumption, production, time, space, leisure, and travel. For example, a lot of freight now travels in different directions for each next processing stage before it is delivered as a final product. In contrast, all sail cargo companies mentioned in this article only take cargo that cannot be produced locally, and which is one trip from producer to consumer.

This speaks to me. I see much more conversation around "how can we use technology to remove the negative environmental impacts from our lifestyles?" than I do around "how can we change our lifestyles to cause fewer negative impacts?"