Jonesy

Would it be reasonable to replace the sails on a sailboat with solar panels? Would it be reasonable to use sails and solar panels?

Heretic

It's important for the sails to be flexible as cloth and to be strong to withstand the abuse they're take from the winds.

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jowey

Are there materials that can support such dual purposes ?

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GurnBlanston

Why would you want solar power to replace wind power on a device specifically designed to be powered by wind???

jowey

Not replace wind but to reinforce it.....
Sails represent a lot of surface area.

• The wind would provide the motive power.
• The solar could charge batteries for interior use and possibly short periods of motive power in the harbor.

To try to capture electric on a sail boat using wind turbines as it was sailing would be counter productive.

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Heretic

They are working on flexible solar cells, but they're not yet tough enough for boat sails nor even close.

Even sail boats have electrical lights and appliances. Also, there's the motor in case of emergencies. Having that run on electricity instead of petrolium would be nice.

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"In space no one can hear you scream. in D.C. it won't matter..." -Clinton Resurrection: The Alien Queen lives!

disfigured

Don't forget also that most (by far) sails are designed to be lowered.

So you'd need a material fexible enough that it can be lowered and stored, or at least lowered.

Nothing worse then having you sails up in too strong a wind.

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Heretic

The foldng part isn't nearly the problem as the kind of abuse rough winds will have on it.

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"In space no one can hear you scream. in D.C. it won't matter..." -Clinton Resurrection: The Alien Queen lives!

disfigured

I would think making a photo receptive material flexible enough so it could wrap around the boom like a normal sail would be the most difficult.

Even very flexible sailcloth can be tough to handle. Anything even slightly stiffer would be a nightmare.

Now that's if your going to retro fit them to existing sailboats. If you designed a new rigging to accommodate the newer stiffer material then that's different.

How about something that can be "attached" as standard sails get hoisted? Big squares or circles of photo receptive "stuff", then remove them as the sail is lowered. Granted, ideally if the entire sail was receptive it would be awesome, but don't they make some smaller/thin high efficient ones now?

Just velcro a few on the way up (on a calm day) and charge up batteries with them for night time use of lights and radios.

We should PM the rest of this, this is a great marketing idea.

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jowey

Too bad....
Thought that nano-tech might provide an answer, a synthetic fiber woven into the sails that would absorb the light, convert it to current and channel it to the batteries.

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