High-Speed Sailing

I thought I’d provide a bit more info on where the Sailien project has been. So far, all I’ve posted is about 25 years old. The R/C model was videoed in 1986, the early prototypes were from 1988, but have been obsolete since late 1990. What happened?

Well the early configuration has a bit of a flaw, which is: If the airfoil gets back-winded with enough wind force the craft will capsize. I knew this was a potential problem as early as the model stage, but it never occurred. At that time and during all the sea trials of the first prototype, I thought it would be possible to set the craft up so it would self rotate out of any trouble. I actually was successful until I made the second prototype. See images at this address: http://www.geocities.com/aerohydro/othercraftframeset.htm.
This prototype had an aerodynamically cleaner airfoil and leeward structure than the first; powered-up it “flew” but when tacking close to the wind, it liked to rotate into the wind, which would backwind the airfoil. Eventually it capsized from getting back-wind and I realized it was time to eliminate that problem.

In the autumn of 1990, I cut up the existing prototype and by April of 1991, I started sailing the improved prototype. Instead of a wing, I had a windsurfer sail and set it up to rotate 360 degrees. It worked great and the problem of getting the fixed airfoil back-winded was eliminated. I now had complete control of the craft under any orientation relative to the wind. I still needed only two controls to sail the craft: a steering wheel to rotate the keel (360 deg.) and a steering wheel to rotate the sail (360 deg.). This is the same control set-up I’ve been using since the model stage. I will continue these notes.

Bob