Wednesday, October 10, 2012

More Round Sails


Thanks to alert reader, O Docker, for alerting me to Jacques Cousteau's turbosails (turbovoiles), which were inspired by the Flettner Rotors.  They are not the same, but similar in that they are vertical ovoid shaped cylinders (not round), but with moveable flaps attached.  The cylinders do not rotate.  Instead they have grills on two sides which can be opened or closed and can be oriented to the wind so that low pressure develops.  In addition, they have an aspiration system that sucks air from the cylinder, making the air flow more closely around Turbovoile.

Cousteau's first boat, with a single Turbosail, was the Moulin à Vent, which he sailed from Tangiers to (almost) New York where it encountered winds over 50 knots which broke the Turbosail which fell overboard. A second boat, the Alycone, pictured above, was constructed in 1984 with two Turbosails and it made several circumnavigations.

1 comment:

  1. KR: You'd better get used to O Docker alerting you to certain little-known facts regarding the post you thought you researched so thoroughly. I'm considering sending him my rough drafts ahead of time, so as not to appear under-informed. I have a thing with that.

    ReplyDelete

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