Goodbye traditional sails? Here come the wings that come down easily
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While hulls and appendages have undergone incredible evolutions in recent years, far less radical changes have occurred in sail equipment. Yet as of 2010 when BMW Oracle won the 33rd America’s Cup, the effectiveness of rigid wings over traditional sails is indisputable.
What is the problem that makes the wing not applicable so far as a means of sail propulsion? The fundamental reason is their rigidity. Until now, their limitation is all in the impossibility of surface reduction and the impossibility of lowering them, as happens on a classical armament.
The Oceanwings system devised by VLPL Design, the ones who invented BMW Oracle’s rigid wing in 2010, promises to solve this problem.
Entirely automated, self-supporting, and rotating 360° this rigging allows the wing incidence to be adjusted in any boat’s gait to achieve constant optimal propulsion as much as the adjustment of incidence with respect to the wind allows power to be metered. “Its effectiveness,” say the creators of the VPLP Design study, “allows at equivalent displacement to reduce the sail area of boats that will be equipped with Oceanwing by about half.
This sail propulsion is not only beneficial for pleasure boats but also for ships, which, by adopting Oceanwing, which requires no sailing skills but is fully automated, will be able to reduce fuel consumption by 18 to 42 percent.
According to VLPL Design by 2030, 3,700 to 10,700 ships will go sailing.
https://vplp.fr/realisation/oceanwings/15.html
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