this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2023
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"giant kites" mfs really just forgot the word for sails
Billionaires reinventing the train is out, billionaires reinventing the sailboat is in
If billionaires reinvented sailboats it would be some shitty CGI pod powered by nfts.
and driven by a logitech controller
From what I’ve seen it’s kites acting as sails so you aren’t bound to using a mast which takes a lot of space and limits your sail area
Some sails are basically kites, symmetrical spinnakers specifically are basically just big kites.
Ed: to be clear they're using these for lift more like a wing than a sail.
I don’t think it’s about limiting the sail area, we got really really good at filling a mast with a shitload of sails. I’d say it’s more likely they’d get in the way of cargo un/loading. Or heaven forbid, take up space for containers.
I think they are actually proper kites flying rather high (at least compared to regular sails) in approximate 300 m AGL.
The big difference is that at this hight there is significantly stronger wind.
Wanted to see what that would look like and found more info here: https://www.euronews.com/green/2021/12/20/this-huge-kite-is-dragging-cargo-ships-across-the-atlantic-ocean
Like how our 4 year old refers to the tv as the iPad on the wall.
It's actually proper kites, at least the pioneering tech is kites. They're computer-controlled, deploying and retracting on the push of a button and navigating themselves into and out of winds to complement the main drive and controls. It's been on the market since the early 2000s and has always made economical sense, but: