Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
matter which way the wind is blowing, except when the ship goes
directly into the wind of course,
A ship-mounted wind turbine _can_ be used to drive the ship even
when heading straight into the wind.
Of course, but it is inefficient. For that matter, even a square
rigged ship can sail into the wind to within 20 degrees or so, but it
is very slow. I think mainly they used the mizzen and jib sails (the
fore-and-aft sails), and they got frustrated endlessly tacking back and forth.
The schemes that I have seen for shipboard wind turbines would only
be used to augment electricity. This would be very helpful for things
like refrigerated ships. A wind turbine being used for this purpose
would be stowed when traveling into the wind, otherwise you are
mainly scavenging engine power and converting it into electricity in
an inefficient manner.
This source says a square rigged ship could only go to within about
70 degrees of the wind, but that's not what daddy told me:
http://sailing-ships.oktett.net/square-rigging.html
(Believe it or not, my dad sailed on Titanic-era steam piston ships,
with riveted hulls, and he saw the last of the wooden square rigged
ship. It is astounding that in his lifetime we progressed from
windjammers to fission powered aircraft carriers. Unless cold fusion
is perfected, I doubt that any generation will see such profound and
rapid progress again.)
- Jed
