FW: Sailing

An interesting article in this URL. It is a very readable "tutorial," but the punch line is pretty interesting, too, sort of a "cyclotron" alternation between aerofoil/hydrofoil to reach... arbitrarily large speeds? http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/sailing-into-the-wind-or-faster-than-the-wind/

There was an article on a thread a while ago that pointed out how to sail directly into the wind at speeds that exceed the windspeed. The idea was to have a large windmill on the boat that drives a propeller in the water. Very difficult to believe it could work even in theory but the concept has been proved on land so it is apparently true. thanks for the link. Interesting article. Allen On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 7:35 AM, Rogers, Christopher C. < ch… [at] jhuapl.edu> wrote: > > > An interesting article in this URL. It is a very readable "tutorial," but > the punch line is pretty interesting, too, sort of a "cyclotron" alternation > between aerofoil/hydrofoil to reach... arbitrarily large speeds? > > > http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/sailing-into-the-wind-or-faster-than-the-wind/ > > >