Alternative Marine Power

If Sailboats can average 22 knots around the planet the viability of sail power for military and commercial application seems closer to reality. Imagine a fleet of sail powered vessels spanning the globe to hunt for submarines, collect weather and water data and follow whale herds for research. The following article discusses the kind of sailing performance needed to perform military and commercial functions.

Orange II Smashes RTW World Record

(Wednesday, March 16, 2005) Bruno Peyron and his 13-man crew have crossed the finish line at Ushant setting a new world speed record of 50 days, 16 hours, 20 minutes and 4 seconds, achieving an average speed of 22.2 knots. Not only have they broken Olivier de Kersauson's Jules Verne record by 12 days but have totally annihilated the outright record set by Steve Fossett and team aboard Cheyenne last year by seven days. - Sue Pelling/Yachting World

Magnetic Propulsion 1

I'm concocting a project in my mind for exploring alternative solutions for US Navy Missions and possibly private marine research. My platform would be a high performance RTW (Round the World) Catamaran (e.g., Orange II). For an alternative to wind power I thought about using Solar Pnaels and for propulsion magnetic flux to move the water past the hulls. The Japanese tried in and was successful at moving a vessel at about 4 knots in Tokyo Bay about 8 years ago.


Following logical lines regarding magnetic propulsion I pondered the following:


Immediately two concerns come to mind:
1. How do you limit (contain?) the hysteresis field?
2. How do you improve the effects efficiency?

First I wondered,"Wouldn't this broadcast a vessels position to ships with EW (Electronic Warfare) sensor equipment?" Ergo, how do you prevent this? What about building the coils inside an iron pipe and propel water though the center? Wouldn't this concentrate the hysteresis field improving the efficiency while the outer flux would align with the iron liner. The use of the ships degaussing coils could eliminate the rest of the magnetic signature. If you have anything to contribute please post your comments.