The Sailboat as a Research Lab for Resilience and Self-Reliance

The hundred rabbits research lab does experiments on resilience and self-reliance through low-tech solutions. The two-headed team practice what they preach: the lab is located on a small sailboat that has been traveling across the oceans since 2016. Among other things, their website contains a lot of practical information for those who want to go off-the-grid, whether it is on land or on water. Because they run a design studio and create free and open source software, there’s also sound advice on how to work off-the-grid efficiently.

Bike Powered Catamaran Control

In the 2017 America’s Cup, the Emirates Team New Zealand introduced stationary bikes instead of hand cranks to power the hydraulic system that steers the boat. Because our legs are stronger than our arms, pedal powered ‘grinding’ allows for quicker tacking and gybing in a race. The innovation could also be useful to reduce the required manpower for a new age of sail.

Sail the World’s Largest Viking Ship from Europe to America

viking ship“Draken Harald Hårfagre (that’s “Dragon Harald Fairhair” in English) is a modern interpretation (rather than an accurate replica) of an old Viking longship that was built in Haugesund, Norway, and launched in 2012.

In May next year she will set out on a voyage from Norway to Newfoundland via Iceland and Greenland, and the project organizers have just announced they are accepting applications for volunteer crew.

You need at least two months of free time to do it and presumably should have some sort of useful skill to boost your chances of being selected.

Conditions aboard look to be very Spartan by modern standards, with no shelter except for a tent on deck, but by traditional Viking standards it should be a veritable luxury cruise.”

Read more: Calling all Vikings. More sailboat news.

From Europe to America by Sail

from europe to america by sail tres hombresDo you want to travel between Europe and America in a sustainable way? Try a sailing boat. The 32 m long brigantine “Tres Hombres” maintains a freight service between Europe, the Atlantic islands, the Caribbean and America. Besides a cargo capacity of 35 tons, she has accommodation for 5 crew members and a maximum of 12 passengers. On board you learn the basics of square-rigged seamanship: maintenance, navigating, manoeuvring under sail, safety, cooking and much more.

The ship sails throughout the year. The website now shows the schedules for the summer of 2013, the winter of 2013-2014, and the summer of 2014. On November 17, 2013, you can sail across the Atlantic from Portugal to Brazil, which takes an estimated 45 days. The trip costs 2700 euro. On February 10, 2014, you can sail back from the Dominican Republic to London via Bermuda and the Azores. This eastbound Atlantic crossing takes 81 days and costs 4455 euro. Shorter trips are also possible. For example, on May 4, 2014, you can sail from London to Amsterdam in 5 days, which costs 375 euro.

More info at Fairtransport. (Click “Tres Hombres” in the upper right corner, then switch to English language).

Self-Trimming Wingsails

Self-trimming wingsail“Since the invention of aircraft, a similarity has been noticed between the operation of sails on boats and the function of wings of aircraft. Sails on boats provide thrust in a horizontal direction derived from moving air, and wings on aircraft provide ‘lift’ in a vertical direction to support a plane in the air, also from moving air (relative to the plane). In order to fly, wings had to have a certain degree of efficiency, and some experimenters have realised now that aircraft-type wings could be used on a boat and would be more efficient than sails.”

“Having tested wings on boats in place of sails (‘wingsails’) designers noticed another feature used on aircraft that would be useful to use in conjunction with wingsails – controlling the wingsail with another smaller surface mounted behind or in front of it (a ‘tail’). There are many examples of tails used to control the direction of bodies both in the water and in the air, and aircraft use them to adjust, to a precise degree, the lift or (angle of attack) of their wings.”

“If a tail is used attached to a boats’ wingsail, it can adjust the wing perfectly to every small change of wing direction, in this way relieving the sailor of this task, which is mostly guesswork and at best very approximate, and it can perform that job much better than any sailor can do. Such a wingsail/tail combination is referred to as a self-trimming wingsail.”

Read more: 1 / 2.

The Fastest Sailboat in the World

fastest sailboat in the world

The Sailrocket, a sailing boat that we have talked about before, is the fastest craft under sail, after breaking the 2010 record held by a kiteboarder.

During the last run in Namibia in November 2012, an improved version of this unconventional boat reached an average speed of 65.45 knots (121.21 km/h or 75.31 mph) over a distance of 500 meters. Earlier this year it set speed records of 59.23 and 59.37 knots.

Record sailing speeds have almost tripled since the beginning of the 1970s. Those who think that sailboats are a technology from the past, think again.

See and read more at YachtPals and Sailrocket.