Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Football Field-Sized Kite Powers Freighter

Found on /.
A new freighter set to launch in December will be receiving a hefty dose of power from a kite the size of a football field. The 460-foot ship, owned by the Beluga shipping company, hopes to see as much as a 50% drop in fuel consumption during optimal conditions.
My Little Cat will not quite as big a Kite, but A nice big kite will be nice to get a handle on winds aloft. The SkySail uses a Pod at the end of a single Toe. This Pod in turn controls lines that maintain the shape of the sail. For me, I can see running a few lines to control such a kite would make for better trimming. And a recovery line that when pulled will take most of the air out of the sail.

No comments: