Turbosail

Any chances that Merlin bring subj to Charis?

Reference to wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbosail

Welcome aboard, ggww99! Enjoy virtual drink of your choice in our virtual bar!

The turbosail as an idea seems interesting. I'm not sure, however, whether it would look plausible for Charisians to develop it on "their own" accord. Looking at the pictures, an intuitive design for galleon-sailing nation this ain't, and it would be quite a leap of imagination indeed from schooner-type sail to turbosail.

Long story short, for now, it would look suspicious. There's also apparently something about it which makes it not so suitable as a propulsion system, judging by the fact that not much progress was made with it since the eighties and that the second research unit is yet to be built. I think for now the Inner Circle would much rather focus on developing steam.

Wow, flashback. When I was at MIT, I was part of a student organization that brought popular lecturers to MIT, subsidizing it by showing movies every weekend. I remember one day we had an emergency meeting. We had just a few hours to design, print, and distribute posters, schedule rooms, arrange security, and get staff for a lecture that evening, for someone who unexpectedly happened to be visiting MIT that day.

That's because Jacques Cousteau frequently came to visit his good friend Doc Edgerton, the guy who designed all the strobe lights Jacques used for his underwater photography. And Doc would always try to get him to lecture for us (Doc was a great supporter of the student organization).

I remember we managed to fill a 350 seat lecture hall (we couldn't get the larger hall on such short notice) with only 4 hours of advertising and word of mouth. On a weekday. It was great. Jacques told us all about his latest project--the Alcyon, with its radical new turbosail. It was inspiring hearing him explain how the thing worked.

RIP Doc and Jacques.

Now, what I recall is that the very long delay in the Calypso II is as much an issue of funding as it is of technical difficulties. The design proposed for the ship is monstrously expensive, with the latest in cutting edge marine research technology everywhere. Since Jacques died (a year after the original Calypso was sunk), there just hasn't been enough funding for the Calypso II.

But I think Kakai is right that it would not work well on Safehold, even if the technical difficulties were worked out. The radical design with no sails would stir too much superstitious fear. Until the principals of hydro- and aero-dynamics are more widely available, I don't think a turbosail would be acceptable.

I think this type of sails might need computers, that is what it says on the wiki.
I am hoping they will develop hovercraft when they get fossil fuels sorted out. I doubt they would have deep water ships, but for coastal and river regions.

ggww99 wrote:Any chances that Merlin bring subj to Charis?

Reference to wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbosail

Unfortunately these have a number of issues in real world applications, including issues with sailing in strong winds and significant mechanical complexity in the drive shaft connections. More modern designs have lent more on Chinese practice using batten stayed sails (i.e. Junk Rigs) or even two surface rigid wings as these are simpler.
I have also seen designs using more conventional wind turbine systems, that at least have the advantage of being easily feather-able to provide precise speed control which the Turbosail cannot (its cruise boost only).