"Roger Long" wrote in news:LwVjf.51498$DL6.51412
@twister.nyroc.rr.com:

Batteries are not all that heavy and additional ballast would be
needed. So, make that keel out of 1/2 or 3/4 inch steel plate with a
thicker bottom and you would have a boat that would bounce off just
about anything.


I was thinking of batteries in the multi-thousand-amp-hour range. Making
a larger battery, of course heavier, adds to the desired ballast weight,
instead of detracting from the ballast's balacing act up in the hull like
we're doing it, now. The bigger/heavier the battery below fore-aft CG,
the better, instead of the other way around. New battery technology
makes it impossible to do any kind of maintenance on the cells, so you
lose nothing in control and gain all that weight below CG.

As to the recharging, these hybrid electric cars are already recovering
power from their powerful dynamic braking and deceleration from the
computer. This same technology could be used on the diesel-electric
propulsion of the boat. The traction motor driving the hull while the
engine is running is merely switched by the computer to powerful
generator service as the prop pitch is adjusted by the computer to
maximize shaft torque constantly during sailing under varying conditions.
Current shaft alternators are just running on luck dragging water over
the fixed prop not designed to be a source of power. I think a lot more
power could be extracted by a computer-controlled, reversible-pitch prop
we're missing out now dragging the screw through the water backwards.

Hybrid vehicle research is paying for the boat propulsion systems of
tomorrow, right now. That new Toshiba Lithium-Ion cell will replace all
these lead-acid, nickel-cadmium/metal hydride or iron, and current
Lithium-Ion technologies in such a propulsion system quite soon. The
ability to recharge the keel battery packs from "dead" level to 100% in
three minutes at some amazing load on the diesel genset, instead of the
piddling use of diesel power with our tiny belt-driven alternators of
today, is going to make electrical power much more efficient very soon.

Of course, getting our "old sailing ship" sailors to overcome their
nostalgia to install such technology may prove daunting. Replacing the
inefficient sails with high powered wind turbines, like on the Jacque
Cousteau vertical turbine ship, has a long way to go. A boat like that
would have power to waste anchored in any wind. No sails would be
necessary and it would power 360 degrees, even dead into the wind.

Whatever happened to that odd-looking ship, anyway? I'll have to do some
net searching, now that I think of it...(c;