That's an incredibly cool idea. It might make a hybrid boat concept
work. You could motor under quiet electric power when you wanted
maximum ambiance and have power instantly available without having to
get a diesel started and warmed up. Reverse generation from
freewheeling the prop under sail might be feasible. Solar, windmill,
and any other power would just go into the same pot without separate
systems.

My mind is racing but I'm kind of busy with this boat:

http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/UMDconcept.htm

right now as well as the Titanic

http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/Titanic.htm

post expedition investigation.

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.

--

Roger Long



"Larry" wrote in message
...
Bil wrote in
news:3ebvo1lujj9hblfr8iu9g5aefpolvle9ea@
4ax.com:

250 Amps of nominal 14VDC

What Ampere-Hour batteries are you charging with this much current,
and
not boiling them? Will the boat float that much battery weight?

Some day Roger will design us a hull with "battery ballast" built
into
the keel, instead of the dead weigh that's down there, now. The
"battery
ballast" will be 5000 AH of specially-shaped cells to make the keel
shape. All the thousands of pounds of weight will double as keel
deadweight for sailing. As this special keel is where the batteries
are
located, all the space they're hogging in the boat, now, will be
freed up
for useful living space and storage.

The "battery ballast" will be removable when the boat is hauled for
easy
replacement when you go to paint the bottom. They might bolt to
either
side of a narrow keel with a skid shoe for grounding under the
"ballast
batteries" without damaging them. A protective forefoot along the
front
of such a keel across the bow end of them would also help protect
them.

Being naturally water cooled along their long sides, amazing
charging and
discharge currents could be shoved through them without overheating,
like
batteries in the bilge would cooled by air.

I think this would be a great use for the AGM maintenance-free
wetcell
technology of today......and the Toshiba 60-second-recharging
Lithium-Ion
cells that electric auto industry will be using in the future.....

How 'bout it, Roger? Good idea?

"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;

Larry,
Are you talking about that trimaran with the rotating vertical cylinders ?
I saw that (at least was told it was Cousteau's) at a marina up the
Chickahominy R off the James R in VA maybe 8 years ago. Don't think it's
there now.

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


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;

"Garland Gray II" wrote in
news:zD5kf.26955$ih5.3190@dukeread11:

Larry,
Are you talking about that trimaran with the rotating vertical
cylinders ? I saw that (at least was told it was Cousteau's) at a
marina up the Chickahominy R off the James R in VA maybe 8 years ago.
Don't think it's there now.



Yeah, that's the one. Has like 4 rotating cylinder sails that catch wind
from any direction to power the boat. The vanes in it look like and S if
you look down from the top of it.

There was a great documentary made of it, but I can't find it.

I was thinking the drums were perfect cylinders. Maybe not, but I thought
the principle was that wind past the rotating surface created a pressure
differntial. Makes sense, but I can't think there would be much resulting
force.
I might drive up there some dreary day to find what happened to her.

"Larry" wrote in message
...
"Garland Gray II" wrote in
news:zD5kf.26955$ih5.3190@dukeread11:

Larry,
Are you talking about that trimaran with the rotating vertical
cylinders ? I saw that (at least was told it was Cousteau's) at a
marina up the Chickahominy R off the James R in VA maybe 8 years ago.
Don't think it's there now.



Yeah, that's the one. Has like 4 rotating cylinder sails that catch wind
from any direction to power the boat. The vanes in it look like and S if
you look down from the top of it.

There was a great documentary made of it, but I can't find it.

"Garland Gray II" wrote in
news:PC7kf.26965$ih5.11538@dukeread11:

I was thinking the drums were perfect cylinders. Maybe not, but I
thought the principle was that wind past the rotating surface created
a pressure differntial. Makes sense, but I can't think there would be
much resulting force.
I might drive up there some dreary day to find what happened to her.



No, the "vanes" are, looking at them from the end, cup shaped between the
outer and center, I think. It would make sense if the shape of each of
them were a vertical wing on Bernoulli's Principal with lift as it goes
by the proper wind angle for lift (rotation power).

The vanes in it look like and S if
you look down from the top of it.

There was a great documentary made of it, but I can't find it.


I rememebr the article in Popular Mechanics, or Popular Science several
years ago.

it was interesting indeed!

On Fri, 02 Dec 2005 10:40:43 GMT, "Roger Long"
wrote:

right now as well as the Titanic

http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/Titanic.htm

post expedition investigation.

======================================

Roger, you are quoted on CNN tonight regarding the Titanic:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science....ap/index.html

You mean "miss-quoted".

I've been getting calls from reporters as far away as Norway and
Brazil. It's nice to be able to chase them away quickly by telling
them I'm under a non-disclosure agreement. Otherwise, I'd be doing
nothing but talking on the phone.

It's a much better story than the press items indicate. It's going to
be a super show. Don't miss it.

February 26.

--

Roger Long



"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 02 Dec 2005 10:40:43 GMT, "Roger Long"
wrote:

right now as well as the Titanic

http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/Titanic.htm

post expedition investigation.

======================================

Roger, you are quoted on CNN tonight regarding the Titanic:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science....ap/index.html

On Tue, 06 Dec 2005 23:26:43 GMT, "Roger Long"
wrote:
You mean "miss-quoted".

I've been getting calls from reporters as far away as Norway and
Brazil. It's nice to be able to chase them away quickly by telling
them I'm under a non-disclosure agreement. Otherwise, I'd be doing
nothing but talking on the phone.

================================

My experience is that the press hardly ever gets it right when dealing
with technical topics, makes you wonder about the others.

Only the Wall Street Journal even comes close in my opinion.