"Bill" wrote in message
...

"toad" wrote in message
oups.com...
On 14 Oct, 16:52, Andy Champ wrote:
toad wrote:
Care to explain why a windmill which is capable of powering itself
forward against it's own drag can only do it with a true wind? How
does it know if the wind it is 'feeling' is true or not, it has no
concept of true wind which is merely the wind speed and direction at
an arbitary stationary point.

There will be a level of gearing low enough somewhere, so that the
boat can wind itself forward against the winch.
Even so, if the true wind is zero you get no excess of power whatever
you do.

How does the windmill know the wind is not true wind? It has no
concept of 'true' wind, it lives exclusively in apparent wind.

Assume the windmill direct into wind concept works:

You can take your windmill cart, put it on another cart and tow it at
20kts. It sees 20kts and will move forwards along its cart. If you
stop the cart and blow 20kts at the windmill cart it will move
forwards at exactly the same speed.


In other words there is some spare energy left over to drive the cart
forwards after the energy required to hold the windmill in equilibrium
with the wind is expended. In my example above that spare energy is
used to drive the cart forwards but in your example of the windmill on
the foredeck that surplus energy can be used to save petrol.

Now we both accept that idea is laughable so you have to explain why
it's not laughable when the wind blowing is caused by nature.

...but most importantly, why oh why oh why doesn't someone just post
the mathmatical proof, the last time this came up I said I'd leave the
thread 'till proof turned up and none did. Odd that.

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?t=14182

Reality beats proof.



I'm surprised that the fact that this (windmill boat sailing directly
upwind) is viable isn't intuitively obvious to more people. A sailboat
tacking upwind is an airscrew blade (the sail(s)) driving a waterscrew blade
(the keel), operating in their respective mediums. There is no inherent
difference between the back-and-forth motion of the conventional sailboat to
the rotary motion of the 'windmill' type boat.

Another mental experiment would be to think of a very wide catamaran with a
side-to-side track on which runs a car which holds the mast and sail above
and a centerboard sticking into the water below. Both are angled and a
mechanism in the 'car' causes both to change angle towards the center of the
catamaran when either end is reached. The 'car' effectively 'tacks' back and
forth on it's track while the catamaran moves straight ahead into the wind.

On 15 Oct, 05:33, "John Smith" x@y wrote:
"Bill" wrote in message

...







"toad" wrote in message
roups.com...
On 14 Oct, 16:52, Andy Champ wrote:
toad wrote:
Care to explain why a windmill which is capable of powering itself
forward against it's own drag can only do it with a true wind? How
does it know if the wind it is 'feeling' is true or not, it has no
concept of true wind which is merely the wind speed and direction at
an arbitary stationary point.

There will be a level of gearing low enough somewhere, so that the
boat can wind itself forward against the winch.
Even so, if the true wind is zero you get no excess of power whatever
you do.

How does the windmill know the wind is not true wind? It has no
concept of 'true' wind, it lives exclusively in apparent wind.

Assume the windmill direct into wind concept works:

You can take your windmill cart, put it on another cart and tow it at
20kts. It sees 20kts and will move forwards along its cart. If you
stop the cart and blow 20kts at the windmill cart it will move
forwards at exactly the same speed.

In other words there is some spare energy left over to drive the cart
forwards after the energy required to hold the windmill in equilibrium
with the wind is expended. In my example above that spare energy is
used to drive the cart forwards but in your example of the windmill on
the foredeck that surplus energy can be used to save petrol.

Now we both accept that idea is laughable so you have to explain why
it's not laughable when the wind blowing is caused by nature.

...but most importantly, why oh why oh why doesn't someone just post
the mathmatical proof, the last time this came up I said I'd leave the
thread 'till proof turned up and none did. Odd that.

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?t=14182

Reality beats proof.

I'm surprised that the fact that this (windmill boat sailing directly
upwind) is viable isn't intuitively obvious to more people.

Intuitively it does seem obvious. As do all the best perpetual motion
machines. It's only when you think about it that the flaws become
apparent and you start to look around to look for the figures. ...and
there are none. The last time this came up we had a 300 post argument
fest and still nobody was able prove it worked.

As for reality beats proof. FFS. There was a photo of a perpetual
motion machine in the daily mail a few weeks back.

On 15 Oct, 07:09, toad wrote:

Intuitively it does seem obvious. As do all the best perpetual motion
machines. It's only when you think about it that the flaws become
apparent and you start to look around to look for the figures. ...and
there are none. The last time this came up we had a 300 post argument
fest and still nobody was able prove it worked.

Toad, my dear fellow, please don't make an arse of yourself over this
yet again. Windmill powered sailing boats which can go directly upwind
have been built many times. Details have been given here - have you
been to see the one in the Scottish Maritime Museum yet?

As I recall, your main failure to understand came from thinking that
there was only a windmill involved, so it case you have forgotten,
please remember that all these designs use a PROPELLOR IN THE WATER
COUPLED TO THE WINDMILL.

Ian

On 15 Oct, 07:41, Ian wrote:

As I recall, your main failure to understand came from thinking that
there was only a windmill involved, so it case you have forgotten,
please remember that all these designs use a PROPELLOR IN THE WATER
COUPLED TO THE WINDMILL.

Errr, no. My failure to understand is I don't know how much energy a
windmill can harness, and I don't know how much energy is required to
push a windmill into the wind. What mechanism turns that energy into
forward motion is irrelevant. If the surplus energy is there it can be
used to drive the boat with any mechanism you choose.

If the energy a windmill can harness is greater than the energy
required to push it onto the wind it must go forward.

Claiming I don't understand is rather futile. Of course, _I_ don't
understand. The point is you claim you do. So post the figures that
you base your understanding on and then I will share the same
understanding and this issue will be put to bed for good:

20kts of wind on the nose. Assume no friction or drag anywhere in the
system apart from the push backwards on the windmill. How fast does it
go. Show your workings.

On Mon, 15 Oct 2007 00:09:08 -0700, toad
wrote:

20kts of wind on the nose. Assume no friction or drag anywhere in the
system apart from the push backwards on the windmill. How fast does it
go. Show your workings.

If it is unobvious that a windmill can power a prop and proceed upwind
consider something similar on land, with a rack and the pinion on the
machine. They do make gear driven railroads, there is one at Pike's
Peak.

Why wouldn't it accellerate indefinitely with no friction anywhere in
the system. In real life, of course, props are not very efficient.

Casady

On 15 Oct, 14:27, (Richard Casady) wrote:

Why wouldn't it accellerate indefinitely with no friction anywhere in
the system.

.....because as it approaches the speed of light it will require
infinate energy.

"toad" wrote in message
ps.com...
On 15 Oct, 14:27, (Richard Casady) wrote:

Why wouldn't it accellerate indefinitely with no friction anywhere in
the system.

....because as it approaches the speed of light it will require
infinate energy.


My flashlight shoots out photons at the speed of light and it is powered by
a 1 1/2 volt battery. Even better, my flashlight moves away from the photons
at the speed of light with the same 1 1/2 volt battery. When do I need to
change the battery?

On Mon, 15 Oct 2007 07:49:45 -0700, toad
wrote:

On 15 Oct, 14:27, (Richard Casady) wrote:

Why wouldn't it accellerate indefinitely with no friction anywhere in
the system.

....because as it approaches the speed of light it will require
infinate energy.

Of course not. It will continue to acquire kinetic energy at the same
rate, so many foot pounds per second. It will mostly get heavier
rather than going faster My 'calculator that takes no prisoners',
[HP48] will do the calculations for E=MC^2. Without a calculation I
will say that it would take a long time to double the mass, but there
is no upper limit if you have the source of power.

Casady

On 15 Oct, 14:27, (Richard Casady) wrote:

Why wouldn't it accellerate indefinitely with no friction anywhere in
the system.

Kelvin-Froude actuator disk theory is your friend.

Ian

"Ian" wrote in message
oups.com...
On 15 Oct, 14:27, (Richard Casady) wrote:


Kelvin-Froude actuator disk theory is your friend.


Isn't that valid only in the inertial range?