Who needs a mast and I can’t say it’s a trawler but... At first we didn’t know what we were looking at as we were leaving St. Maartin. By the time I got the camera out, she had out distanced her self from us. The kite was on a power cat of about ~40'? Aren’t some commercial vessels experimenting with something similar? Looked like a lot of power down wind.
Jan,
you may want to know thatfrom the laws of physics, due to liquid friction the power (fuel consumption) in a displacement-hull vessel increases approximately with the cube of the velocity. This power relation does not apply without change to a planing vessel at planing speed due to the decrease in wet surface when planing.
That means that if the new velocity is 26% greater, the fuel consumption will be he cube of 1.26 greater or approximately twice as much fuel as the slower speed. By the same token, that also means that if you were to travel at a speed of 7 knots/1.26 or 5.5 knot, you would double the range of your vessel to 3000 miles! Keep this rule of thumb in mind when passage making.
I am new here. I had a 48 foot blue sea cruiser and have been two times around the World. Love sailing with sails. 3 years ago I fell in love with a NORDHAVN 46, 24 ton, that was damaged after a Typhoon in the Philippines. Since then we sold thew cruiser and I have rebuild the Nordhavn and added a 11 meter mast on the fore-deck with furling genoa and main and the small missen. All together we have 64 square meters of sail. It sails fine as a motorsailer. In 12 knots upwind it add two knots in speed, when the sails is up. That is together with Wing engine, a Yanmar 3GM30. We will continue sailing Ocean Cruising and this is the way to do it for us. We will add a big Genakker for downwind.
Great! It was one of my plan instead of paravanes and fish for stability etc..
Add a mast, why not a bipod mast to avoid install a compression post. But some riggers told me we should be obliged to modify the hull, add a ballast etc..
What about stability with your Nordy 46 and sails up and heel?
Wanderbird article. Cost $12,000,000 to build! [emoji15]
http://sparkmanstephensbrokerage.blogspot.com/2012/04/wanderbird-72-park-isle-marine-royal.html?m=1
Video:
https://youtu.be/jXBTdKYt93U