Hacker News Reader

Oh, this is amazing! I don't think I've seen solid sails before, although now that I think about it, it makes perfect sense.

Hopefully this kind of design can be adapted to more ships and maybe even retrofitted to existing vessels.

View on HN

They are way more efficient than conventional sails, although a lot less practical. The F1 of sailing uses wing sails.

https://youtu.be/926yzLioIxQ

They can be less practical but they can also be more practical. The only autonomous sailboats in the world use solid wingsails, but with a different control scheme than traditional sailors are accustomed to. This allows them to be operated without any of the complexity or danger that you'll see in an AC50.

Closest I can come to think of is the Maltese Falcon, but it doesn’t have solid wings, but still pretty unconventional in similar ways: https://www.marineinsight.com/boating-yachting/maltese-falco...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com