I think if it did come to pass it would be a total rethink of the sails we use now. I think there are probably people in lofts doing r&d on what sails will look like into the future. I reckon DR J may be on o something with attaching the boom and then attaching the sail to the board.
Dan Kaesler had a site on the web(can't find it now) which showcased some of his protos while working for Naish, one was a sail with a inflatable batten system looked good
What's wrong with a conventional mast?
I can't see an inflatable mast happening on anything larger than a kids dinghy...
And that would be a big ask.....what sort of diameter tube would be required for a Volvo yacht section?
Massive I would guess..what would be the benefit?
I would like to see a rubber tube that could support a massive kite as cjw suggests
There's already too many double action air bed pumps lurking around the beaches....
Apparently the battens in the yacht sails can be connected to diving bottles that inflate the battens or add more air. Don't think that would work on a board.
Yep your right about it being more convenient. I have a sailbag that when fully loaded weighs in at 25kg and is over 6ft long. It has to be strapped to the roof when travelling. If it was possible I would have boards and sails that came apart in sections to fit in the car, yea I know the Pope brand does that. I'm just saying transportability is king here.
Barn your focus on dinosaurs surprises me lol.
Posted 11 hours, 0 min ago
AUS4 said...
choco said...
If they could design a bladder to fit behind the mast and inflate the actual luff sleeve to form a ridged leading edge it would eliminate the need for cams hold the power locked in and best thing is that it would float.
You would rig the sail normally then pump tight the luff pocket....
This image has been resized to fit - click to view as 1200x1800.
Gaastra did this in 1984.
You could fill it with helium!
But then Elmo would float away when he took his wetsuit off!
Apparently the US patents office thought that it should close sometime in the 19th century cause everything that needed to be invented had been. Truth is that what lies around the corner may be the next big step so I don't think every engineering solution has been developed as yet. Actually what is really cool is that this is causing some sort of debate rather than just disappearing down the list. Agreed that 500 million years of evolution have taught us something about wing design and what will and won't work, however, its not to say that its the be all and end all of design.
Like I said maybe someone will come along and say reduce the carbon cogent in a mast and use an inflatable luff to provide the bulk, maybe the design of sails will alter altogether in the next decade. It just takes one smart person to think differently and it will work. I was SUPing the other day and met the bloke that does a lot of production work for Simon Anderson and we were talking about the thruster design. Apparently if Simon hadn't won those couple of contests the thruster may have disappeared into history regarded as a novelty. Its now the dominant design for boards in most disciplines. I think that having to have huge amounts of gear to put on and off a roof or having to buy a trailer to get gear to the coast each time, or having to buy a van to transport kit is painful.
Like Dr J said if you could fit your rigs into something the size of a golf bag how good would that be (and Im not getting kiteboarder on you). Gone would be the days of having to lug around gear, bloody heaven.
Yea not sure if it's about achieving anything on the forum, just shooting the **** really.
Pope have been making the bisect and the trisect for years with mals. I'm sure the same thing could be done to a board. I like the three piece masts from north. My gear bag weighs in at about 20kg or so when fully packed, could the weight and the size be reduced without sacrificing usability(ie I don't want to be told to leave gear home).
I think it was Winlok that made sails in the early 80's with a molded flexible foam luff section shaped like a wind mast that slipped over the normal mast, replacing the cambers as well. I only ever saw it in brochures and at the Windsurfing show in Melbourne. I don't know how well it worked but it seems it was not practical.
