Peter Worsley  - Wingsail Experiments -

"Twice Lucky" described.

"Twice Lucky" is a 13ft "Hawke Surfcat" grp catamaran that I have used for testing my wingsails.

Steering is by a foot-operated rudder bar

The symmetrical section wing  is 2.5ft x 8ft making 20sq ft. The tail is 1.5ft by 4ft
The tail pivots about one third back from the leading edge about 15 degrees either side.

The mast (which is from an Optimist dinghy) extends inside the lower portion of the wing and terminates
in a pin which pivots on a plate in the wing (diagram below)

This makes it easy to fit and the wing simply rests over the mast.

Initially the tail was adjusted by a tube and cycle cable system "Bowden cable" to a single lever with neutral,
 wind from left, wind from right positions.
New for this year is a different system. "Remote Control" - A control box is mounted within reach of the rider
with a simple control which adjusts the wing for right or left tack. The box transmits a radio signal to a servo in the wing unit which controls the angle of the tail.
No more rope-pulling to control the sail.
Fingertip control is used and the sail finds the wind without any human intervention!

This system makes sailing very simple. To sail the boat, all you need to do is move the lever in the direction
the wind is coming from. If you want to reduce the drive to zero, you just centralise the lever. You can go
in reverse also, just move the lever away from the direction the wind is coming from. In this way the whole assembly is free to weathercock and it may be left that way safely in any wind if the control is left in neutral.
(For long-term "parking" the radio system is switched off and a pin inserted to keep the tail in neutral)

The system would be particularly suitable for the disabled, as it is much simpler
than present systems used for disabled sailing.

Home

Any Questions? click here