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Plenty of scope for much faster skate sails

The wing skate sail, is as fast as ice boats, but it is far from the ultimate:

Its aspect ratio, AR, (its relation between height and length, viewed from the side), is extremely low, around one. The AR of fast ice boats is around seven.
The sail force is only about one third of the total weight. The sail force of a good ice boat equals its weight.
It can't be built with a small sail area for sailing in strong winds. If you try to make it small it becomes more like a barrel than an efficient wing.

It therefore looks like much faster skate sails can be designed, but we probably have have to think along totally new lines. This is certainly a challenge for designers and inventors. And anyone, use roller skates if you don't live in the ice belt, can give it a try as costs are low.

On the page after the next page a totally new concept is presented. Twice as fast?

The best tactical compass for sail boats? You see the wind shifts directly on the compass! No figures to read, write or compare. Can it get simpler? The position of the white pointer directly shows where the direction of the wind is between best lift and worst header, in oscillating wind shifts. Picture on to the right is an animation.

A concept for the world's biggest, longest, widest kite?

This kite is 22 by .5 m. You can sail straight up wind with it!

Next in Skate sailing index is We have tried hard to use the wind surf rig. Picture with "Personal Streamlining".

Back to Skate sailing index.

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