If the wind powered aeroplane works, I'm going to design a wave powered generator to drive ships... Surprised no-one has thought of it before...
However a wave powered generator could be used to drive ships as long as the ship is going more or less the same way as the wave and at a slower speed, in the same way that a sailing ship can tap into the wind
The direction of travel of the vessel is, in fact, irrelevant as wave generators rely on the up and down motion - so they would be more efficient if the ship was heading into the waves in actuality; wave generators employed in tidal barrages are fixed in place and so do not move... Oh, and just in case anyone else didn't realise, I was making a sarcastic joke...
Hmmmm. So the direction of travel is irrelevant but the efficiency would depend upon the heading. Something doesn't sound quite right there.
Here is an article on something similar; Sailing hybrids - The shape of ships to come? - E & T Magazine
yip, seen some of that on t.v a while back makes perfect sense. me copper mate is convinced airships are the future for cargo. engineer turned copper turned engineer. mad as a hatter but good craic. i listen to his inventions daily.
Wind is free. This is great. Sadly it often does not blow strongly enough, or blows in the wrong direction, or blows too strongly, or fails to blow at all. That is why sailing boats are a fun leisure activity, but not a reliable commercial proposition - as discovered by the Victorians.
when you consider how much fuel these hings burn, any help is good, but obviously the economics of it aint right. but that isnt the only cost tho. one planet and all that.
The direction of travel is irrelevant to the actual functioning - as I said, tidal barrages don't actually travel in any direction, but still work as they depend on the up and down motion of the sea surface. However, if the ship is heading into the sea then the up and down motion would be, relatively, quicker and therefore, theoretically, more efficient... And, as also said, this idea was not meant to be taken seriously...
However - for a more serious view... WIND POWERED SHIPS MARINE RENEWABLE ENERGY RESEARCH ROTARY SAILS Still can't see how this would work on an aeroplane though...
