I thought I'd ask a question to see who can think outside the box.
Can you design a landyacht that can sail in all directions including directly against the wind (It is possible, I saw a Photo of one thirty years ago)
Ian

A vertical windmill mounted on the chassis, to provide power to the wheels has been done. Hows this for an attempt?

http://www.ecofriend.org/entry/wing-powered-racing-dtu-all-set-for-the-windy-race/

When I was tinkering with a little robotics a few years ago (BEAM robotics) I only wanted to use renewables. An idea I had was to have a small turbine mounted of the back of my robot, like a spinaway roof vent, which in turn would drive a dc motor to provide current and charge the things capacitors. Never got around to making it as my interests moved to something else, on the list though.

Going off on a tangent a little; have a look at the wind related works by Theo Jansen. Incredible, although somewhat limited, works of art and engineering. I want a screen saver with these things travelling across it.

A pic from a sailing book 30+ years old
I know its on a water yacht but the ideas there.....
www.treehugger.com/files/2007/02/windmill_sailbo.php


Or there are a couple of rotor systems.... the"Savonius rotor" or "Darries rotor" invented in the late 1920's or even the sail system on the "Alcyone" one of the Cousteau Society's expedition vessels. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcyone(ship)

These all might be worth a look on google

Back in the 80s I saw a windmill powered boat in Whangarei NZ sailing on the harbour
The boat started life as a yacht I believe got converted to a fishing boat, lengthened and then got powered by a windmill .All by the same inovative owner
When I saw it it was going very well
I am sure there will be some info on this craft somewhere as it was very well known. Unfortunately I dont remember its name but it was moored in Parua Bay
and was quite a revelation to the many overseas yachtsmen who saw it

Just be careful when you go forward to drop the pick. A conventional yacht boom has got nothing on one of those blades.

Someone was thinking outside of the box on this one. The 36 foot catamaran, Revelation II, is powered by 3 20-foot long carbon fiber propellers on a 30 foot rotating mast. The windmill transmits power to a 6 blade propeller underwater, with the net result that the boat can make way even directly into the wind.

Another question for the Quiz Time thread.

Yes it is wind powered but is it still a yacht???

I think it should be called "milling"

is the windmill/blades creating electricity or is it direct drive.
if it were electricity to the prop then an entirely different generator would be better than big blades. ie a wind turbine not unlike a jet engine set up. As one walks around secondhand engineering yards, scrapyards, turbines can be observed, just quietly ticking over on almost nil wind days.
i would recon that on the open water, heaps of juice would be created or at least enough to give headway......joe