Jim has been sailing in his new yacht. He notices that the boat seems to want to fall over in the wind. Jim realizes this is no good because he has a need for speed and all the wind in his sails is spilling out.
Jim takes action, he goes out an buys a huge rubber band (with internal diameter equal to his masts) and saws his mast off at the base. Jim inserts the two sawn ends of his mast into the rubber band and applies super glue.
While out and about on the water Jim deals with the heel by pivoting his mast in the direction he requires.
Jim notices he is catching more wind so thinks about adding water balast or something (which is outside the AC 2003 rules).-- madness, Jan 15 2003 Yip, just like a windsurfer. I figure that the balast should be dynamic as well and not in the water. Maybe a weight on the end of another boom.-- madness, Jan 15 2003 / transfer load//
I guess if Jim had the time and the money he could fashion a ball and socket joint for the mast and incase it in a rubber sock as before.-- madness, Jan 15 2003 Jim needs a Hobie cat, as it has a pivoting mast in a ball and socket. Or do you mean pivoting about a horizontal axis? That's trickier but doable, as the mast stays would need to be adjustable real-time somehow.
Jim should also forget about ballast which is just slowing him down and look into active hydrofoils to lift and level the hull...-- RayfordSteele, Jan 15 2003 I wonder if we can introduce some cryptographic technology to this invention, so that Jim can meet Alice and Bob.-- krelnik, Jan 15 2003 I don't know much about sailing, but I was reading recently about a sail boat with a pivoting keel. It was supposed to help balance against the boat capsizing. That coupled with this idea should make for a remarkably stable sail boat.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jan 15 2003 Jim is quite clearly mad.-- sild, Jan 16 2003 Sail-pumping in low wind conditions on an AC yacht with a pivoting mast would require the whole crew!-- oscil8, Jan 24 2003 when the wind is spilling out of the sails, simply change tack and let out a bit more sail... works well with r/c anyway-- tazmase2, Jul 28 2003 this has been done. Not with the rubber band and super glue, but a tilting mast with the stays adjusted by hydrolics. The idea was no to reduce the sails by tilting the mast, but to counter the heel of the boat in windy conditions. In a swingkeel design the keel is swung to one side using hydrolics, so thqat the mast stays upright and remains 100% effective. In the swingmast design, only the mast is swung windwards, having the same effect. The advantage is that the hull is now heeled too, so that the waterline is longer. A longer waterline translates into a higher (hull)speed. It was some dutchman who sailed this boat in 2002 or 2003 in some atlantic crossing race. Can't remember his name though.-- nietsch, Mar 21 2004 random, halfbakery