Clippers might not return apart from tourism, but new sail technology such as Sky Sails - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkySails - is a low carbon method of propulsive energy for ocean transport. Wave energy also has potential.

There is a nice book by Geoffrey Blainey called The Tyranny of Distance, about the clipper trade between England and Australia. They sailed the route in a figure of eight, going south from Melbourne to Antarctica and around the circumpolar current in the fifties before heading north through the Atlantic to England. The southward route sailed the western side of the Atlantic then to Cape Town and Fremantle on the prevailing westerly wind. This figure eight journey might make a good modern clipper tourist route.

I like that idea...

Not so much, as the guy who just crossed the Pacific took several times longer than your average sailboat, and way longer than the clippers.

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I am Mugs, of the Alien clan of Usa, Nordamerica, a Terran, of Sol. Human.

Whoever says "perception is reality" is daft. It's merely an abstraction, and often not a very good one.

Sorry, I missed your link. Interesting that Sky Sail is looking to go commercial but the website still fends off accusations about being an eco-freak. I think we will see innovative technology emerge using wave energy to augment the power supply for ocean tankers.

Are there any working ships left of the Clipper Ship design?

We have the Cutty Sark in London, but that was a static museum piece and recently was heavily damaged in a fire..

Another use would be to give young people some kind of work experience anstead of sitting down all day playing computer games.

Thinking further of retro technology in light of the high oil prices, I did here of a farm going back to using horses because of the high cost of diesel

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Yes, google for Star Clipper and Royal Clipper...

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Hi,
Here's a new tech solution for sailing vessels of the larger kind:

Moveable ballast, and

Stabilizers ( they help you carry more sail in stiffer wind ...= more speed ).

If you think "Flying Cloud" was fast, put a few more knots on top of that.

Add to that superior bottom paint, GPS , Solar Power ( ice , radios etc..)

and after a while, sail becomes attractive.

You still need "Some" power . But the wind is a powerful force,
which can be harnessed.

Best regards, Dan

The hulls of tankers are engineered so that waves affect them very little, even in rough seas. Adding any additional devices which use waves might provide some power, but they would probably provide nearly as much additional friction as power, and their extra weight, which causes additional friction requiring even more power would probably tip the scales in favor of leaving them off entirely.

One of the more promising devices was simply a series of holes in the bottom of the hull in which the water rose and fell, generating power. It was quickly determined that the additional drag of the openings, even when seriously redesigned to minimize drag, created more drag than the power they were generating.

Interestingly, the ideal shape for a supertanker with respect to minimizing the energy per ton per mile is a slender, several-mile long vessel. However, the ideal shape with respect to minimizing steel (costly) is a hemisphere, and the idea design with respect to maximizing stability is a rectangle. The current shape is a long-term, profit-maximized combination of those three.

You can bet that if it costs less per ton-mile, long-term, Chevron and the others would be all over it. And they are - but just on what actually meets that criteria.

__________________
I am Mugs, of the Alien clan of Usa, Nordamerica, a Terran, of Sol. Human.

Whoever says "perception is reality" is daft. It's merely an abstraction, and often not a very good one.

Kite sails might be useful for some smaller vessels then.

They are, but they're typically mounted to the top of the mast with two sheets (lines) running from the bottom corners of the triangular spinnaker to the sailboat.

If the sailboat is running mostly downwind, the captain will usually attach one corner (clew), the windward corner to a spinnaker pole sticking out from one side of the mast and the sheet from the other corner to a rearward cleat on the opposite side. This allows the captain the option or turning a considerable angle into the wind that's on the side of the spinnaker pole.

It's essentially the same thing as a parasail, but without the risk of having the parasail drop into the water when encountering doldrums.

__________________
I am Mugs, of the Alien clan of Usa, Nordamerica, a Terran, of Sol. Human.

Whoever says "perception is reality" is daft. It's merely an abstraction, and often not a very good one.