A hatch is very important to be able to adjust and work on the sails. They have to seal against the force of the sea and wind driven spray.

This illustration shows a circular hatchway in a notional deck plane. Above is the cover with a pneumatic seal, which can be inflated to 50 psi. or 3.45 bar. The seal is a bicycle tyre, large, strong, smooth without tread and a folding bead made from flexible Kevlar. The inflation valve will protrude above and below deck

The cover is sealed into the hatchway.

The cover cannot go through the hatchway because the diameter is greater. Then where to store the cover?, have it hinged?, or attach it with a rope and have it banging about in the wind and waves ? Not good.

Making the hatch system oval makes no difference to the tyre if it is the same effective circumference. I took the opportunity to add a window made from polycarbonate (Lexan ???) for interior light and being able to watch the sails and wind direction. It a double glazed system to reduce interior condensation.

The cover can now go through the hatch way and be stored below, safely. There will  be handles attached to make the operation easier. Also a tether to stop it blowing away in a gust.

This second iteration of the sail has a symmetrical shape around central tensioning.  The boom controls the sail, acts as an end plate to stop any thrust bleeding away. It also collects the skin and battens when reefed and completes the structure of the mast.. The whole assembly swivels on the central point. Again the mast has no significant effect on sail apart from holding it up.

Battens help to give shape to the sail material which has been cut and joined to give an aero-foil shape. The design of this batten comes directly from studying the nine section tail of a dragonfly. It is to be integrated inside the sail in pockets. The semi circular shapes are interlocking hinges, held together under compression. Between each section there are angled shoulders when all are closed on one side to form an E347 profile. On reflection I thought this made the sail too clumsy to build and may well suffer from too much wear to the pockets. Start again.

Here is a schematic of a batten on the boom to give me an idea of size of structure. This is a great break-through drawing because I saw the central tension should be applied not at the centre of the area (1/2 chord) of the sail but as close to the point of aero thrust generation. As the sail moves from one side (tack) to the other the central section barely moves. At this point I envisioned radiused tracks to maintain tension on the leading and tailing edges of the sail, (Leach and Luff) I had not got very far resolving the fixtures.

The breakthrough resulted in this wide, low aspect ratio, rig with a fore /aft mast. The boom is now a jointed trellis structure. Fairings can be added to reduce windage drag. The major advantage to this being the effort from the thrust of the sail can be accurately placed for the best characteristics of the hull shape. The red, central panel represents car seat belt webbing with a breaking point of 2500 kg. Handily it comes compatible with seat belt latches which are made from high grade stainless steal.

The big drawback is it’s ugly, clumsy, difficult to work around and ugly. Start again.

The batten was simplified from nine sections to seven. This image shows on the underside the shoulders have closed and the gaps on the top side show the angles that create a simplified E347 in the tensioned webbing. The whole sail surface is moulded together with the battens.

I decided to reduce the sail area, reduce the forces, make the battens all the same length and extend the tension system to the leading and trailing edges. The sail area is relatively low compared to racing boats, but by having two sets they can be balanced around the Centre of Lateral Resistance (CLR)

The boom is jointed and takes up the shape of the sail. The sail material is bonded to the webbing and batten sections.

To reef the sail the tension is released from below, through the mast, and sail lowered. The central latch is released and the one from above attached then either end are done, one at a time. At no time is the sail  released from the boom and is always held by two connections. The tension is re-applied.

Tension is maintained in the moulding of the sail, especially to give the offset nature of the top webbings. The first is to the leading edge, the second to the centre, the third to the sail at the same angle (45 deg.) as the first, and the fourth to the trailing edge. Reducing tension very slightly from below, through the boom, on the centre web will increase the arc in the battens.

What follows is from the first of nine iterations is the development of a system to generate thrust from the wind, using first principle thinking.

Humankind discovered if you held a surface up, in the wind, it exerted a pull. In the case of kites, it is string or rope, with a boat it is called a mast, which is a big upright stick. Another stick was used to stretch the surface out. Different conditions across the world required different arrangements. Fishing, transport, cargo, warfare, discovery and competition all have their own different developments. All have the common drawback of the mast creating bad airflow around itself and an obstruction to easy sail handling. The weight of the mast and rigging and forces from the wind were and are usually led to the boat’s strongest member, the keel.

This is an initial sketch of ideas collected together to see what they look like. I choose one idea and give it more thought and work. I then stop, assess and analyse, and if a drawback out-ways the advantage then it is set aside, but not rejected. Later ideas and developments can redress the balance and make something feasible. The biggest difficulty, I find, is keeping sight of what I am trying to achieve, but not knowing how to get there, because no one has gone there before, that I know of. A simile would be, searching for a black cat in pitch-black room without knowing the size of the room nor what a cat is.

I wanted to hold a sail up into the wind but remove the stick. So I chose a catenary arch, one great advantage being it gets stronger the more it is loaded. Brunelleschi used it the structure of his cathedral in Florence and Gaudi in the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. The best way to introduce loads into a tube is tangentially. The sail is held up centrally and rotates inside the arch. However this leads to the area being too small, so I added a second mast and sail.

3D printing enables very accurate manufacturing of aerofoil shapes, both straight and curved. The essential feature of a catenary arch is if the loads are kept within the limits of the structure it remains incredibly strong. Here is an illustration of the cross section with a width (chord) of 100 mm with a Teflon tube 8 mm with a 6 mm Internal Diameter (ID). 5 mm Dyneema rope with a breaking strain of 2500 kg runs through this and transmits tension through the sail back into the bottom of the mast, equally to both sides.

This is a screenshot of the slicing programme output of a vertically extruded printed core with internal bracing. Presently there are machines that can print to 2.1 metres high, although I have encountered vibration problems with smaller scale objects.

This represents exactly the same cross section but extruded horizontally and split vertically, enabling curved items to be printed.

These curved sections are then bonded together in a ‘’brickwork’’ fashion so no joins run across the complete width of the structure.

This project is inspired by the life and work of Sven Yrvind, legendary sailor, boat designer and builder.

https://www.yrvind.com/

One incident in particular literally shaped this boat. Sven was interviewed in Madeira. He had to turn back from a single handed attempt to sail to New Zealand, round Cape Horn.

The boat he built was good, made with the best materials, but he realised it was not good enough to risk the worst conditions there are. Sven was very despondent, usually he is very positive. He did not have enough money to ship the boat back to Sweden, nor to scrap it, craneage, transport and disposal cost.

As good starting point, I thought, was to design everything to fit into a standard 20 ft. shipping container, the red box represents the internal dimensions.

The drawings are 3D CAD turned into illustrations, life size and show the core of the structure. No plugs, moulds, wastage and minimum sanding. All surfaces to be covered in high strength organic composites. The very minimum use of hydro-carbon based materials is the major target.

There are printers, at present, big enough to produce this design, so this is not sci-fi, nor photoshop fantasy.

This is not a racing boat.

As with the 1 metre pond yacht, the aero profile is Eppler 347. It is used for the hull sails, masts, keels and modified for the superstructure.

There are two small sails, so one person can manage the power and handle the reduction of area (reefing).

Aerodynamics are as important as hydrodynamics, so there are no drag inducing handrails, standing or running rigging nor lines. All controls for sail management and steering are internal.

The yellow ovals are hatches and are pneumatically sealed.

Here is the boat leaning at 38.7 degrees, there is no change to the under-water shape, so there will be no change in handling characteristics.

It is designed to exist in the water like a fish, not fight the element, but carefully divert the water with minimum disturbance. It should go through the waves not climb over them. Sealed against leakage rather than trying to cope with the after effects of deluge and soaking clothing and bedding.

Dried out on a sandy beach, waiting on the tide. The figure is included to give scale to what is really quite a small boat. There is enough clearance under the hull to land on a beach of small rocks.

The keels act as a jig, in construction, to align the 1 metre sections for bonding

The tail is the full extent of the Eppler 347 to complete the flow around the hull with as little disturbance as possible.