[brian eiland]

I first posted this tonight before looking thru the forum to discover there was already a posting made about this ship. When I found that other posting my first thought was to delete this one of mine....BUT

1) First I noted it had been placed under the 'Yacht Club' heading rather than the more general yachting discussion where some of her design parameters might be more fully explored.

2) I detected in a few of those posting some sarcasm that the sailing rig on this vessel was only there to make it appear as a 'green' vessel, but would never really be utilized as a true propulsion system for this vessel.

http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/ya...rrior-iii.html

I intend to dispel that notion, but first just a youtube presentation of the vessel's initial sea trails under power after her rig had been placed on board.
RAINBOW WARRIOR.mpg - YouTube

[brian eiland]

BTW, the design firm "Dykstra & Partners" were employed to design the rig (that's the same firm that produced Maltese Falcon )

It has been said that, because their own ships are fossil fuel guzzlers, Greenpeacers have so far been rather conspicuously absent when it comes to protesting air pollution by the shipping industry in general, not to mention the carbon dioxide output contributing to global warming. So it was high time they at least started to clean up their own act. They've set an admirable example with Rainbow Warrior III. According to Greenpeace and the designers, effciency and practicality were the main considerations in the design of the sailing rig, and they did extensive wind tunnel testing before choosing the A-frame rig (see photo below).


Hey, maybe for their next act they'll leap all the way into the 21st century by building a catamaran!

[brian eiland]

early illustration

[brian eiland]

Very likely one of the role models for this A-frame sailing rig came from a very bold project carried out by the Harken brothers a number of years ago

I've posted quite extensively about that project here:

PROCYON project........a Bold experiment

[brian eiland]

Here's another video of Rainbow Warrior III. There are some sailing scenes about one minute into it:

Rainbow Warrior III - YouTube

[NYCAP123]

That's an interesting bow. There seems to be a slight bulbous effect designed into it.

[K1W1]

Originally Posted by NYCAP123

That's an interesting bow. There seems to be a slight bulbous effect designed into it.

Hi,

How do you figure that out?

[NYCAP123]

Originally Posted by K1W1

Hi,

How do you figure that out?

I don't. I'm no naval architect. Just caught a glimpse of the lower part of the bow in one of the clips that looked interesting and unfamiliar. Generally I see a straight line down or a bulbous bow. This seemed to contain a hint of both. Could be wrong. You'd know better than me on this.

[K1W1]

Hi,

Here is a still from the Clip.

I have also been within a few metres of the vessel where she lays currently and the bow looks like the photo as far as I can see except it is painted.

[NYCAP123]

A little hard to see there until you zoom in, but what I was referring to was the section from about mid-way down that left wing to the 3rd depth mark and below, and incorporating a silght axebow in that section. Just seemed like a good attention to detail for cutting the water. Seemed like taking a little from two schools and combining them. Again, not my field of expertise, just something that caught my attention. I had half expected a bulbous bow which is what brought my attention to it.

Looks interesting, I wonder if they have a method of moving the boom to the side to land the helicopter, IIRC greenpeace don't have a good track record with heli operations at sea.

[High Tacker]

Here are some photos of Rainbow Warrior III sailing, or maybe motorsailing, in her first round of sea trials.

[High Tacker]

In the first sea trials of Rainbow Warrior III, they were in winds of 10 to 25 knots and everything worked fine, according to Gerard Dykstra of the design firm Dykstra & Partners, who was aboard, and handling of the sails was safe and easy, and those are pretty big sails. They are supposed to have gone out for the second round of sea trials right about now, so there should be more news soon.

All five of those sails are on furlers. Roller furling, and reliable roller reefing, constitute probably the greatest fundamental invention/development in sailing in the past couple of centuries. Other than sails themselves, and a mast or two of some kind to support them, a keel or some kind of hydrofoil in the water to prevent them going sideways, a rudder, an anchor, a compass, usually a motor, and maybe a radio and now a GPS, the other thing that in just the past few decades has become essential on a cruising boat, that practically all cruising sailboats and motorsailers now have in common, is at least one furling sail, and substantial off-shore cruising boats usually have at least two.

Before the new Rainbow Warrior, other boats had validated the use of more than the usual one or two furling sails, and with strong A-frames to support them. For example, the SMG 50 catamaran "NumberOne", with A-frame and 3 furling sails (a boomless mainsail, a staysail, and a genoa) recently won a race of 100 substantial cruising boats in the Adriatic, beating other catamarans and tacking upwind better than big, fast monohulls. See the first 2 photos below and the video and other details at the following link:

SMG Videos

Another example, with A-frame and 4 furling sails (a boomless main, a staysail, and two genoas, one on each bow) is the Malcolm Tennant designed catamaran "Catbird Suite". See photos 3-5 below and details at:

DAMSL — Catbird Suite

[Codger]

If anyone will prove this rig it will be Greenpeace. The amount of high latitude work that they do will test that rig to within an inch of it's life.

Just a passing observation.. Since Oracle Racing's use of the wing sail on USA17 to thrash Alinghi 5 in AC33 and Maltese Falcon's rig seeming to work very well, there is less resistance to at least considering alternative rigs and configurations on larger vessels.

[sebisebman]

just out of curiosity - how is a helicopter supposed to land on the aft of the new rainbow warrior? What about all those lines - especially those who support the mast (sorry for the poor description, but i have no idea how they are called. I guess they have a name...)

Sebastian