Ignore how little application this may have in modern times but i have an idea. Say you are sailing your ship somewhere where there isn't much wind. Could you create artificial wind by using a system of bellows (obviously they'd have to be large, and have some well ordered and fairly strong mechanical power source)---- or would that not get you anywwhere because the air would push the bellows back with equal force as the masts are pushing the ship forward? Would the forces just counter each other with the bellows attached the very thing they attempt to will?

It's the same as trying to lift yourself off the floor by picking your feet up.

 

'Conservation of momentum'

a Fan might work though, but then if you had a big enough fan you wouldn`t need sails anyway

you could even put it in the water, but that`s already been thought of DOH!

No it wouldn't, stop being stupid either intentionally or by coincidence.

of course a fan would work!

how do you think these hydro planes work?

the sort they use in the Everglades and marsh areas, I fail to see what`s "stupid" in that?

It won't work if it's blowing into the sails.

 

Blowing out the back, yes, but not into the sails.

well obviously not AT the sails, that would be self defeating, and serve only to create stress in the ships hull between the mast and the fan. the idea was to mount the fan at the front blowing bacwards at the sails with the rudder or tiller bar at dead ahead, and to use the sails as a steering mechanism like used in hovercraft or hydo planes. afan`s much more efficient than bellows and more constant. his idea would work, but not in the arangement he specified. the bellows would be better employed under water to create a jet type arrangement.

that was my point.

He was talking about blowing them at the sails

on a re-read with the focus on AT as in self defeating (may as well do it in a box and expect it to move) perspective, then yeah, I can see what your saying, but I didn`t read it like that 1`st time round, so the fault IS mine, hands up guilty. I just didn`t expect anyone to mean something like that and be serious at the same time to me his question had merit in the way I read it.

Then you're being stupid by coincidence

I don`t get the "coincidence" bit?

If you`de have said "stupid by giving the benefit of the doubt"

you`de have been on the nail

i lost 30 seconds of my life to this thread.

LOL @ Giles, you`re right, it was kind of an exersize in futility!

 

I think we all meant well though

I found the crazy boat patent.

 

http://totallyabsurd.com/windmillboat.htm

 

Weeeeeeeeeeeee

patent 1981 !!! and they ALLOWED that?

well yeah, I supose they must have, it IS MONEY after all

 

but i`de hazzard to say that almost ANYONE with an ounce of common sense wouldn`t have wasted their money and gone and spent it on little 50cc Johnson outboard motor and be done with )

 

neat site tho

that windmill idea is awesome