Quote:
Originally Posted by Cherper
One other thing that I thought was implausible was the fitting of the ships to sail. The size of sails needed to move even a small frigate would be huge. A couple of sails like those pictured would maybe move the ships at a knot or two, but the stress on the masts would be incredible. Don't know if it would even be possible.
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It wouldn't. For several reasons;
1. No where near enough sail area.
2. Hull is a poor shape for sailing - and it gets worse if it starts to heel (like it would with wind pushing on the sails.
3. Modern naval hulls have no keel; if you had enough sails and avoided heeling over completely, you'd make horrible leeway (slide in the direction of the wind).
4. To run the hydraulics to steer (and weapons systems, electronics, ventilation and plumbing), you'd to run a generator system. And a small wind-powered thing is NOT going to cut it.
Uncle Ted