Sailor Edouard Kessi and aviator Laurent de Kalbermatten have developed a revolutionary new type of inflatable wing sail, which they have called IWS or Inflated Wing Sails.
The creators were inspired by the idea of a parachute wing used in paragliders, and borrowed some ideas from the concept of inflatable airplanes.
Inside the leading edge of the symmetrical wing-sail are fans that stabilize its shape in any wind. A freestanding retractable mast is located in the aerodynamic center of the sail.
To reduce the sail area, a part of the wing-sail can be deflated and the mast can be folded. At the base of the inflatable sail-wing there is a lightweight Nest boom which the deflated part of the sail is set around.
Authors believe that IWS would be a perfect solution for pleasure boats making handling easier and relieving decks of unnecessary equipment as well as for large passenger boats and dry cargo vessels as they don't create additional stresses on sailcloth and boat structure.
We, in our turn, will be interested to see how a telescopic (read: flimsy) mast behaves on vessels a bit more serious than the 5.5 meter long boat on which the tests were conducted. And also there is an impression that the sail material has to be straight from NASA warehouses to spend all its life on seawater and sunshine without cracking, while constantly unfolding and folding into an accordion.
