Omer - the soft wing sail
|
Omer wing sail – The soft and variable geometry wing sail for the sailor. It is faster, it has better up wind performance and it is easier to handle.
Available Today
We've been working on the prototypes for the past four years, and are now making this rig available for you to test. We have the first production sailboat, a 37' Elan cruiser/race, with the Omer Wingsail installed. Contact us at ilan@omerwingsail.com to arrange a test sail.
Why wing sail
Modern technology yields a new generation of wing sails. Instead of trying to make sails look like a wing - we now have the real thing, the wing itself.
Wings are aerodynamically more efficient than sails. They provide more lift (Driving Force) with much less drag (Heeling Force). The wing's small Angle of Attack gives Excellent Upwind Performance.
The new Omer Wing Sail is a soft wing sail (made of sail cloth), and has a Variable Geometry Airfoil that:
-
Yields much better performance
-
Hoists and reefs like a conventional mainsail
-
Is simple to trim and handle
-
Employs a simple variable geometry soft wing sail
-
Facilitates short and single handed sailing
-
Uses conventional marine hardware, available anywhere
Having many years of experience in flying as well as in sailing, I found many similarities between them. For example: since both move in fluids - both have no brakes and it is hard to steer at low speeds.
Propeller torque makes it difficult to take off in light aircraft with a powerful engine, similarly it is difficult to control a boat going astern.
Both use air flow; the same lift force that holds airplanes up in the air is the driving force for sails.
The inefficiency of standard sails causes excessive healing and lee way; only a fraction of this lift force drives you forward. I felt driven to do something about this problem and sought the solution in the much more efficient soft wing sail.
I found that others have developed very efficient wing sails, that perform wonderfully, but are difficult to use by the general sailor.
So I took my 25 years experience flying high performance jets, combined this with my love of sailing, and developed a soft wing sail that is much like a main sail with airfoil shape, that is made for the sailor.
|
|
 |
|
