SBIR Phase I: Hermetic, Expeditionary Sailing Vessel

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase 1 project is to leverage technical innovations in multi-hull sail management and autonomy to design a sailing vessel that provides fast, economical delivery of supplies to remote locations. This technology seeks to be able to use multi-hull sailing vessels more reliably for the delivery of supplies such as fuel, water, food, and medicine. Current options are limited by cost, lack of supporting infrastructure (ports), and shipper interest. The vessel is designed to de-risk the supply chain with particular focus on underserved locations. The key technical innovations address a vulnerability of multi-hull sailing vessels - catastrophic capsizing - by providing a controlled submerging capability and a method to right a flipped vessel with the goal to be able to re-surface and continue a voyage. The surface system will use a pivoting mast for passive, real-time corrections.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase 1 project addresses the logistical and economic limitations of current systems that deliver supplies to remote locations. Rather than attempting to optimize the elements of the current delivery systems, the technology seeks to address island inaccessibility to large vessels, lack of cargo flexibility, increasing weather risks, and capital and operating economics by addressing the capsizing vulnerabilities of a surface sailing vessel and managing ballast system. Capsizing occurs when the center of gravity (CG) is higher than the center of buoyancy (CB). In mono-hull vessels, the keel is the primary design element that maintains this ratio.Multi-hull designs introduce different challenges. Vessel surface control will be managed by a passive wing sail control system that provides real time corrections. Submerged performance will be managed by pumps and ballast for corrective action. The primary research objectives are to design, evaluate, and optimize a heeling wingsail system (pivoting masts and hull involvement), and to design, evaluate, and optimize a ballast system for controlled submerging as well as to right capsized vessels.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.