Some Aspects of Commercial Sail

Extract

There can be little doubt that the concept of using wind power for ships has a great deal to commend it and equally little doubt that the extensive use of the natural power available from wind, sea and sun in order to conserve fossil fuel resources must be urgently considered. If we leave aside sea and sun, although both are potential sources of some proportion of propulsion, and concentrate on wind power the immediate and largest problem is one of the time available. We may all believe in the principle but the problem is one of arriving at an industry with the appropriate technical ability in any short time. We know that it is possible, as witness the hovercraft industry, and this was achieved by grafting the new technology to the stem of the existing aircraft industry. It might equally have been attached to shipbuilding or boatbuilding or even the car industry. I think in fact that the right decision was made and that hovercraft have benefited from their attachment to the industry with the greatest life in it.