sailboats have been around forever, even when man thought the earth was flat…so its time to update this old technology. my idea is to replace the sails with a vertical wind generator. not only would you eliminate all the work fooling with the sails, but you would also have a level boat! i would mount the blades up high so you don’t get hit in the head and use the generator to charge a battery bank. the battery bank would also serve as the ballast. as for power, i would utilize a dc motor with an electronic drive system. i designed a high efficient dc motor for a small tour boat builder years ago and they were very pleased with the smooth, quiet operation. i know some of you are thinking that the boat would have a tendency to steer to one side, so this problem can be corrected with a side thruster. two additional benefits would be, the boat would always be ready to go and the sea gulls wouldn’t go near it. if we expand my idea to the large tour boats that cruise the oceans, just think of the energy savings….