Sailing downwind faster than the wind

[vattas]

The only way to set prop pitch accordingly for this course would be to have a cyclic pitch that allowed each blade to change pitch over each rotation.

Turning whole rotor to be perpendicular to the wind won't do?

 

[spork]

The only way to set prop pitch accordingly for this course would be to have a cyclic pitch that allowed each blade to change pitch over each rotation.

Turning whole rotor to be perpendicular to the wind won't do?

I considered that while I was typing that response. But I thought we were talking specifically about blade pitch. Turning the whole rotor head would solve at least the cyclic pitch problem, but I don't think it would be as efficient at making you go downwind fast in propeller mode. It would probably be more efficient however to do that when operating in turbine mode (going upwind for example). Without doing some basic analysis though I have to admit these are sort of guesses.

 

[vattas]

My guess is also that it would be less efficient when not directly downwind.