Dave Culp has been messing around with kites for 25 years now. His site is an excellent source of information on the concept: http://www.kiteship.com/index.html Powering powerboats with kites is still in its infancy: http://www.kit-cats.com/kite_sail.htm But big things are in the works: Largest Kite Ever Built to Power Cruise Ship US companies KiteShip Corporation and Adventurer Cruise Ship Acquisition Corporation are teaming up to install kite sail power onto the first of Adventurer Cruise Ship's vessels. Subject to shareholder approval, KiteShip will design, fabricate and install an approximately 8,000 square foot kite sail onto Adventurer Cruise Ship's 187' 924 ton combo vessel "Adventurer 2," beginning as soon as this Summer. This will be the largest kite ever built and installed for traction work. The companies are already talking about adding even larger kites to the remainder of Adventurer Cruise Ship's fleet. "We are particularly excited about this project. Not only do we see significant fuel savings, but KiteShip will retrofit our existing vessels without major structural alterations and without taking the vessel entirely out of service," says Adventurer Cruise Ship President Arthur Wyss. "Adventurer Cruise Ship is a great fit for us. KiteShip is fully ready to step up to larger kites after our America's Cup experiences. Adventurer Cruise Ship's business model of 'fractional ownership' leads to end users--the vessels' fractional owners--who appreciate the potential savings and also are willing to experiment with the performance-versus-economy trade-offs inherent with sail assist." asserts KiteShip President Dave Culp. Both companies are acutely aware of the world's need to conserve fossil fuels and the potential for near-term price spikes and unforeseen scarcities throughout the world's seaports. The two companies will use KiteShip's patent-pending kites and control technology developed for America's Cup Class racing yachts to add kite power to "Adventurer 2." KiteShip unveiled this technology in December 2002 in Auckland, New Zealand during the Louis Vuitton Cup regatta. The companies expect to co-develop upgrades to their current technology for both the kites and control systems as they adapt the technology for ever-larger vessels. "We will use this 'smaller' install to amass hard data to support our cost, performance, and crew load calculations for these unique sailing concepts," adds Culp. Founder and President of KiteShip, Culp has been using kites to power sailing craft for more than 25 years. The two companies expect to work together first, to add kite sail assist to "Adventurer 2," smallest of Adventurer Cruise Ship's vessels at 187 ft and 924 tons, and later, to add kite sail assist to other, much larger vessels in Adventurer Cruise Ship's fleet. "Our goal is to retrofit our ship 'Big Red Boat II' with kites. 'Big Red Boat II' is 650' in length and 38,000 tons," continues Wyss.