Patent Application
20190300127
The difficulties in providing stability to the rolling and pitching of floating platforms, boats and the like are well established. Many inventions have been tried over the years, and all of them share the disadvantages of complexity of construction, inconsistency of operation, and lack of flexible strength to react to the pressures of wave actions. In addition, none of them document the provision whereby the forces generated by resistance to wave action are captured and conveyed for use with power generation.
As examples of some known boat stabilizers, one may refer to any of the following United States patents.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,299,186 to T. Imaizumi a ship stabilizer which includes a plurality of upright cups suspended from opposite sides of a boat.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,179,078 to J. R. Popkin is directed to a hydrofoil stabilizer for sailboats.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,561,539 to Seaward is directed to a marine stabilizer which includes a triangularly shaped fin, which is weighted at its forward extremity by means of a weight. The fin is attached to a pole projecting transversely from a boat by means of a cable. When the boat rolls to one side the weight will cause the fin to plunge downwardly nose first and when the boat rolls to the opposite side, raising the fin, the cable will pull the nose of such fin upwardly causing such fin to assume a horizontal orientation to resist rolling of the boat.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,260,232 to D. W. Douglas discloses a stabilizer suspended from a boat by means of a pair of cables positioned forwardly and rearwardly of the center of gravity of such stabilizer whereby the pitch thereof may be controlled.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,589,324 which is known in the industry as Roll-Control and consist of a rectangular frame structure covered by a sheet material that is cut in the center thereof to define a flap valve.
Other known stabilizing devices include the ROLL-EEZ which is a rectangular frame member having a plurality of movable vanes mounted therein and the Rocker-Stopper which is a cone-shaped device formed from a lightweight plastic.
Additional patents describing similar devices and inventions include:
U.S. Pat. No. 6,684,808 Callahan Feb. 3, 2004 A device for providing stability and directional control to a boat.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,135,046 Beech Oct. 24, 2000 A sea anchor having a leading edge that is outfitted with a flexible, resilient hoop member that biases the leading edge to self-expand.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,394,817 Kaufman Mar. 7, 1995 A sea anchor or boat drag apparatus formed from a cylindrical tubular body and designed for inflated deployment from a fishing boat or the like and arranged to provide controllable or selectable drag forces ranging from zero drag force to a substantial drag force.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,419,275 Wood May 30, 1995 A sea anchor or boat drag apparatus formed from a cylindrical tubular body and designed for inflated deployment from a fishing boat or the like and arranged to provide controllable or selectable drag forces ranging from zero drag force to a substantial drag force.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,241,922 Allen Sep. 7, 1993 The invented sea anchor is made from two sheets of flexible material sewn together to create a generally frustum-shaped body.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,095,839 Peterson Mar. 17, 1992 An apparatus for stabilizing a vessel to drastically reduce the rolling and/or pitching of floating vessels, platforms, or the like.
RE33,068 Abernethy Sep. 26, 1989 A device of the nature of a sea-anchor has a body tapered to the nose where it is attachable to a cable from a boat and formed with ports normally closed by spring-loaded closures but opened, by predetermined cable tension, to increase resistance to passage through water.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,612,870 Shewmon Sep. 23, 1986 Structures and methods for constructing sea anchors having body portions defined by at least three spaced corners or vertices wherein bail ropes are sewn to and extend diagonally inwardly from each corner toward the center of the body portion so that stresses applied to the stitching are distributed and absorbed by stretching the material along its diagonal lines.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,562,788 Abernethy Jan. 7, 1986 A device of the nature of a sea-anchor has a body tapered to the nose where it is attachable to a cable from a boat and formed with ports normally closed by spring-loaded closures but opened, by predetermined cable tension, to increase resistance to passage through water.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,534,306 Rutten, et al. Aug. 13, 1985 A tandem array of sea anchors is provided.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,061,102 Bissett Dec. 6, 1977 A stabilizer device for minimizing the roll of a boat including two plates connected by a hinge and a plurality of bridles attached to the plates so that when the stabilizer is pulled up through the water by the bridles the plates open about the hinge to resist upward motion and when the stabilizer is released the plates close together about the hinge to permit the stabilizer to fall rapidly.
References cited regarding wave power generation, United States Patent documents.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,018,678 February 1912 Nelson
U.S. Pat. No. 1,061,091 May 1913 Lewis
U.S. Pat. No. 4,077,213 March 1978 Hagen
U.S. Pat. No. 4,400,940 August 1983 Watabe
U.S. Pat. No. 4,408,454 October 1983 Hagen
U.S. Pat. No. 4,490,621 December 1984 Watabe
U.S. Pat. No. 4,580,40 April 1986 Watabe
U.S. Pat. No. 4,684,815 August 1987 Gargos
U.S. Pat. No. 4,781,23 Nov. 1988 Gordon
U.S. Pat. No. 5,132,550 July 1992 McCabe
U.S. Pat. No. 8,004,15 Aug. 2011 Whittaker
U.S. Pat. No. 8,686,582 April 2014 Gardiner
U.S. Pat. No. 9,115,689 August 2015 Malligere
U.S. Pat. No. 9,902,467 Feb. 27, 2018 Lin, et al. Wave power generation device and method for operating and maintaining the same
Not applicable. No federal sponsorship was used in the research or development of this invention.
Not applicable. No other parties were engaged in research or development related to this invention.
Not applicable
The invention (“WaveAnchor”) was initially designed to stabilize a boat against the rocking motion of waves on large bodies of water such as lakes, bays, or oceans. The invention was further refined to include the utility provided by transmitting the push/pull energy captured by the WaveAnchor for the purpose of power generation using WavePower.
The WaveAnchor is comprised of a tapered cylinder of canvas, nylon or similar material which is open at the top and larger end, and closed by hinged baffles at the bottom and smaller end. The lower end is weighted to ensure that the WaveAnchor is pulled down during the downward motion of wave action. During this downward motion, the baffles at the bottom end of the tapered cylinder hinge upward allowing water to flow freely into the tapered cylinder. Combined with the effect of the weight, the tapered cylinder moves freely down through the water with the pull of gravity. When the wave action shifts to an upward direction, the hinged baffles quickly close due to water pressure from the upward motion. This closed, tapered cylinder then creates significant drag through the water during this upward wave motion. At the top of the upward wave action, the tapered cylinder reverses direction downward and once again gravity pulls the cylinder down, opening the hinged baffles and moving freely downward again,
The described WaveAnchor is tied securely to a boat or other floating platform. During the upward and downward motion cycles described above, the effect of the tapered cylinder is to provide resistance to upward movement but to move freely through the water with gravity during the downward motion. With a WaveAnchor tied to each side of a boat which is rocking in response to undulating waves, the effect is to stabilize the boat by imparting resistive force to each side of the boat only as it moves in the upward direction. Installing four WaveAnchor devices on a boat, two on opposite sides at the bow or front and two more on opposite sides in the rear or stern of the boat, provides resistive forces against all directions of wave-driven rocking, front to back and side to side.
For the purposes of power generation (“Wave Power”), a system of 2, 3, 4 or more WaveAnchors are deployed on a large, heavy floating platform. The platform, which will normally roll and pitch with wave action, is stabilized by the deployed WaveAnchors. Each WaveAnchor provides a pull force when the platform is moving upward at the point of WaveAnchor deployment. The cable to which each of the WaveAnchors is attached is used to convey this pull force to a rotational gear mechanism mounted on a central shaft, standard to the industry. Each of the WaveAnchors deployed on the floating platform in turn provides pull force to its related cable as that portion of the platform is rolling in an upward motion. The rotational gear is one-directional, in that it only imparts force from the WaveAnchor cable to the central power shaft of the turbine power generator when the cable is creating a pull force. When not pulling, the rotational gear is spring loaded and rotates back to a home position.
WaveAnchor Design
WavePower Design
