Maybe the kite idea will work; time will tell.

Here is what I have a problem with: There are tons of tried and proven designs out there that are robust and that have been proven for generations. Then somebody comes along with a brilliant idea . . . but is it so brilliant? People have been flying kites (mostly for fun) from boats for at least the last two thousand years. Occasionally, as an assist to other power sources, kites make sense, but IMO probably not as a primary power source.

How long do you have to respond to an unanticipated wind gust? That is a helluva good question, and I'll answer it by explaining how the question is handled on yachts that fly spinnaker on the Trans-Pacific yacht race from Calif. to Honolulu. There is a guy with an axe standing by the sheet that controls the spinnaker (a sail that has been around for about eighty years now and is well understood) whenever there is much wind. He watches the helmsman (who is steering and knows how the boat is handling). When the helmsman yells: "Cut!" the axe comes down, the sheet (which is a rope) is cut and the sail flies free, often being destroyed in the process. From the time the problem is recognized to getting out of trouble is about two seconds. Now I grant you, that is an extreme situation, because in racing sailboats you are always at the edge, and "safety last" is an unspoken rule, but as one who has a considerable experience with sails and with kites and some experience flying airplanes, my strong opinion is that the "failsafe" principle should be included in designs where lives depend on what happens when something breaks.

Maybe they have engineered on failsafe principles; it would be interesting to find out. But there are so many bad "new" ideas out there, such as the architecture underlying the NY Twin Towers or the graphite shielding on the Chernobyl reactor, that my tendency is to go with long-proven designs.

Late in the nineteenth century some robust and fairly efficient designs for multi-masted (four, five, maybe even six or seven masts) schooners sailed for many years, some with auxilliary power. We know that works. Why not go with proven technology, such as that one, or perhaps robust wind turbines charging big banks of batteries? We know those technologies and some others will work--all proven designs.

BTW, the hybrid car idea and prototypes have been around for at least fifty years; it was a huge problem for the Japanese companies to work out the bugs, and those things do not usually kill you (except maybe by electrocution) when they fail. With the benefit of hindsight, maybe a better idea would have been to forget about hybrid cars and focus instead on improving small diesel engines and their fuels, as in the case of Europe. Both diesels and biodiesel fuel have been around for about 125 years, which, IMO, is a big plus factor.

I've been wrong before, and I'd be delighted to be wrong about the limitations of kites for ship propulsion. That reminds me, March is kite-flying month, and I've yet to get one of my kites up . . .;-)