In the 400 years or so leading up to the adoption of steam power in the 19th century, sailing ships ruled the waves. In an effort to cut increasing fuel costs and reduce emissions, sails are set to ...

Maxis are carrying carbon-fiber sails that outperform every other miracle fabric used before. By Kimball Livingston The first time a raceboat showed up with black sails, pushback was swift and severe.

In February, 1912, Londoners packed a dock on the River Thames to gawk at the Selandia, a ship that could race through the water without any sails or smokestacks. Winston Churchill, then the minister ...

In 1926 an unusual vessel arrived in New York after crossing the Atlantic. This was a converted sailing ship renamed Baden-Baden. Its two masts had been torn down and a pair of 15-metre-high revolving ...

A new kind of spacecraft that sails on sunlight has just been successfully deployed above Earth. The LightSail satellite yesterday overcame a series of glitches to unfurl its solar sails, a propulsion ...

Sailing boats date back more than 5,000 years, when the ancient Egyptians floated up and down the Nile in wooden vessels powered by wind and oars. But when steam and diesel engines arrived and ...