Has anyone seen the Mythbusters "Blow Your Own Sail" episode? They proved that you can, but I feel like they cheated, if you look at the way they said it worked. What do you think?

Question

anonymous · Answer

I haven't seen it, but there's no reason it shouldn't work. All you're doing is converting energy into wind (which just means you're moving the molecules in the air).

agentorange96 · Answer

Well, the context is there is a fan on your own boat and you are pointing it at your own sail and you should move. But the way they did it is they blew so much wind out that it bounced off the sale, so they weren't pushing the sail forward they were pushing their way forward because the wind reflected off the sail.

anonymous · Answer

Its because they're sail actually reflects some of the wind back, it doesn't just stop it. The forward momentum of the boat is equal to the backward momentum of the air.

anonymous · Answer

Well, the reason they blew that much air, was because they were unable to "Blow their own sail" in the traditional sense.

anonymous · Answer

It sounds to me like they cheated. Because instead of blowing the sail, it sounds like they just redirected the airflow from the fan; which is the same as blowing a weaker fan backwards.
Synopsis: Sounds like a bad test.