As a boy, Willi Ley built and launched miniature rockets from a vacant lot. Older, he formed a Rocket Club of afionados. One of them became Dr. Werner von Braun, Hitler's rocket specialist, who came (after WWII) to America to supervise America's rocket program. Willi Ley also came to America and made a good living lecturing and writing popular books on science.

One of his books gave me this idea. Ley noted, as an example of Newton's Action-Reaction Law, that throwing a big rock off the bow of a rowboat cause the boat to be propelled forward in reaction. Then Ley described the "tirck". He said that, breaking the rocket into small rocks or pebbles and "shooting" them off resulted in a greater reaction (Likely, there's a topological-ordinal effect here, whereby greater surface-to-volume ratio gets more "band for the buck".)

In recent years, rocket scientists have said that greater efficiency than chemical fuels could be achieved by ejecting electrons or photons.

Ley's idea started me thinking about how to apply this to aeolian (wind) power.

Imagine a "screen" punctuated by small "funnels", allowing airflow from front to back and out of screen, similar to drawing, with asterisks representing funnels through screen.

               _________________
               | * * * * * * * |
               | * * * * * * * |
               | * * * * * * * |
               | * * * * * * * |
               | * * * * * * * |
               | * * * * * * * |
               | * * * * * * * |
               | * * * * * * * |
               | * * * * * * * |
               | * * * * * * * |
               | * * * * * * * |
               |_______________|

Each funnel works by the physical principle of xxxx. Likely, you've noticed it. When air or water flow is shunted to a narrower passage, the flow speeds up, so has greater contact force.

Imagine this funnel-screen connected to a sail mast, so it can be swung around in front of the sail. Air would be siphoned digitally through these funnels to reach the sail which, fixed to boat deck, will propel the boat.

Ordinary sailing is "analogized" (effected "continuously"), whereas this sailing is digitized.

If effective enough, it could be used to propel barges, shipping cargo.