Thanks as always for the great info Pierre.
Sometimes my brain is a little slow. Upon further reflection I realized I had seen this “Michelin-Man” sail shape before, and that we were talking about this years ago.
Here’s a six (6) year-old video of such an inflat-a-sail on a recreational pleasure sailboat
(1) Une voile gonflable sur le Léman - YouTube
But from these Michelin promotional videos showing ships, we can see that they are all just renderings.
So my question is, if these sails have been around for, what, maybe a decade, why aren’t they actually being used?
If you right click on the above videos provided by Pierre, you have the option to open a video in a new tab and you can see the dates, comments, etc.
One comment reflected my thought, which is about how extra-strong a telescoping, cantilevered internal mast, with no guy wires to stabilize it, would have to be, compared to a normal mast with guy wires. There must be a reason why, after all these years, we don’t see ships using them. It’s not as though Michelin doesn’t have the money or reputation to move such a concept forward. So as with all such “press-release breakthroughs”, I wonder why there don’t seem to be any in actual operation. 
