Ain't it great!
For years, submarines used stills and vapor compression units. Stills were very high maintenance, and the VC units didn't get the water hot enough to sterilize. And both required de-ionization units to bring the salinity low enough for reactor use. I still remember working on the first submarine RO installation - there were parts in all sorts of 'free' spaces, connected by hoses running here and there. But it worked and the crew loved it - set it once & check it on occasion. Once they agreed to get rid of the stills and the VC units, there was plenty of room for RO!
How about transistors? I still remember the first one from Bell Labs - a hunk of germanium with wire whiskers attached to it! Then they started to produce them and put them into little cans with leads - and you could actually go & buy them! Brain fart says they were 2N107s or something like that. I remember visiting Newburg, NY Air Force base in the early 60s, and seeing their 'computer' - entirely vacuum tube based, and the size of your local Walmart. Main job of the staff was to find and replace burned out triodes. All that changed by transistors.
But we're tied to wind and sails. No one has come up with alternate technology. But this technology has been pushed to 40+ knot hydrofoil catamarans. A bit of refinement and the crew may not even need crash helmets...