Cargo Ship with Kites: First Trans-Atlantic Trip a Success!

Does this only work in one direction? I guess you could wait for the wind to change :)

How much does this sail retrofitting cost ?

amazing... simple and effective. Great incentive for the crew, because is an extra work to keep the kite in the air... how about storms? if the kite falls to the sea how do they lift it up again? I'd love to see it working

Genius. Any guess on how affective the larger kites will be?

You can get power out of them in just about all directions except about 40 degrees up wind. There designed like wings so they develop lift and go up wind to a point. I would think they should handle 60mph. Then they might have to use smaller ones. If they fall in the water theres no wind and they should drag up pretty easily.

I'd be curious to know how long the sail lasts. My dad use to own a sail boat and told me that his sail only lasted 5-7 years.

$2,000/day= $730,000/year

Nordic American, an oil shipping company, has a fleet of 14 Suezmax tankers. If they utilized the Beluga system they'd save about $10,220,000/year which is substantial considering their annual profit is ~$132,000,000/year.

Oil tankers flying kite sails to save energy. I like it.

One really nice thing is that the 20% fuel to be saved is some of the most polluting unregulated high sulfur bunker oil.

Lets see more green sails flying!

This is really cool!

Though, when I think about it, ships usto use sails and wind to get places, so why wouldn't this work. Sometimes, the good old way is the better way.

I don't see why large capacity sailing vessels can't be used for non-time critical shipping.

(What was the old joke about moving something by ship it's cargo and moving something by car it's a shipment?... driving on parkways and parking on driveways? Sorry).

Even in this age of 'need it now', there have to be things that could be moved by sail. Where's the greed? Wouldn't people be moved to save all that fuel $$ ?? OK, so crew time is longer but sails can be mechanized and close in mauvering can be done by smaller engines in port. There has to be a design on someone's drawing boards that could beat the great Cutty Sark.

Think of all the advertising space there is on sails.

vsk

Very cool.

@vsk:
Unfortunately, a lot of the manufacturing world runs lean, and on Just In Time crud... I doubt many of them can afford the non-deterministic timelines of pure sailing ships. Don't get me wrong, weather and other effects make tankers non-deterministic too...just that the upper and lower bounds are a little tighter.

(Personally, I'd love to see pure sailing cargo vessels! Burning mass amounts of fuel just to move metric tons of T-shirt seems like such a waste. Just the other day a plane had to put down because minced onions were leaking. What the heck are we [as a species] doing flying minced onions!!!)

The reason why I think this could really work is because the concept offers a new (commercial) dimension: advertising and branding on the sales. I could see companies sponsoring "trips" across the ocean. It would make them look like heroes and push their brand message at the same time, a win-win.

If you look at the wind patters across the oceans, you will find they travel in bands of "Westerlies" and "Easterlies". To take advantage of favourable winds, you would need to be crossing at the right latitude.

Depending on the ports of origin and destination, this could be a viable strategy.

"I don't see why large capacity sailing vessels can't be used for non-time critical shipping."

I would think cost would be the major issue there. Not only would you have to build a custom ship, unlike anything that is currently out there, but I also suspect that crew requirements would be significantly higher, not just in man hours but in total number of crew employed to properly run the ship.

Everything old is new again. They used to call these things "Schooners" (ooooo...), "Ketches" (ahhhhhh...), and "Yawls" (mmmm...). Some smart people (wacky luddites, me thinks) decide to strap a sail -albeit a new-fangled, very well designed sail- to a ship, and suddenly we're back were we started. Personally, I'm glad to see it.

Kudos to the first person that gets bored and straps on to the sail and cuts it loose in a nice 20 knot breeze... True zero carbon emissions footprint personal air travel.

Get real

Even better would be if the ship was run with ONLY wind power... think of the fuel savings!

I bet it's less of a carbon and water footprint to make them out of wood too.

If only we could advance to such a state in our technology to make wooden boats with sails. Someday...

"Unfortunately, a lot of the manufacturing world runs lean, and on Just In Time crud... I doubt many of them can afford the non-deterministic timelines of pure sailing ships. Don't get me wrong, weather and other effects make tankers non-deterministic too...just that the upper and lower bounds are a little tighter."

JIT does not mean fast, it means "when needed" so slow may not be a problem if planned for and anticipated.

Also, many companies are realizing the fallacies and problems of JIT, and going away from this model. It seems keeping all supplies close by and a sufficient supply in hand is far better in the long run.

I believe we have a car maker with idle plants due to a supply problem...

The Sky Sail is an excellent use of wind energy. Do you think they would add a wind tower to the ship?

I've thought of commercial sailing vessels, it would be hard to make a ship that has substantial capacity with a reasonable speed. Putting sails on a barge would not be a great idea because it would tip over, or it would need to be shaped differently. The kite is a great idea cause you can supplement the ships power when the conditions are ideal for sailing.

A solar / kite powered ship could be a good solution for commercial shipping.

This will not tip the ship over. I did some reseach on sailing a kite on a J/105. Boats with kites dont heel at all. The boats with spinnakers hall, thus causing the rudder to add drag in order to keep straight. 3 second a mile gain and the kite is in an area that could have more velosity and no wind shadow from other boats.

Ha Ha!

I recemntly made a container vessel crossing of the atlantic as a passenger. I would love to see the crew putting one of these things up. If it really saves all that energy then its a winning situation for all and the kite industry can take off ;) I hope so, please read my blog if you want to know a bit about being on a commercial boat.

Does this only work in one direction?

Congratulations, Beluga SkySails. You've just invented the sailboat.

I like how someone mentioned it's reinventing the sailboat. hehe

Reminds me a large Kite Boarders/Surfers ;)

I know you will not post this, but you people are idiots if you think this will help.

Sailing ships for bulk cargo are not a new idea. Its been done for thousands of years.

But any decent sailing ship should be able to go to windward as well as down wind. Sure, its fun to have the wind off your stern, but that doesn't always happen.

Instead of equipping a diesel ship with a kite, they should just start shipping bulk cargo in large sailing ships. A modern sailing ship could have power winches and furlers to do much of the labor handling sails. It would have a small auxiliary engine for maneuvering in ports.

It would save virtually ALL the fuel cost. Sailing ships are not a new idea.

Bob

When will we actually be able to use this commercially?

I think that this, with a combination of solar/battery may be doable for something like a cruise ship. Submarines have run on batteries when submerged for years

what supplies did the ship bring on the first fleet???????????

I know I'm jumping the gun, but if you gained 5% more fuel effeciency with one......how about two?port & starboard, simple enough

I saw that Tom Perkins interview on 60 Minutes a couple of weeks ago & was impressed with the his innovative sailboat the Maltese Falcon.

I see where most of these large cargo ships whether they ship crude or those 20 foot boxcars, have a maximum speed of around 25.5 knots but typically run around 15 knots. I wonder if there is any way ships can have any combination of skysails, sails with masts, or wind turbines that would enable them to cross the Atlantic or Pacific at 15 knots consistantly. The fuel savings by doing so would be pretty significant.

I was reading how those old time clipper ships had a top speed of close to 16 knots but a cruising speed of around 9 knots. If I was a shipping company I would be looking into these types of sail boats to cut down on fuel costs.

I asked my brother why we couldn't have one really big rectangular sail pulling two ships. To me I can see the ships being 300 meters or so apart so they don't get the wake from the other boat. He was telling me that having one sail between two boats, even if it is a rigid one, would pull the two boats together. Does anyone have a take on this?