The hull of the ship is simply shaped like a sail or wing. Power the ship at an angle to the wind (the angle of attack) and there will be resultant lift which can assist the engines/reduce fuel. The angle of the wind is critical and so this will only work with the wind from one side or the other at an angle between set limits which create the airflow smoothly from ahead to astern along both sides of the hull. The lower pressure/higher speed wind is to leeward.
There is no way it can sail (in the direction it wants) without other propulsion. Think of a passenger jet. It powers ahead (thrust) and the wings give lift and drag. The engines overcome the drag. No engines? You are going down ie not the way you want. You can glide but your descent is limited by the requirement to maintain speed that results in the laminar air flow over top and bottom of the wings. Too high and angle of attack (ie you want to fly up) the wing stalls as airflow becomes turbulent.
Unless this ship is trading along a route with predictable wind direction that is favourable, its sail shape is not only useless, it is a dead loss disadvantage.
The only vessel that I know of that made a profitable round voyage under sail carrying cargo in the last fifty years was a ketch rigged motor sailer out of Vancouver. She was fitted out for tuna fishing with a 20 tonne freezer hold and a one tonne snap freezer. She had a Gardener main engine and a Perkins auxiliary.
She was chartered to take a cargo of frozen food from Rarotonga to Penrhyn, about 1000 miles to the north. She encountered favourable winds for the passage using only her auxiliary.
On return, also under sail, she was lucky enough to find a vast school of tuna and filled her hold. For the time she unusually had a satC and arranged air transport from Rarotonga to Japan on passage.
A no expense spared refit in New Zealand followed with an 18 month holiday.
Hi, I’m not an engineer or anything technical but what about the cranes that pick the containers and put them in the ships? Won’t the ship’s masts and ropes get in the way? The containers are stacked all over the place and having sails or some other kind of wind assistance takes room away from the cargo…
Yes the sail arrangement, whatever form it is, will add to the airdraft, thus limiting passage under bridges (or extended STS-cranes)
It may also take up space for cargo, but not on all types of ships. (Tankers should preferably not have any cargo on deck)
New and innovative solutions are coming fast and furiously.
I dont see much innovation just old ideas regurgitated, innovation is things like X bows etc
AC bus for 10 years then DC bus then a relook at electric as batteries get smaller and lighter…
Low sulphur diesel, then lpg then any other liquid hydrocarbon…
Yes the X-Bow has proven to be effective, but it is based on the bow form of the “Knarr”, the cargo ships used by the Vikings.
So it it “regurgitated”, not a new innovation you may say.
Applying a certain technology in a novel way to enhance waterborne commerce certainly counts as innovation in my book.
If we cut with your knife, nothing is innovative, stuff floats on water, the wind blows things around, air heats up when it gets squeezed, water boils when it gets hot …
I dont agree with your conclusion…
containerization was innovation not an application of technology
X bow although old was innovatiion as was the bulbous bow
using a windows PC instead of a quill and ink well is not innovative
adding GMDSS to remove the Radio officer is not innovative
autopilot to remove a helmsman not an innovation
they are just natural progression since the industrial revolution
hows the list of patents from the shipping industry?
To stuff things in a box is not “innovative”, or new. It’s just the size of the box that is new.
There are a lot of things around containerization that is new and innovative though. The standardization of the boxes are maybe the biggest innovation, but the ships that carries containers across the oceans, the cranes and other equipment that handles them in ports, on the road and to an extent on railways are new, but based on older technology .
Yes the modern X-Bow used on ships of many different types and sizes are “innovative”, but the principe it is based on is over 1000 years old
I agree.
Not only to enhance waterborne commerce, but in all other cases where old technology are used in new ways.
Not with a kite. This is one of the reasons why I believe kite tech will be the only way this gets any traction.
Part of the issue is the ability to increase sail area. If you do this with rotor or rigid setups you only have one way to go essentially, up. This is why tall ships were tall.
Whereas with a kite setup it can essentially be a reverse trawl. ‘Spreaders’ similar to the doors of a trawl net can spread a kite with an impressively large sail area relative to the vessel it is deployed from. The ability to retrieve it and stow it on a reel eliminates the drag present when the wind is from ahead that is unavoidable in even the most advanced rigid sail designs. The material required is substantially less than a mast based design and HMPE line, pressure compensating electric winches and position sensors allow the most efficient shape to be deployed automatically.
I don’t think it will come to pass bar extensive government subsidies but it’s interesting to think about.
The only way to generate energy using wind power at anything less than about 35 degrees upwind is by using rotary towers. With the technology currently available, there’s no way that can pay for itself even if only providing energy for the hotel side.