About the BBC article “Pioneering wind-powered cargo ship sets sail” by Tom Singleton.
The annals of history are dotted with examples of humanity looking to the past for inspiration. Yet, one has to chuckle when seeing modern behemoths of the sea considering the bygone era of sails as their next technological leap. The BBC’s recent article on this topic introduces a cargo ship attempting to cruise through modern logistics, not simply with roaring engines but with… sails?
Historic Enthusiasm or Mere Marketing Ploy?
Shipping firm Cargill seems to be floating the idea that British-designed WindWings might help reduce the industry’s carbon emissions, given shipping’s estimated 2.1% contribution to global CO2. But seriously, is this a genuine stride forward or just a quirky nod to yesteryears and or green fanatasies?
Claims in the Wind
For its flagship journey from China to Brazil, the Pyxis Ocean is set to test these majestic WindWings. Touting a height of 123ft and borrowing materials from wind turbines, there’s a claim in the air: a potential 30% reduction in a ship’s lifetime emissions. Sounds like someone may want to do a lifecycle analysis.
Savings or Just Hot Air?
BAR Technologies from the UK is behind this wind-inspired innovation, boldly claiming fuel savings of one-and-a-half tonnes per day. Magnify that with four wings and it seems we’re in for a six-tonne daily fuel reduction. But, with manufacturing outsourced to China, perhaps there’s probably more to these calculations than meets the eye.
A Windy Resolution?
While some experts see potential in harnessing the winds, the intent to cut down the 837 million tonnes of annual CO2 from shipping with kites, rotors, and sails might end up being a bit disappointing.
Reality Check with Numbers
Stephen Gordon, from Clarksons Research, offers a reality bite, highlighting the minuscule uptake of this wind-driven technology. Amidst the vast ocean of over 110,000 vessels, a mere 100 utilize such wind assistance. It’s akin to finding a needle in a… well, ocean.
A Step Forward or Two Steps Back?
The endearing image of ships going back to their wind-blown origins might evoke romantic tales of adventures on the high seas. But as a solution for modern-day shipping? The sails of the Pyxis Ocean might stand tall with hope, but the practicality of such a venture remains questionable at best. For now, the industry’s “back to the future” aspirations might need to stay anchored in fiction.
H/T Willie Soon
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Can the “sails” be reefed? That is, shortened or altered to expose less surface when the winds kick up above 30 kts?
My 42 ft sailing cat has a beautiful spinnaker — and a huge genoa (large headsail) which are great in most winds. But when the winds pick up, they are dangerously large and must be pulled down or rolled up. When winds suddenly kick up to double and triple what one has expected, having that much sail area up and exposed to the wind becomes instantly dangerous….and the actions necessary to get them down are dangerous as well — the worst times I’ve had at sea (sailing) have been during that kind of situation — struggling to get sails down in suddenly increased winds.
That’s the reason why any skipper with a large genoa or spinnaker aloft is constantly alert for every slight wind change, so he can get them down very rapidly when danger threatens. The man on the bridge of one of these ships will need always to be standing ready with his finger on a button to activate the furling mechanism immediately. No relaxing, no diverting attention for a nice warming coffee. And that is presuming that the power needed for furling is instantly available. I wonder if the designers of these things have suitable sailing experience on both wind-driven and engine-powered vessels? Those of us who have would NEVER contemplate becoming involved!
I don’t think anyone at all is suggesting that cargo ships will be made of wood and fitted with poles holding up curtains made of canvas. The ships that are being tested at the moment are fitted with vertical aerofoils which provide assistive thrust in the same way that horizontal wings provide lift on an aircraft. This idea has been tested over the last 100 odd years keeping aircraft up in the sky in often quite windy conditions.
Also, I suspect that those experienced in driving small boats fitted with conventional sails have not experienced the joys of computer assisted cargo ship operations. There isn’t “a man on the bridge” battling with the elements to keep the ship going in the right direction. Most of the time the whole operation is controlled by a fail safe group of computers receiving data from wind, position, turbulence, ship attitude and loads of other sensors and taking appropriate action with engine speed and rudder movements. The same will apply with aerofoil sails. There’s a very good video on youtube of an aerofoil equipped cat making its way to. I think, Bermuda through a hurricane. The computers did the job OK even in 1990.
The problem in perception seems to be quite large; these concepts are based on 2020s materials, computer and operations technology and an ability to utilise CFD and airflow modelling that wasn’t available to designers in the days of Maturin and Jack Aubrey. Please be a little more open minded.
This technology is not mature yet, just like energy storage! Nuclear propulsion has proven over six decades to be safe and reliable for large vessels!
I would welcome further research into adding sails or airfoils onto motor vessels, especially if it leads to someone continuing the adventures aboard H.M.S. Surprise!
Somewhere I saw these sails explained, but can’t find it now. The sails reel out of the tower mast, there is a gearing mechanism at the base that unfurls the sails to their full extension. I can’t see where this adds that much energy to the ship as large as it is.
Saw the Maltese Falcon in the Bay of Naples, quite a sight!
I used to sail in Long Island Sound on a 27ft with a 7ft beam 34 ft mast 4ft keel (Saybrook Sailorette). Essentially a canoe w/sail. Also had a Genoa which would really make that baby heel when the winds came down the sound. We would crank it over until the rails were in the water and scrape the barnacles off, then reverse course and do the other side. Lotta fun!
The Doldrums, the Roaring 40s, perennial Trade Winds … all work to reduce the potential benefit (?) to economically nought.
So many questions and so much doubt. Sailing ships did not chart straight line courses from A to B as they had to tack to the wind and make regular course changes to gain maximum wind support. Will modern ships have to do the same? Will it lengthen journeys and reduce efficiency?
What are the resource and energy implications of adding these technologies to the mandatory thermal engine requirements of such ships? As with wind and solar electrical generation, it is unlikely the sails will reduce by any significant amount the need for standard propulsion systems as the ship must be able to navigate when there is no wind. What is the lifespan of the new technology?
The probabilities at present may be roughly equivalent that this will increase costs and inefficiency as much as reduce them. This is a theory being sold as a fact long before evidence allows us to know the truth.
I looked up “WindWings”. From the site. https://www.bartechnologies.uk/project/windwings/
“WindWings combines wind propulsion with route optimisation.”
Sounds like they’ll follow the old sailing routes.
No doubt wind in the sails can help a ship reduce fuel use but how much reduced for what cost? A cargo tanker isn’t exactly built for slicing through the water.
We can do some numbers on this. The ship is bulk carrier size and claimed to do 5.5kt under sail. Normal bulk carrier speed is 15kt. Propulsion power increases as the cube of speed. At 15kt the wind will contribute 5% of the motive power, when it blows in a favorable direction and is strong enough.
Here in the UK I find myself wondering how a nation that covered the globe in sailing ships and swapped sails for steam in an instant can make the reverse journey with wind turbines for power.
Corky
Since winds are highly variable, they become self limiting in terms of both vessel speed and ability to sail into a wind. These were always the achilles heels of sailing vessels for thousands of years, and the winds have not improved even if sailing technology has improved.
The deal with all cargo ships is that reliable schedule is overwhelmingly important. Ships that are sailing slow due to the winds are ships that are losing the owners’ money, very quickly. A modern diesel electric powered ship is the epitome of reliable cruise performance in all but the stormiest seas, and not only reliable but relatively fast compared to any comparable wind powered vessel – around 16-25 knots vs. 3-8 knots. Meaning a transoceanic transit, particularly in the vast distances of the Pacific in which the majority of world cargoes travel, takes months instead of days or weeks.
For example, Tokyo to Long Beach CA is a distance of 4854 nautical miles, and at a cruise speed of 25 kts it will take 8 days and 2 hours, a little over a week. At 8 kts it will take 25 days and 7 hours, almost a month.
The daily operating costs for containerships varies with the size (the larger the size the lower the cost). But for a 10,000 TEU ship, the daily cost is $14 per TEU .. so $140,000 per day. So completing a voyage that takes 17 days longer costs the operator about $2.4M extra.
It’s also likely that wind powered ships will be greatly limited in size. The ones I’ve seen described are 7,000 TEU or less. The smaller vessel size also increases the daily cost from $14 to $15, making the total extra cost for a wind powered containership vs. a diesel powered motor vessel on the Tokyo-Long Beach route would be about $2.6M. And that does not account for winds that are light and variable, or which are adverse in direction, either of which could significantly increase the extra costs.
Surely this is a joke! I wrote an article some time back which compared the last cargo sailing ship with modern day cargo ships which are diesel. https://www.flickerpower.com/index.php/search/categories/wind-power/20-4-this-is-a-warning-to-all-leaders
The picture of the WindWings immediately says it is a pretence because the sail area would be totally inadequate. But that is not the real problem which is the wind stops. I do think in the future the people that promulgate this nonsense will be damned by us all.
This looks like a lifestyle business, ie. a business with the objective of providing a nice lifestyle for its directors from finance provided by others. Such finance is typically from gullible investors, but can come from any money tap including government subsidies.
If it is cost-effective (absolutely no government involvement) then they would be showing up everywhere.
This isn’t “pioneering” at all. Rigid sails have been tried several times on various cargo ships. The extra drag and weight offset fuel savings during times there’s enough wind, from the right direction(s) for the sails to be effective.
The last time that commercial sailing ships could make net revenue was in the bulk shipment of grain from Australia to Great Britain. This was in the 1930s by Gustaf Erickson. He had dozens of square-rigged ships purchased cheaply from companies switching to steam ships. All of his ships ran the same route – Europe under ballast to Australia and then return to Europe with Australian wheat. The whole voyage took about eight months and it was only possible because of very small crews.
This business came to a sudden end in 1939 with WW2. The last Grain Race ended in the very early summer of 1940. Full details can be found in Eric Newby’s The Last Grain Race.
The Last Grain Race – Wikipedia
The ship in the book, Moshulu, still exists as a floating restaurant in Philadelphia.
Moshulu – Wikipedia
This ship made a very brief cameo appearance in The Godfather Part 2.
The notion that sailing ships can be relevant to cargo transport now is simply ludicrous, the stuff of LSD-induced hallucinations.
“LSD-induced hallucinations” is very appropriate as “L.s.d” was shorthand for Pounds, Shillings and Pence back in the day.
Following from a few of the comments, we have to wonder how much the extra weight and aero-drag of these things add to fuel consumption when the winds are unfavourable.
Also, if the ship is to maintain an economic speed – 15 knots? – that will restrict the points of sail due to the apparent wind.
Most of the comments on this article have not understood the story. It’s as though they’ve seen the pretty picture of a ship under sail and thought that the idea is to replace modern ships with that.
It’s not. This is about a device that can be fitted to, or built into, ships that reduces the fuel costs. It reduces the fuel costs by extracting the energy from the wind, when available.
Will that replace fossil fuels? No. But it will reduce their consumption and that saves money. Fuel is a big expense in shipping. And, although I don’t know this exact technology, it will certainly be able to extract energy from the wind when the wind is not directly behind the ship as we have had that technology for 800 years!
Is the cost of retro-fitting this device worth it? Probably not. Especially not with the cost of taking your ship out of service to do it. And the numbers aren’t in yet.
But would this feature be something a new buyer would expect to have on new ships? Probably yes.
The luddite refusal to consider new technology is close-minded. This is the kind of adaptation that the IPCC scenarios can not consider. It’s part of the reason that mitigation is so much more expensive than adaptation.
Please re-read this article and think again.
Is that a captain I see before me on the poop deck blowing frantically at those sails?
This is wind assisted propulsion. It is not wind-only. It is not anything akin to a sailing ship of the 1800’s.
This is new technology. It takes time for new technology to get implemented. 100 ships today may well be 10.000 ships in 10 years.
We know, for a fact, that wind assisted propulsion done right leads to less fuel use. This is from hypotheses, from model tests and from empirical data. How much is highly dependent on the type of vessel and where it is trading. Anywhere from 5- 20% is viable given the right conditions. Based on R&D and actual empirical data from the existing vessels a 5-8% saving is considered credible.
By changing the way the vessels are trading and operating, more savings can be had. As an example, car carriers are considering using wind assisted propulsion utilising the fact that there is considerable slack in both ends of their journey. Estimates range between 15-50%, depending on route, time of year and other things.
Chuckle away folks. If the industry can make a living from this, you will see many more such vessels. Right now there are shipowners with sails on their vessels and smiles on their faces.
I recall several other attempts in the past 40 years to add some form of mechanised sail/wind propulsion assist system to merchant ships. None of them seem to have made a mark, none of the systems have gone beyond the prototype/demonstrator stage.
Other commenters have noted the formidable challenges any sail system would have to overcome to provide appreciable power to a modern cargo ship. Presumably, solutions to these challenges were not been found.
BBC describes the project as “pioneering”. Maybe, maybe not.
Yes, if they have found even a partial solution and a way to improve performance relative to prior efforts, otherwise its just another EU subsidy driven futile effort at developing a technological dead end.
We’ll see.
EU Subsidy
Euro 9,999,996.25
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/955286
Ever so slightly below Euro 10 million.
Perhaps to avoid greater scrutiny if Euro 10 million or higher?
Simply looking at the picture proves this is BS.
Here’s the thing: sailing ships did work, but they had to follow the winds. This meant going enormous extra distances due to many factors including:
1) Tacking. Sailing ships of old could not go a specific direction unless the wind happened to be blowing at precisely the right angle. In practice, this means sailing at angles to the actual wind and then tacking back along a desired course (switching to an opposite angle). We’re talking Pythagorean theorem – ships would regularly travel 30% to 50% extra distance vs. the crow flies distance.
2) Sailing ships need wind, period even to tack. In practice this usually meant swinging up or down towards specific routes in which wind was generally blowing in the rough correct general direction. This also adds significant distance on top of the extra tacking distance – up to 30% crow flies distance.
The next issue is power. How much wind power can actually contribute to a ship?
The biggest sailing ships ever including the steel hull/mast models at the end maxed out at around 10000-13000 tons displacement.
The average cargo ship is 65000 tons displacement.
I’m 99% positive that a couple of sails – no matter how strong – on such a ship would barely move it without the IC engines also running.
The Thomas Lawson – with 5 masts and sail hanging off every exposed surface, could go 16 knots max vs. average cargo ship speeds of 20-25 knots.
Net net: greenwashing
In the early days of steam power, mixed sail/steam vessels were common because the limited bunker space of wooden hulls and inefficient engines limited range. The first ship to cross the Atlantic solely under steam power was the SS Sirius in 1838, arriving just hours ahead of the SS Great Western, which made a faster crossing. But the Sirius had all the passenger space removed to provide extra bunker capacity while the Great Western design provided for both sufficient bunkerage and passenger/cargo space. Even after much larger iron hulls and better engines were in use, masts and sails were retained partly as a fall-back and partly to moderate rolling in heavy seas. Masts and spars were retained on the 32,000 ton 1858 Great Eastern, but could provide no meaningful propulsive value.
The Royal Navy retained mixed steam/sail configuration in the Calypso class of steam corvettes in service into the early 20th century because the distances they had to travel together with the scarcity of coaling stations where they needed to operate made it very handy to use sail alone or as a supplement to steam to conserve coal when speed was not required. But they were small — displacing less than 3,000 tons, with consequently small bunkers.
The energy required to move a ship through the water is proportional to the displacement and the square of the speed. Increasing the speed of the 37,200 ton North Dakota class battleships to 28 knots over the preceding Colorado class 33,100 ton 21 knot performance required increasing propulsion from 28,900 to 121,000 shaft horsepower (21,600 to 90,000 kW) — a fourfold increase.
Modern container ships regularly displace over 100,000 tons and have a design speed of 21-25 knots with very large diesel engines producing 60,000 kW or more. Adding sails would have at best a marginal effect at the designed speed. If you want to tie up your multi-billion dollar ship, crew and cargo to sail at 8-10 knots maybe you could achieve a measurable fuel reduction.
According to the BBC article plus Wikipedia, the Pyxis Ocean is a Kamsarmax class bulk cargo ship retrofitted with sails in 2023. The Kamsarmax design is limited to 229 meters in length (to fit into the port of Kamsar in Republic of Guinea) and has a deadweight capacity (DWT) of about 82,000 metric tons. They burn 29-30 metric tons of fuel oil per day at a design speed of 14.5 knots.
The Pyxis Ocean departed Singapore August 22 destined for Brazil (port not specified) and the BBC article says the journey will take six weeks. If I assume the destination is Manaus, the shortest distance is round the Cape of Good Hope into the south Atlantic for a total of 10,792 nautical miles, a journey which will take 42 days, 20 hours at 10.5 knots. The same voyage would take just 31 days at the class design speed of 14.5 knots.
According to the BBC article:
Simply reducing speed from 14.5 to 10.5 knots would account for all of that savings. Of course, reducing speed by 30% means you need 30% more hulls to carry the same amount of cargo together with 30% more crews, and those hulls will be responsible for 30% more emissions.
Somehow I don’t think this will save the planet.
You win, Alan!
By far the best summation and encapsulation of the problems with this retro-tech! Just as BEV semis and cargo trains are impractical, while EVs may work for short commutes; this might be useful in small craft, time will tell.
The fastest sailing cargo ships were the various Clippers, whose highest speed runs averaged less than 7 knots. One couldn’t count on such a thing, though.
My wife and I took a week long cruise on the sailing yacht Sea Cloud earlier this year (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Cloud), starting at Naples, Italy, and ending at Dubrovnik, Croatia. The Sea Cloud is a four-masted, 309 foot, 3,000 ton vessel, the largest square-rigged four-mast sailing ship in existence. During the week-long cruise, the captain set the sails three times. The first was as a demonstration of how it’s done, and the second two were attempts to actually sail the ship. He was never able to get it above 1.5 knots, out of a 9 knot hull speed. During one of his lectures on sailing, he remarked that most of the sea traffic of the world prior to the steam ship averaged 1.5 knots. Clipper ships might average as high as 6.6 knots, but they carried light cargo.
Cargo ships today travel at anywhere from 9 knots for general cargo ships to 15 knots for vehicle transports. Container ships average 14 knots. And they don’t depend on wind.
This is a dumb idea just from the standpoint of time-utilization of an expensive asset.