Future past: can a trading ship powered by wind meet our modern needs?

[unhappycamper]

Last edited Tue Feb 3, 2015, 09:41 AM - Edit history (1)

http://www.dw.de/future-past-can-a-trading-ship-powered-by-wind-meet-our-modern-needs/a-18230919

Future past: can a trading ship powered by wind meet our modern needs?



About 90 percent of internationally traded goods are transported on ships that run on fossil fuels. A Norwegian naval engineer has developed a wind-powered freighter as an alternative. But can it keep up?

Future past: can a trading ship powered by wind meet our modern needs?
Clara Walther/ ld, cb
03.02.2015

The majority the world's trade is done through shipping. About 90 percent in all.

But the huge ocean freighters that carry the things we buy and sell are often charged with polluting the seas as they run on fossil fuels.

This has inspired a Norwegian naval engineer to look for an alternative, and he says he has found one: a freighter powered by wind.

Norway has always been a seafaring nation - so perhaps it is no a coincidence that a Norwegian naval engineer should want to revolutionize international shipping.

[DetlefK]

1. link?

[valerief]

2. How does that help oil and gas companies? Everything in the world is done to help them. nt

[hunter]

3. I like it.

It would be wonderful for transporting people too.

http://www.ladeas.no

[happyslug]

7. Using variations of the old Sailing techniques to go against the wind

Sailors have been doing that for Centuries. At the time of the American Revolution it took one week to sail from North America to Europe, but six weeks in the opposite direction (and for that reason, most captains sailed south almost to Brazil, then caught the winds to the Caribbean and then up the east coast, at times such a long route was FASTER than going against the prevailing winds by tacking).

The Europe to Brazil to North America is how the prevailing winds and currents went. The US wanted Hawaii in the late 1800s, for if you sailed from the Panama Canal or the Straits of Magellan, the currents and winds took you almost to Hawaii, and from Hawaii you could sail north and catch the Japanese Currents and wind to go to the US West Coast. It was faster than going up along the coast in the days of Sail.

Now the above are ways to FOLLOW the prevailing wind. Now you could also "Tack" against the wind, if where you wanted to go had no prevailing wind that the sail boat could exploit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacking_%28sailing%29

Tacking was a slow and manpower intensive process but it is a way for a sailboat to sail into the wind. Sailing Captains tried to avoid it by staying with the prevailing "Trade" Winds as I described above.

[FBaggins]

4. Certainly... but probably not this one

Reducing the fuel used per mile traveled is nice, but it looks like they would sacrifice a larger proportion of their cargo volume than the fuel savings. The real emissions reduction here is the shift to LNG, which we could do without interesting hull forms.

I suspect that the fuel used per mile traveled per ton of cargo will end up without any savings at all except for very specialized loads.

[GliderGuider]

5. Sure! Once our modern needs are reduced to the level of 1850, square-riggers will do fine.

We should be at that point in about 40 years.

[happyslug]

6. Actually a lot of shipping can be done by "sail".

Square riggers worked for it was known even in ancient time the taller the mast the more "Wind" it could catch. Today, several ships are using "sails" to give them more speed using less fuel.

The kites, which have an area of around 320 square metres (3,400 sq ft), can be flown at altitudes of 100–300 metres (330–980 ft). Because of the stronger winds at these heights, they receive a substantially higher thrust per unit area than conventional mast-mounted sails. It is possible that a ship equipped with the current SkySails could consume from 10 to 35% less fuel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkySails

http://www.skysails.info/english/

The Norwegian proposal is to design the ship itself to act as a sail. To a degree ships do that now, and the crew of such ships have to work around such winds. The Norwegian plan also wants to use Natural Gas as backup system. Do to constant winds, most ship follow old sailing routes, for while they no longer need the wind to get to where they are going, it is better to travel with the wind then go against the wind.

The biggest problems with sails (and the main reason engines replaced them) was that it took a larger crew to operate a sailing ship then a ship with engines. In the days of coal being manually feed this was the case and with automatic loaders of coal into engines and the use of Oil and Natural Gas, you can have even less men on such ships today.

In the 1800s flatboats were popular on the inland waterways of the US between the mountains. The law still exists that any ship with power (including manual power, "keel Boats" must YIELD to Flatboats, which had no power. Flatboats actually required a larger crew to operate than a ship with engines, and for that reason (in addition to the fact Flatboats could only go one way, down stream) flatboats disappeared from US waters after 1900.

With modern technology, most of the "problems" with sailing ships could be addresses (The Russians have developed automatic sails on their ships operating in the Baltic for example). Here is an example of the French Ship using such automatic sails:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_Med_2

The Club Med 2, is almost the same size as the "Great Eastern" of the mid 1800s. The "Great Eastern" suffered from being built much to large for the cargo being shipped at that time period. It would lay in port for weeks and sometimes months till its hold was full (or sail with less then whole holds). If it had full holds (which was rarely the case) it was the cheapest way to ship things. When its holds were NOT full (Which ended up being most of the time) it lost money. 40 years after it was built trade had increased enough that ships started to exceed its size, but that was to late for the Great Eastern, it was scraped in 1889. The Great Eastern was just to big for its time period, but it would be a SMALL ship today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Great_Eastern

Another large MODERN sail boat is:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_Surf_(ship)

Now the above ships (Excluding the Great Eastern) were built in the 1990s as computerize sailing came into general use. Freighters saw such sails as a gimmicks till the "SkySail" "kite" came into existence, for it would permit a good bit of saving on fuel. The proposed design for a ship that can catch the wind itself would permit even more savings if tied in with something like the SkySail Kite. Even with Computers you will have to increase the size of the crew of such ships and thus increase the cost of shipping UNLESS the price of oil and natural gas gets to high.

Just a comment that sailing ships on the high seas, can address a good bit of international trade today. Given that the largest items shipped internationally is OIL, such ships may be able to replace all other shipping by ship.