【Sea and River Chat】Sailboats that can save 25% more fuel

Fish Boss: The information is pretty good. One downside (please provide information): Which company manufactured it? What is the displacement?

I saw it online; you can give it a search when you have time

The world’s first ship to use wind power for navigation – the 10,000-ton bulk carrier \"MS Beluga SkySails\" – set sail recently from Bremen Port in Germany on its way to Venezuela. Let’s see if this design can become the mainstream technology for cargo ship design in the future. Designer Reg explained that the principle behind this new technology is to add sails to cargo ships, use computer systems to determine wind direction, and leverage wind power to assist in propelling the ships, thereby saving around 20% on fuel consumption per day. He said the new design achieves environmental protection goals, proving that environmental and economic development can coexist. He said that the current area of the sails in use during trials is 160 square meters, with the hope of increasing this to 600 square meters by 2009; he also expects that 1,500 ships will be able to utilize this technology by 2015. He revealed that the German-based company Beluga has decided to place additional orders for two more ships equipped with sail-based navigation technology, bringing the total number of orders for such ships to five. It is certainly good that new technologies can help address oil usage issues, but environmentalists are concerned that shipowners might lack the incentive to reduce emissions from their vessels as a result. Currently, there are about 50,000 commercial ships worldwide, which release 800 million tons of carbon dioxide each year, accounting for 5% of the world’s total carbon dioxide emissions. According to an administrator at Germanischer Lloyd, reducing speed by 10% can save 25% in fuel consumption. There is a steady trend of shipowners reducing speeds in order to cut fuel use and emissions. The shipping companies that have currently announced reduced speeds to save fuel include Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd, and this trend is spreading to smaller shipping companies and even passenger ships.

The large-scale sail prototype independently developed by our country has achieved complete success in sea trials on very large crude oil carriers (VLCCs). From October 20 to 24, after 5 days of sea trials, the “Sail Technology Demonstration and Application Development” project successfully completed its sea trial tasks, achieved its intended objectives, and returned triumphantly. The wind-assisted propulsion of super-large vessels during this sail testing was highly effective, fully demonstrating that the airfoil sail concept is viable. Against the backdrop of global efforts to reduce energy consumption and emissions, wind energy will be adopted as an important means for ships to cut emissions and save energy, and will be implemented on more ships.

The actual ship test of this sail prototype was conducted on a 300,000-ton VLCC built by Dachang Shipbuilding for China Merchants Shipping. A total of 50 people participated in this sea trial, including those from the Technology and Informatization Department of CSSC, China Merchants Shipowners, CSSC 702 Institute, China Classification Society, as well as relevant design, construction, and sail-making units from Dachuan Group, which is the leader of the Sail project. Led by Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Group Co., Ltd., this project brought together strengths from within and outside the industry to carry out extensive research, verification, calculations, tests, and analyses related to sail airfoil design, hydrodynamic analysis, as well as structural, hydraulic, and electrical design. It overcame various technical challenges related to the manufacturing processes, workflows, and equipment needed for developing the sail prototypes. This test involved a series of evaluations, including tests of the sail alarm points and control system, demonstration tests of the sails, tests of the sails’ maneuverability, and verification tests for sail-assisted propulsion (including EEDI). Based on a preliminary analysis of the data collected on-site, the sail-assisted propulsion effect was significant and met the design expectations.