Pioneering Wind-Powered Cargo Ship Sets Sail (bbc.com) 70
A cargo ship fitted with giant, rigid British-designed sails has set out on its maiden voyage. Shipping firm Cargill, which has chartered the vessel, hopes the technology will help the industry chart a course towards a greener future. From a report: The WindWings sails are designed to cut fuel consumption and therefore shipping's carbon footprint. It is estimated the industry is responsible for about 2.1% of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The Pyxis Ocean's maiden journey, from China to Brazil, will provide the first real-world test of the WindWings - and an opportunity to assess whether a return to the traditional way of propelling ships could be the way forward for moving cargo at sea. Folded down when the ship is in port, the wings are opened out when it is in open water. They stand 123ft (37.5m) tall and are built of the same material as wind turbines, to make them durable. Enabling a vessel to be blown along by the wind, rather than rely solely on its engine, could hopefully eventually reduce a cargo ship's lifetime emissions by 30%.
Ahoy (Score:5, Funny)
The 18th century has entered the chat.
Re:Ahoy (Score:5, Informative)
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23rd century here, and chance you can get it to launch sulfur into the stratosphere?
Asking for a friend
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Not a dupe (Score:2)
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> The 18th century has entered the chat.
It received a warm welcome from the minus 30th century.
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The 18th century has entered the chat.
And was instantly mocked by the carrying capacity and delivery chat from the 21st century. This is not your great great great great great granddaddy's sailing ship.
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Y'arrrr (Score:1)
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Well shiver me timbers!
Sure rolls off the tongue better than “Well buckle me mild plate steel!” They really knew how to build sentences back then.
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I'll take shivered timbers over buckled steel plates any day
Pioneering (Score:4, Funny)
(yes the spelling was intentional) (Score:1)
It's truly innovative to use wind to power boats
You know who else innovatively uses wind to power sailers? YO MAMA!
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Don't downsell it with your cheap sarcasm. All inventions are a continuation of earlier work that introduces a novel element. This is heavily influenced by the solar sails used on satellites, a "wind sail" if you will.
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Re:orly? (Score:5, Insightful)
When I think modern logistics, the first thing that comes to my mind is "Your multi-million dollars shipment will show up in X to Y days, depending on the wind speeds."
It seems the ship is simply augmenting its engines with sails to reduce fuel use (as noted in TFS), and can proceed w/o any wind at all, so I imagine it can maintain its schedule regardless of wind speeds.
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Yes. There is a threshold effect. Adding a bit of wind power doesn't increase travel times - you just vary how much wind/diesel is contributed based on the wind and save a bit of fuel on average. But you wouldn't be able to get to 50%+ wind without accepting slower and more variable travel times.
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The shipping industry has already slowed down because they realized that they saved a disproportionate amount of fuel (i.e. money) by doing so.
Anyway, 30% is a lot.
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The ship is also a bulk carrier, not a container vessel. As I understand it, many bulk cargoes are less dependent on JIT scheduling.
Re:orly? (Score:5, Informative)
When I think modern logistics, the first thing that comes to my mind is "Your multi-million dollars shipment will show up in X to Y days, depending on the wind speeds."
Shipping is already like that for anything crossing an ocean. Weather, mechanical issues, and pacing issues at the destination port can all affect the delivery time once the ship has departed.
I checked MarineTraffic to find some similar ships working a similar route, in this case Shanghai to Paranagua, Brazil. It left on August 1 and is expected on September 15. Another ship of similar displacement, the Red Marlin, left Songxia, China, about a day's sailing south of Shanghai, on July 14 and is expected in Paranagua on August 23. That makes the Pyxis Ocean a bit slower than the Red Marlin, but not hugely so. If the cost of 30% of the fuel is greater than the basic daily rate for the ship over the extra time, the sail system starts to make economic sense.
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Also, most early steamships also used wind to supplement their engines to save on fuel costs and increase range.
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Yeah exactly, I don't know how inflated their heads must be or the media's anyway calling it pioneering etc. Little journalist is over excited I guess.
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Weird, we had galleons that had sails that pushed it using wind and it often carried cargo and other trade boats, and they all used sails.
And what was their cargo capacity and how quickly could they cross the world?
Fits the MO of today though.
Yeah, stupid comments ignorant of the massive difference in capabilities between now and the past because of the word "wind" really fits the MO for modern Slashdot discourse.
Slashdot, News for morons, stuff that everyone thinks already exists.
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No you're just raging about some agenda point of view.
It's not like the statement was the first time engineering sail on cargo of this size or something like that, they acted as if the concept itself was unique.
Anyway, what I said was right, and you're clearly on the ragey fantasy political spectrum.
Yeah, stupid response full of ignorance because you want to go ahead with the way they word crap, it's not as special or unique as people are trying to act like it is. That says nothing to the merit of the idea.
do they tack? (Score:1)
Wind is great unless you are trying to head upwind, and then you will reach a no-go zone that is some number of degrees on both sides of the direction the wind is blowing from. This number will depend on the sails, the rigging, and the hull. I'm curious to know what that number is for these. It can easily be 45 degrees for a normal sailboat which could mean there is a 90 degree slice of the compass where these sails will be a drag rather than a propulsion.
But then of course in most compass directions they w
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Those things are huge, I don't think they will fold down.
https://www.bartechnologies.uk... [bartechnologies.uk]
I'm wondering if they will work at all for container ships, it looks like they take up a lot of deck space.
Re:do they tack? (Score:5, Informative)
Those things are huge, I don't think they will fold down. https://www.bartechnologies.uk... [bartechnologies.uk]
From TFA:
Folded down when the ship is in port, the wings are opened out when it is in open water. They stand 123ft (37.5m) tall and are built of the same material as wind turbines, to make them durable.
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"when the ship is in port"
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Re:do they tack? (Score:5, Informative)
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The pictures show they do and can tack - though as you state, the degree of how much is of question.
Right now, these are a retrofit. Give it 10, 20 years and we'll have newer hulls designed specifically to sail again, I imagine. I can imagine catamaran style hulls becoming a thing too....
And perhaps seasonal shipping routes becoming more common, again...
Re:do they tack? (Score:4, Interesting)
The pictures show they do and can tack - though as you state, the degree of how much is of question.
Right now, these are a retrofit. Give it 10, 20 years and we'll have newer hulls designed specifically to sail again, I imagine. I can imagine catamaran style hulls becoming a thing too....
I look forward to seeing a container ship up on its hydrofoils like a SailGP boat.
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The pictures show that the sails can be adjusted for the wind direction which makes sense. If the shortest route from A to B is upwind into the no-go zone I'm wondering if they will veer off in order to engage the sails. There's probably an algorithm for that.
Re:do they tack? (Score:5, Interesting)
This isn't the 19th Century. We have wind powered ship designs that can sail directly into the wind and actually perform better when doing so. The trick is you use an airfoil instead of a traditional sail. You can also use a wind charger, a type of airfoil, to directly spin a naval screw or, indirectly, to spin a generator to create electricity that drives an electric motor that spins a naval screw. The latter form is very easy to turn into a hybrid power system that can be fed power from wind, solar, gas turbines, fuel cells, or naval diesel engines. Diesel engines can run on agricultural waste, bio-diesel, or even a 90/10 mix of anhydrous ammonia. There are lots of options for greening ocean shipping. We just have to do them.
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That's great, but these are sails. "rigid British-designed sails"
Re:do they tack? (Score:4, Informative)
They are airfoils. Read the article. Look at the pictures. They're airfoils with both flaps and slats on them to alter airflow over the airfoil and increase efficiency. In every picture in the article, the ship is shown with the wings in a configuration that implies they are sailing into a headwind. It's why they're called Windwings. It's literally in the name.
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Have you ever done any actual sailing? You can't sail directly upwind regardless of the sail shape.
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It's not a sail.
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Obviously they are "giant, rigid British-designed sails".
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They're not actually sails because they don't depend on the wind to give them shape. Instead, their shape defines what the wind does while passing over/through them, which is why they're airfoils.
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There are sailboats with rigid wings. Largest wing ever made was for Larry Ellison's DoGzilla, the trimaran in the 2010 America's Cup DoG challenge match against Alinghi.
They still can't sail directly into the wind.
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Sails define what the wind does while passing over them as well, so you are wrong. These are merely rigid sails, and the company does call them sails; https://www.bartechnologies.uk... [bartechnologies.uk]
Meanwhile, they will not propel you upwind.
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Sails define what the wind does while passing over them as well, so you are wrong.
Congrats at failing at reading comprehension, and also at thinking.
Nobody claimed that sails don't do that. HTH, HAND.
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Lol, not the slightest bit interested in your crap.
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We have wind powered ship designs that can sail directly into the wind and actually perform better when doing so.
Not with sails. I guess you mean with wind mills.
Those are usually hobbyist constructions.
Diesel engines can run on agricultural waste, bio-diesel, or even a 90/10 mix of anhydrous ammonia.
Not a ship Diesel.
The difference between a "boat diesel" or car diesel engine versus a ship diesel is similar to the difference of a naval nuclear reactor versus a commercial electricity producing reactor.
Aka:
God Damn Them All (Score:2)
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It's been covered by British and Australian bands and Stephen Colbert.
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I was told we'd cruise the seas for American gold.
We'd fire no guns, shed no tears!
Now I'm a broken man on a Halifax pier,
the last of Barrett's privateers!
Californian tax servant here, love Barrett's Privateers!
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She'd a list to the port and and her sails in rags
And the cook's in the scuppers with the staggers and jags...
Methnks on some galeful voyage these newfangled cargo ships may discover why sails were not rigid.
Occurs to me to wonder whether a computer can reproduce a skilled sailor's knowledge of the rigging thereof.
Nothing new, just economically more viable nowaday (Score:3)
There have been projects with fixed wing sails and kites fitted for ships many years ago. The difference with now is that it is becoming a larger number on the accounting books.
This is still not about being environmentally responsible. Business only has one master.
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Looking at the manufacturer's website they state that they can save "c1.5 tonnes of fuel per day". The ship that had 3 of these installed on it has a dry weight of 200,000 tonnes.
It's not nothing, but it won't work for container ships and many other types of ship that don't have room for them to lay flat on the deck when not in use.
Maths (Score:2)
"six tonnes of fuel saved, that's 20 tonnes of CO2 saved - per day. The numbers are massive."
I learned a thing today. General math for fuel is ~3.7x the fuel weight for the output CO2.
C = 6
O = 8
Hydrocarbon left overs? (Score:2)
So marine shipping fuel is so thick that it needs to be warmed in order to actually flow through the pumps to the engines. This stuff is the left overs after all other usable fuels have been distilled out. What does one do with thick heavy sludge that is leftover from other more useful fuel production?
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What does one do with thick heavy sludge that is leftover from other more useful fuel production?
Use it to make tarmac? [wikipedia.org]
(Disclaimer: I am not an industrial / organic chemist. There may be limitations when converting 'bunker fuel' into tar.)
surely this is a sign of the apocalypse... (Score:2)
no, not the fact that somebody has invented a sailboat about 8000 years after other people did it...
rather...
the fact that any supposedly educated person in western civilization would think such an invention new and revolutionary. Education has clearly finally completely collapsed in the west. I look forward to life under President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho [gfycat.com]. (for context: see this [wikipedia.org])
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This kind of shite is so tiresome. It's not the use of wind per se that's revolutionary, it's building a commercially viable rigid wing using a combo of wind turbine and airplane wing technologies that can be used on a ship of this size. And the revolutionary part is obvious:t today, essentially zero commercial ships cut fuel costs and CO2 output with wind power; in the future, many may do so.
oh, please... (Score:2)
First: clean up the language. There's nothing "adult" about using immature language, and expletives serve no real purpose other than to be divisive or insulting and thereby discourage dialog.
Second: You are right that there's nothing revolutionary about using wind power per se, however the rest is also not revolutionary, as I'll more explicitly explain:
[a] Making a sailing ship "commercially viable" is not revolutionary - look up clipper ships, among many others.
[b] Equating a sail with a wing is not revolu
missing details (Score:1)
Curiously all the articles I read are missing basic details about the ship:
(From marinetraffic.com)
PYXIS OCEAN (IMO: 9798856) is a Bulk Carrier that was built in 2017 (6 years ago) and is sailing under the flag of Singapore.
Her carrying capacity is 80962 t DWT and her current draught is reported to be 8.6 meters. Her length overall (LOA) is 229 meters and her width is 32.26 meters.
It's a kamsarmax vessel, putting it classwise in the medium-large category (bigger than panamax, smaller than very large ore car
About time! (Score:1)
Heard about this years and years ago.
Thought it had already sailed!
Guess it was stuck in development hell for a while.