Posted on 12/25/2006 7:50:59 PM PST by A. Pole
BREMEN, Germany – Putting a harness on ocean winds, a German shipping company plans to unfurl a giant high-tech kite over a cargo ship next year to boost the vessel's propulsion and conserve fuel.
The "SkySail," a 191-square-yard kite tethered to a mast, has successfully undergone years of trial runs, and Bremen ship owner Beluga Shipping believes it will help its vessels cut fuel use by 15 percent to 20 percent.
The MV Beluga SkySails, now being built and fitted with a paraglider-shaped sail and a "smart" central steerage unit, will make its maiden voyage in early 2007.
"I got the idea on a sailboat a few years ago," Stephan Wrage, inventor and founder of SkySails GmbH & Co. KG, told Reuters. "I love flying kites and found sailing rather slow. I thought the enormous power in kites could somehow be utilized."
The technology he has developed is a throwback to an earlier age of maritime travel when ships relied solely on wind. But it also addresses a key concern of the modern age: climate change.
Backers of SkySail call it a "green" project – by cutting fuel use it could help reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
Wrage, 34, said that depending on the vessel and the winds, fuel costs for shippers could be cut by more than $1,000 a day.
[...]
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
Odd notion: using the heat generated by the sun, and catching wind is different from using the heat generated by the sun and processed through buried plankton.
Since the most important green house gas is water, I don't see this affecting anything. If the designer ever spent paid someone to repair worn sails, he wouldn't claim that it saved money.
I'll bet they got their idea from the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean." We millennium men are absolutely brilliant.
Didnt they use this in the 1700's? Just wondering.
"SkySail's price tag – $660,000 to $3.3 million – along with doubts it will deliver promised savings and its reliance on fickle ocean winds could limit demand at first."What's it made of, platinum fibers?
"Wrage said ships will initially need to carry an engineer to operate the sail, which is about as big as a medium-size passenger jet."This is getting comical...
"He projects 1,500 vessels will have the system by 2015, when he reckons he will have 800 employees."He "reckons"?!? Was that the punchline?
Sounds like a winner with a good wind from astern. Why not more than one sail, however?
Some old ideas are good ideas.
What a novel concept. Somebody should patent that idea.
we used to laugh about stupid-looking airfoils on trucks.....now look at all that fancy fiberglass the trucking industry spends good money on
Reporting for duty!
I suppose if you had more than one of them in the air at a time they would eventually get tangled up.
One thing I like was that the Zeppelin engines ran on both diesel and hydrogen, so as fuel was burned, gas was burned to compensate. As they heated in the sun they could burn hydrogen, reducing lift, and as they cooled, could burn diesel reducing weight.
By contrast, the US Navy used Helium gas filled blimps, and had huge problems with compensating burned fuel with more gas, and then compensating for sun-heating with wasteful gas release.
A hybrid hybrid, with some permanent Helium bags, and some flexible Hydrogen bags with diesel-hydrogen may be the best approach.
Always keeping in mind that hydrogen is an energy storage medium, not a energy source.
It's probably silly at $60/barrel oil, but sensible at $100/barrel.
I like helium filled dirigibles even more. The trouble with them is, you need to have respect for the weather. The US lost most of its zeppelins by flying them into squall lines and other stupidity. The Germans could use a hurricane to speed an Atlantic crossing by flying around the edge of it with a tail wind.
Probably the idea in the article could be used to good advantage in fuel economy, and possibly travel time, by a skilled captain willing to take slightly longer routes when favorable winds commended them. Still my sense is this is one of those ideas that's sheer folly at $50/barrel, dubious at $60/barrel, but might be sensible and all the rage if oil hit $100/barrel.
Hey, Mel Gibson, wanna make a real movie? Two years to shoot, and what's the biggest budget for a flick to date? Well, double that. Tell the whole story exactly as told, and leave nothing out from beginning to end. No need to embellish, just tell the story verbatim, and "blockbuster" couldn't hold a candle to the term describing it.
The movie may need an intermission, but Moses, 10 Commandments, Gone With the Wind, Doctor Zhivago step aside.
Like the song says, "Everything old is new again."
Seems to me they could come up with a steam and sail vessel. If the economics make sense for one sail, it would make sense for more than one.
Not to gloat, but I was a Merchant Marine Officer. I rose to 2nd Mate of Steam and Moter Vessels, Oceans. (That means the navigator).
Not that this gives me any expertise in sailing ships. My Dad actually did two years before the mast at the Pennsylvania Nautical School in the early 30's. They used a sailing ship and received a Third Mates license in 2 years.
Reporting for 'doodie'.. howdy!
LOL! "reckons" costs millions.
Why does this remind me of "Rotor Sails"..
those diesel driven rotating vertical cylinders used briefly on a pair of German vessels (Buckau & Barbara) in the early 20th century.
Invented by Anton Flettner in 1924, these units were 50ft tall and 12 ft in diameter and spun at 100RPM. With 3 units one of these vessels got up to 6 knots in a good wind. "not as efficient as anticipated" and took up a great amount of deck space as well.
Futher development was abandoned....until the French built one around 15 years ago.
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