There is an incredible irony in the fact that long after the golden age of sail when clipper ships raced across the world powered entirely by wind power that once again cargo ships are turning to wind-assisted power. The new sails that are being evaluated for use on cargo ships are more like airplane wings than the age-old canvas sails of times gone by. Wind Wings have been around for a while. However, this announcement by Cargill Bar is the first to involve a full-size working cargo ship in the experiment. Cargill is based in Minneapolis and is a giant in the agro-business. Bar Technologies is based in the UK and is in the business of designing boats and high-tech sails. The actual building of the massive, automated sails is the job of Yara Marine Technologies based in Oslo, Norway. The question is why this throwback to sail power? Reuters reports in London Aug 21, “A Cargill chartered dry bulk ship has launched on its first voyage since being fitted with special sails, aiming to study how harnessing wind power can cut emissions and energy usage in the shipping sector, the U.S. commodities group said on Monday. The maritime industry – which accounts for nearly 3% of global CO2 emissions and is under pressure from investors and environmental groups to accelerate decarbonization – is exploring several different technologies including ammonia and methanol to move away from dirtier bunker fuel.” It is estimated that approximately 3% of global man-made greenhouse gas emissions come from ships.
The technology of Cargil-Bar’s sailing assist relies on the same theory that occurs when an airplane flies. The shape of the wing causes a low pressure on the top and a higher pressure on the bottom. Just picture the wing of a jet plane turned sideways with the winging attached to a ship. The vessel cruises under minimum power from its giant engine as computerized sensors adjust the fiberglass wings to take advantage of the wind’s speed and direction. This wind-assisted propulsion saves a substantial amount of fuel and reduces the carbon belching from the ship’s stack. While the original interest some 10 years ago was to save fuel, a bonus is the reduction in carbon emissions.
When asked by Danny Lewis of the Wall Street Journal “Now that the ship has voyaged with these high-tech sails, what have you learned?” Jan Dieleman, president of the Cargill Transportation division replied, “We need time to come up with a firm conclusion the weather is variable. So, we had a few days where she performed extremely well and far beyond our expectations. We also had a few days when there was simply no wind. But what we’ve seen initially is promising.” Dieleman said further, “The reality is, this is a technology that works on certain types of ships. If you have a container (ship) line where you have a bunch of containers already sitting in the way, it’s difficult for the wind to gain any additional fuel savings. I am sure there’s new technology being developed as we speak. Because, at the end of the day, wind is the free fuel and shame on us if we’re not going to try to the best of that.”
The Adventure Cruise Company of Hurtigruten Norway has revealed plans for a zero-emission electric cruise ship with retractable sails covered in solar panels. It is estimated the ship will set sail in 2030. Project “Sea Zero” has expanded to include 12 maritime partners and the Norway-based research institute (SINTEF). This will be a zero-emissions ship. Its electrical power will come from 60-megawatt batteries that will be charged while the ship is in port. When the ship is at sea and there is a wind, three retractable sails or wings will rise out of the deck to reach a height of some 164 feet. The sails will have 16146 square feet of solar panels that will keep the ship’s batteries charged. The range of the ship will be 300-350 nautical miles. This translates to the ship having to recharge the batteries on an 11-day round trip seven or eight times.
In what could be called the new age of sail the concept of combining wind wings and electric power is going full steam ahead with several efforts to utilize the technology for yachts and commercial vessels alike. Hopefully, the strides made will one day help reduce the carbon emissions of the maritime industry.
Scott Neuman, NPR Moring Edition, October 5th, 2023, reported “Shipping is kind of unique,” says Gavin Allwright, secretary-general of the International Windship Association (IWSA), a not-for-profit trade organization that advocates for wind propulsion in commercial shipping. “From antiquity, ships used clean and free wind energy, then we carbonized and now we’re going back to zero carbon.” NPR further reported, “Allwright of the Windship Association estimates that, on average, wing technology amounts to $3 million to $4 million tacked on to a $100 million ship. “It’s not insignificant, but it’s also not a huge expense,” he says. With so many overlapping interests in the shipping industry, simply getting agreement to try a system such as WindWings is no small matter, according to Jan Dieleman, president of Cargill Ocean Transportation, “You have to work together and somehow share the risk,” Dieleman says. “An owner is not just going to put all kinds of installations on [a] ship if they don’t know if somebody is actually going to pay them for that.”
MC Shipping, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Corp., owns the Pyxis Ocean, but Cargill, which operates it on a long-term lease, agreed to put up the money for the WindWings installation, with help from a small EU subsidy. “We get the fuel savings because the fuel savings go to the operator and that’s how we are going to make it work,” he says.”
The reality of returning to wind power-assisted cargo vessels with the added technology of electric power plants is rapidly becoming a reality. One day in the very foreseeable future tall wind wings will be gracing harbors all over the world. Shippers will save on fuel; greenhouse gases will be reduced, and the world will hopefully be a cleaner place.