Hi Tech Sailing Ships

A new way for an old shipping method

reddit.com - The Sørlandet - the oldest full rigged ship in the world still sailing ...

I really liked the movie, ‘Master and Commander’ - especially the opening scene, which was almost as good as the opening in the Western, ‘Silverado’. And I’m kind of a historical novel buff about the old sailing days and naval battles from the late 1790s well into the 1800s. I’ve read most of Patrick O’Brien’s books. He wrote the 2 books that the movie was based on. He was a master at handling the unique vocabulary of the British naval terms of the day and descriptions of how those beautiful ‘ships of the line’ were maneuvered with or against the wind.

With all the hype about wind energy, I’ve been wondering if sailing ships might make some kind of a comeback. Of course, pleasure sailing yachts have always taken advantage of the wind, and with diesel engines they can go out whether it’s windy or not.

honsail.com

And we use the wind for many types of recreation, like ice boats.

or windsurfing

I took this picture of a windsurfer in the Columbia Gorge when I had my “Outdoor Tracks” website during my backpacking, mt climbing, and skishoeing days

But could commercial shipping use sails to save energy? It would be a direct transfer of energy from wind to sail; no loss from converting it to direct current and then to alternating current and then to transformers and voltage regulation and then to high voltage transmission lines and then more transformers to lower the voltage for consumers and batteries. None of that.

Of course a commercial sailing ship would also have diesel engines, so they would be hybrids. The scene of the doldrums in ‘The Ancient Mariner’ by Samuel Coleridge, and again the frustrating becalming of the ship in ‘Master and Commander’ near the Galapagos Islands reminds us of the uselessness of sails when the wind stops.

Well, there’s a startup company that will try to compete in the commercial shipping business with a high tech version of a sailing ship, even though it’s a niche at the 1000 ton cargo level. (Cargo ships vary from 500 tons to 500,000 tons.) Time will tell this new company they can succeed.

The name of the company is TOWT (TransOceanic Wind Transport). They’re based in France. They’ve already sailed a cargo from France to New York. They carry their cargo on pallets, and can do their own unloading, rather than waiting for days in port to be unloaded.

They admit that their shipping cost is “slightly higher” than for a container ship, but they figure on offsetting that in two ways: A more predictable price, which could be guaranteed with a long term contract because they’re not much affected by the fluctuations in the cost of diesel, and secondly the attraction of the customer being able to count this as part of their carbon reducing plans.

There are a few neat features of these new hi tech sailing ships. The masts are higher and lighter than any wood mast because they’re built with carbon fiber. With the increased height and strength, they can carry about twice as much sail.

The 7 sails can be raised or lowered by remote control, so a 7 man crew replaces what would have been a 48 man crew for this size ship with this much sail in the old days.

One really innovative feature is that during a strong wind, the excess wind energy can be used to allow the propellers to spin backwards to generate power. In a way, this is like hybrid EVs recharging their lithium batteries when braking or slowing down.

I hope this venture is successful. Unlike ugly offshore wind turbines, sailing ships have a beauty all their own.

Here’s the fastcompany.com article that I’ve drawn from and summarized.