this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2024
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A cargo ship’s ‘WindWing’ sails saved it up to 12 tons of fuel per day (www.popsci.com)
submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The 12 tons are a best case and they represent 37% of this ship's fuel consumption, that would be ~32.5 tons a day, on average it saved 3.3 tons, ~10%.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago

Which makes the break-even point for such wingsails, which cost one hell of alot more than a few tonnes of fuel did .. rather far-away/long-term, doesn't it?

There was also a system using huge parachute-kite things, on carbon-nanotube-ropes, fired up into the sky with rocket-assist, and the things could apparently pull the ship, quite effectively...

.. the service-subscription the ship was supposed to pay-for gave them the optimal route for fuel-savings vs time-to-get-there..

here, it was sorta like this, but the kite-sail looked different, and I'm pretty-sure they were saying something about nanotube cable for the kite, and it wasn't just a concept, it was actually-working...

https://marinersgalaxy.com/giant-kite-pulls-ship-across-atlantic/

I seem to remember that at the beginning of covid, some shipping companies just shortened the bulbs on their hulls, to optimize for a slower cruising-speed, and saved money that way..

again, where's the break-even on it