I'm on a bit of a cruise ship tech binge right now. This article discusses an engineering concept for a cruise ship that relies primarily on wind and solar power for propulsion rather than dirty...
I'm on a bit of a cruise ship tech binge right now. This article discusses an engineering concept for a cruise ship that relies primarily on wind and solar power for propulsion rather than dirty fossil fuels. I guess we return to our old sailing days. This is a pretty lame article with a lot of buzzwords, but it has a cool graphic.
The reason I'm giving tech in the "cool idea from your older brother's unemployed stoner friend" stage the time of day is that there are currently wind-powered cargo ships sailing long-distance commercial routes. That particular engineering solution isn't applicable to all cargo vessels, as stacked containers interfere with wind patterns. But it works very well for some kinds of cargo ships, like those that transport mass quantities of grain, and can massively reduce emissions.
In one recent trial, the 751-foot bulk carrier Pyxis Ocean operated by Cargill was retrofitted with two rigid sails, known as WindWings, inspired by those found on modern America's Cup racers. The vessel, carrying only water ballast, arrived in Paranaguá, Brazil, last month after an approximately 10,000-nautical-mile journey from Singapore.
Japanese shipping company Mitsui O.S.K Lines (MOL) introduced a hard sail wind power propulsion system in 2022. The sail, dubbed Wind Challenger, debuted on the company's coal carrier Shofu Maru, and helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 5% on a Japan-Australia voyage and by 8% on a Japan-North America West Coast voyage.
Similarly, Swedish shipping company Wallenius is working on Oceanbird, a new ship model with wing sails that could reduce emissions by 90%. And French company Zephyr & Borée built Canopée, a 400-foot-long cargo ship fitted with four articulated sails.
Quite a lot of variation in possible energy efficiency improvements there, but even 8% is not insignificant. It would be feasible to use similar technology on cruise vessels:
Current models of Hurtigruten's zero-emission ship call for a vessel that's 443 feet long, with 270 cabins that can accommodate roughly 500 guests. The new ship is also expected to have significant cargo space and be able to transport cars -- a necessity on the line's coastal voyages, which still function as a sort of pseudo cruise-ferry service for locals. The plan also includes developing new technology to reduce the energy consumption of onboard hotel operations by 50%.
A variety of sustainable fuel initiatives would operate the ship, Petiteau said. While the idea is to have the ship run on wind power at least 50% of the time, the vessel would also have liquid hydrogen fuel cells and solar power, and also batteries that could be recharged at shore.
The "Sea Zero" concept quoted is techbro venture capital territory, as you can tell from the lack of specificity in the article, but considering the scope of regulations being imposed by the European Union's Emissions Trading System, it would appear that there is a major incentive for industry to proactively reduce its emissions. Operators will have to surrender particularly poorly performing vessels as early as 2025! Fuel efficiency problems faced by container ships and cruise ships are very similar, so technology or process improvements for one will fairly quickly spill over to the other.
I think the question is more about commercial viability at scale than whether it's technically possible. Older ships fitted with sails were smaller, had less cargo space, and were uniquely...
I think the question is more about commercial viability at scale than whether it's technically possible.
Older ships fitted with sails were smaller, had less cargo space, and were uniquely complicated to operate. Conventional rigging for large ships is complex and requires a lot of manpower with relatively specialized skills, which was a major reason why simpler models relying on fossil fuels rather than wind came into practice. Historically, despite its high costs, sailing was still the cheapest way to ship long-distance goods. The reason commercial shipping began stacking containers on top of ships (as opposed to keeping cargo in the hold) was because the invention of the standardized shipping container allowed for easier and machine-based port logistics that were just not possible previously. Sails were unsuitable in that paradigm because they took up space more economically occupied by containers. And that is probably not going to change with this particular technology. Mechanical sails would have to be more economically competitive than current methods, which are in turn much more competitive than traditional sails. Unless that problem can be solved, the domain within ocean freight to which mechanical sails are applicable remains relatively small.
The article says that there's a multi-year payback period for investing in wind sails. Like investing in solar panels or any other kind of theoretically beneficial tech, the infrastructure just has a high cost. To some extent, supply chains and such could potentially get the cost down, but it seems like a lot of the cost comes from retrofitting ships for this technology. Maybe a new generation of purpose-built mechanical sailing ships could revolutionize the fleet.
As far as cruise ships are concerned, I see very little stopping them except that it hasn't really been done for a large passenger vessel before. They don't have the same requirements as container ships so I don't foresee many/most of the same blockers.
To be fair...how much of that danger was due to other problems which are easily solved now, such as navigation and food spoilage? Or sending an SOS signal when things do go wrong? Plus with our...
To be fair...how much of that danger was due to other problems which are easily solved now, such as navigation and food spoilage? Or sending an SOS signal when things do go wrong?
Plus with our added knowledge about weather patterns, such that massive storms are more easily avoided.
Every time you convert energy to a different form there is loss. I'm not saying things should be exclusively sail-driven...but I also don't think it should immediately be written off either.
Some of it, but none of it changes the laws of physics. Sailboats necessitate smaller vessels, which are inherently vulnerable to rogue waves and unexpected weather patterns, currents, and winds....
Some of it, but none of it changes the laws of physics. Sailboats necessitate smaller vessels, which are inherently vulnerable to rogue waves and unexpected weather patterns, currents, and winds. Columbus sailed across the Atlantic in boats that would be tiny today, and he casually lost three ships, and it was just an expected part of the voyage for a reason.
Additionally, modern sailboat's gas reserves for powered sailing are not sufficient for saving yourself on the ocean as they would be in a smaller sea when caught by unexpected winds. Sure, if you're not capsized, you can probably satellite for help, but at that point you've used more emissions anyways.
Additionally, this would cause more emissions, not less. Modern shipping vessels benefit greatly from economies of scale; if you drive to the store to buy packaged fruit, they were likely farmed in South America, and shipped to Asia for packing, and shipped back to the US for sale.
Of that entire supply chain, on a per capita basis, the part had the most emissions was the driving. The per-unit emissions of modern shipping is extremely low relative to land and air transportation, and certainly personal transportation.
Trying to ship things with sailboats, you would not nearly be able to fit the same amount of luggage, you would need more ships - which also takes energy and has emissions, those ships would use more emissions when they inevitable need to use their gas reserves.
It's throwing the baby away with the bathwater. You make things worse for everyone, including the sailors, the consumers, and the Earth.
I mean... WRT to climate change the global food trade is causing many, many, many problems. That scenario you describe about shipping goods halfway around the world 2x, should not exist. If we...
I mean... WRT to climate change the global food trade is causing many, many, many problems. That scenario you describe about shipping goods halfway around the world 2x, should not exist.
If we really cared about carbon emissions, we'd ban the global trade of meat.
Turns out that's not really the case although that is more of a sail-assist than full sail power, but still. Big boats just need big sails, but everything about shipping is big. We're not limited...
Sailboats necessitate smaller vessels
Turns out that's not really the case although that is more of a sail-assist than full sail power, but still. Big boats just need big sails, but everything about shipping is big. We're not limited by hoisting sheets of canvas these days, which is an important change.
Projects such as the Oceanbird and various Magnus effect and kite assisted vessels are showing that wind power is feasible as part of commercial-scale shipping, and an important step in decarbonising supply chains.
I hope they go that way, eventually. As a kid I loved going on cruises: it's like a buffet every meal of every day. As a form of leisure it rocks. As a from of travel-as-in-see-new-places, it...
I hope they go that way, eventually.
As a kid I loved going on cruises: it's like a buffet every meal of every day. As a form of leisure it rocks. As a from of travel-as-in-see-new-places, it doesn't. It gets people to a port and most stops gets you to the gift shops only.
As a re-positioning, it's hard for me to forget there'd be nothing to reposition if there weren't travel legs to pair them with to begin with. Meanwhile the people who work the re-positioning shifts are still working, and there's still food waste just the same.
So yes renewable energy cruises would be fantastic. It would solve one of 2.5 reasons why I can no longer in good conscience go on a cruise, even though I personally love love love it as a form of leisure. It's one of my dreams to retire on a cruise line and finally visit a ton of places without having to look up itinerary and puzzle about flight and food costs.
I'm a little confused about the sails themselves. They have solar panels but also use wind? Are they using the wind to propel the ship? If so, I presume that's in addition to a regular motor so...
I'm a little confused about the sails themselves. They have solar panels but also use wind? Are they using the wind to propel the ship? If so, I presume that's in addition to a regular motor so they don't end up stuck in the middle of the ocean when the wind dies down - cruise ships have a fairly strict schedule to keep.
Sailboat design hasn't changed that much for a very long time. Sail shape has certainly evolved, but they still seem to be largely made of fabric. None of the concept pictures I see contain anything I would call a "sail", they look like they have smokestacks. I remember seeing something years ago about a new design that used some kind of corkscrew, maybe there are turbines inside those things? The Wikipedia entry on sails doesn't bring up any designs that look like this.
Does anyone have more info about this? I'd love to read about how those things work.
The concept in the image is like fanfiction art and doesn't reflect any engineering reality. Mechanical sails would probably look more like they do on the Pyxis Ocean or the Ponant example in the...
The concept in the image is like fanfiction art and doesn't reflect any engineering reality. Mechanical sails would probably look more like they do on the Pyxis Ocean or the Ponant example in the article. The reason they designed them to look like smokestacks for the concept art is to evoke an image of a conventional ocean liner and make the idea seem more palatable. In reality, the sails would have to be pretty high, probably not canted or narrow like they are in the image, and would not be very visually appealing.
Not like cruise ships are visually appealing in general though.
I remember seeing something years ago about a new design that used some kind of corkscrew, maybe there are turbines inside those things?
Do you mean something on a vertical axis? There are lots of designs, some more practical at scale than others. I have no clue if cruise ships would benefit from any of these, but it's possible. Making large turbines of this nature apparently has "problems of aerodynamic efficiency, self-starting, structural stability, and safe braking [that] remain unsolved."
I'm on a bit of a cruise ship tech binge right now. This article discusses an engineering concept for a cruise ship that relies primarily on wind and solar power for propulsion rather than dirty fossil fuels. I guess we return to our old sailing days. This is a pretty lame article with a lot of buzzwords, but it has a cool graphic.
The reason I'm giving tech in the "cool idea from your older brother's unemployed stoner friend" stage the time of day is that there are currently wind-powered cargo ships sailing long-distance commercial routes. That particular engineering solution isn't applicable to all cargo vessels, as stacked containers interfere with wind patterns. But it works very well for some kinds of cargo ships, like those that transport mass quantities of grain, and can massively reduce emissions.
Quite a lot of variation in possible energy efficiency improvements there, but even 8% is not insignificant. It would be feasible to use similar technology on cruise vessels:
The "Sea Zero" concept quoted is techbro venture capital territory, as you can tell from the lack of specificity in the article, but considering the scope of regulations being imposed by the European Union's Emissions Trading System, it would appear that there is a major incentive for industry to proactively reduce its emissions. Operators will have to surrender particularly poorly performing vessels as early as 2025! Fuel efficiency problems faced by container ships and cruise ships are very similar, so technology or process improvements for one will fairly quickly spill over to the other.
I mean, we transported goods across the oceans for hundreds of years using sailboats.
There's no reason we couldn't do the same again.
I think the question is more about commercial viability at scale than whether it's technically possible.
Older ships fitted with sails were smaller, had less cargo space, and were uniquely complicated to operate. Conventional rigging for large ships is complex and requires a lot of manpower with relatively specialized skills, which was a major reason why simpler models relying on fossil fuels rather than wind came into practice. Historically, despite its high costs, sailing was still the cheapest way to ship long-distance goods. The reason commercial shipping began stacking containers on top of ships (as opposed to keeping cargo in the hold) was because the invention of the standardized shipping container allowed for easier and machine-based port logistics that were just not possible previously. Sails were unsuitable in that paradigm because they took up space more economically occupied by containers. And that is probably not going to change with this particular technology. Mechanical sails would have to be more economically competitive than current methods, which are in turn much more competitive than traditional sails. Unless that problem can be solved, the domain within ocean freight to which mechanical sails are applicable remains relatively small.
The article says that there's a multi-year payback period for investing in wind sails. Like investing in solar panels or any other kind of theoretically beneficial tech, the infrastructure just has a high cost. To some extent, supply chains and such could potentially get the cost down, but it seems like a lot of the cost comes from retrofitting ships for this technology. Maybe a new generation of purpose-built mechanical sailing ships could revolutionize the fleet.
As far as cruise ships are concerned, I see very little stopping them except that it hasn't really been done for a large passenger vessel before. They don't have the same requirements as container ships so I don't foresee many/most of the same blockers.
And sailing use to be one of the most dangerous occupations around. All those old songs didn’t involve dead sailors for nothing.
To be fair...how much of that danger was due to other problems which are easily solved now, such as navigation and food spoilage? Or sending an SOS signal when things do go wrong?
Plus with our added knowledge about weather patterns, such that massive storms are more easily avoided.
Every time you convert energy to a different form there is loss. I'm not saying things should be exclusively sail-driven...but I also don't think it should immediately be written off either.
Some of it, but none of it changes the laws of physics. Sailboats necessitate smaller vessels, which are inherently vulnerable to rogue waves and unexpected weather patterns, currents, and winds. Columbus sailed across the Atlantic in boats that would be tiny today, and he casually lost three ships, and it was just an expected part of the voyage for a reason.
Additionally, modern sailboat's gas reserves for powered sailing are not sufficient for saving yourself on the ocean as they would be in a smaller sea when caught by unexpected winds. Sure, if you're not capsized, you can probably satellite for help, but at that point you've used more emissions anyways.
Additionally, this would cause more emissions, not less. Modern shipping vessels benefit greatly from economies of scale; if you drive to the store to buy packaged fruit, they were likely farmed in South America, and shipped to Asia for packing, and shipped back to the US for sale.
Of that entire supply chain, on a per capita basis, the part had the most emissions was the driving. The per-unit emissions of modern shipping is extremely low relative to land and air transportation, and certainly personal transportation.
Trying to ship things with sailboats, you would not nearly be able to fit the same amount of luggage, you would need more ships - which also takes energy and has emissions, those ships would use more emissions when they inevitable need to use their gas reserves.
It's throwing the baby away with the bathwater. You make things worse for everyone, including the sailors, the consumers, and the Earth.
I mean... WRT to climate change the global food trade is causing many, many, many problems. That scenario you describe about shipping goods halfway around the world 2x, should not exist.
If we really cared about carbon emissions, we'd ban the global trade of meat.
Turns out that's not really the case although that is more of a sail-assist than full sail power, but still. Big boats just need big sails, but everything about shipping is big. We're not limited by hoisting sheets of canvas these days, which is an important change.
Projects such as the Oceanbird and various Magnus effect and kite assisted vessels are showing that wind power is feasible as part of commercial-scale shipping, and an important step in decarbonising supply chains.
Other than the fact that it’s vastly more dangerous and multitudes more expensive
I hope they go that way, eventually.
As a kid I loved going on cruises: it's like a buffet every meal of every day. As a form of leisure it rocks. As a from of travel-as-in-see-new-places, it doesn't. It gets people to a port and most stops gets you to the gift shops only.
As a re-positioning, it's hard for me to forget there'd be nothing to reposition if there weren't travel legs to pair them with to begin with. Meanwhile the people who work the re-positioning shifts are still working, and there's still food waste just the same.
So yes renewable energy cruises would be fantastic. It would solve one of 2.5 reasons why I can no longer in good conscience go on a cruise, even though I personally love love love it as a form of leisure. It's one of my dreams to retire on a cruise line and finally visit a ton of places without having to look up itinerary and puzzle about flight and food costs.
I'm a little confused about the sails themselves. They have solar panels but also use wind? Are they using the wind to propel the ship? If so, I presume that's in addition to a regular motor so they don't end up stuck in the middle of the ocean when the wind dies down - cruise ships have a fairly strict schedule to keep.
Sailboat design hasn't changed that much for a very long time. Sail shape has certainly evolved, but they still seem to be largely made of fabric. None of the concept pictures I see contain anything I would call a "sail", they look like they have smokestacks. I remember seeing something years ago about a new design that used some kind of corkscrew, maybe there are turbines inside those things? The Wikipedia entry on sails doesn't bring up any designs that look like this.
Does anyone have more info about this? I'd love to read about how those things work.
I think it's wind + solar generation for electric motors. Wouldn't want one or the other or odds are good you'll get stranded with bad weather.
The concept in the image is like fanfiction art and doesn't reflect any engineering reality. Mechanical sails would probably look more like they do on the Pyxis Ocean or the Ponant example in the article. The reason they designed them to look like smokestacks for the concept art is to evoke an image of a conventional ocean liner and make the idea seem more palatable. In reality, the sails would have to be pretty high, probably not canted or narrow like they are in the image, and would not be very visually appealing.
Not like cruise ships are visually appealing in general though.
Do you mean something on a vertical axis? There are lots of designs, some more practical at scale than others. I have no clue if cruise ships would benefit from any of these, but it's possible. Making large turbines of this nature apparently has "problems of aerodynamic efficiency, self-starting, structural stability, and safe braking [that] remain unsolved."
Yup, it was a vertical axis. I can definitely see the need to start and brake, haha. Thanks!