Forget wind-assist, we need to go full on sail, argues Andrew Craig-Bennett.
I asked the editor if I could write this. It will seem absurd to most readers, but then there is something absurd about ships being built to transport carbon dioxide captured from exhaust gas emissions when we have neither a reliable and cheap way of capturing that carbon, nor a reliable way of storing it. There is, as famed journo Michael Grey just pointed out to me in an email, something odd about engineers aboard an ammonia-fuelled ship having to put on a chemical suit and a BA set to adjust a fuel valve. So here is some safer absurdity.
We date the replacement of wind power with the oxidation of hydrocarbons as the way to move a ship and cargo across the seas and oceans of the world to between 1863 when a railway engineer named Alfred Holt built the Agamemnon, the first of a class of compound expansion steam ships which could get from Britain to China burning coal without the help of sails or of a mail contract, and 1880, when Thompson’s Aberdeen Line built the Aberdeen, the first triple expansion screw steamer.
Thompsons were interesting people, and in his excellent book on the company, Captain Peter King observes that in that year, 1880, the Aberdeen called into the Pagoda Anchorage, on the Min River below Fuzhou, the most important export port for Chinese tea and the port from which the great tea clipper races to London had started. The “Aberdeen loaded all the export tea in the place. This was to the dismay of the crews of the sailing tea clippers in port, and particularly so because the Aberdeen was a sister ship of the greatest tea clipper of all time, the legendary Thermopylae. She flew the same house flag, and was painted the same green, with cream masts and spars. (That green will be familiar to older readers, as Overseas Containers Ltd used it, as a tribute to a long-vanished standard of maritime excellence.) The point is, the Thermopylae (designed by Bernard Waymouth, the secretary to Lloyd’s Register) had been built just 12 years earlier, in 1868. The Victorians did not hang about – when they saw an advance in naval architecture, in shipbuilding or in engineering, they jumped on it.
I’m going to suggest that wind power might come back. Not so much in the form of kite sails, Flettner rotors, and other wind assistance gadgets but as in the form of actual sailing ships. The professional yachtsmen who race for the America’s Cup, in teams which are supported by the same people as Formula One motor racing, and the mostly French professional yachtspeople who race non-stop round the world in the big – and almost entirely French – long distance yacht races have been achieving remarkable speeds. Twenty knots across an ocean is now slow, 30 knots is common and the upper limit is set at the point where the foils that lift the hull(s) out of the water start to cavitate- 50 knots and over. Just a few years ago, eight knots was good going. This is a changing world.
Why would it be impossible to make use of some of this astonishing scientific and engineering progress to haul cargoes? Not indeed in carbon fibre hulls, but very few of us have carbon fibre cars, yet Formula One motor racing has changed the cars that we drive. We know vastly more about weather systems and how to make best use of them than we did just a few years back, the information processing that allows a hydrofoil and a sail to continue to operate reliably at 30 knots whilst the sole crew member (no, I’m not recommending that – but these yachts have collision avoidance systems better than any found on a ship) sleeps.
If this column persuades just one of Maersk, or Berge Bulk, or Swire (who are building a sail driven cargo ship now) or any other of the more forward looking shipowners to talk seriously to the teams of naval architects, engineers and IT people who tend to be found around Les Sables D’Olonne during the Vendee Globe Race, it will be well worth it.
Quinquerimes next?
How many lashes for not keeping the pace ?
Phil,
Quinqueremes were, as you know, warships, stored ashore, and, when wanted, rowed fast over short distances by crews of citizen volunteers.
This may help:
https://splash247.com/is-seafaring-really-a-dying-art/
Thanks Andrew, the development of primary wind ships is well underway with three vessels under construction and a number of others slated for 2024-25. There are also additional designs for ships with additional power harvesting technologies that will convert excess wind power into electricity and fuels on board. At the International Windship Association we don’t see a separation in how much harvesting of the wind is undertaken, many rig types used as wind-assist systems on ships are scalable and applicable to full wind powered vessels too.
http://www.decadeofwindpropulsion.org
Rowing is not likely to return for warships propulsion let alone cargo vessels …
The combination of variables mentioned in the article immediately brought to mind … Elon Musk …
The idea is quirky enough … and the long-shot potential-benefit just might appeal.
The simplest form of carbon neutral propulsion for a ship, passengers and cargo is the wind; it’s already there!
You have a great idea, there – Elon Musk might indeed be just the combination of engineer, IT wizard and entrepreneur for this. Compared to electric cars, this is easy.
The real problems are twofold – getting people weaned off “Just in Time” – but that was always a myth – and more seriously finding a way to load and discharge cargo without the masts and spars getting in the way.
Musk would consider these trivial, I’m sure.
I’m a proud Maritime Historian and a retired U.S. Merchant Mariner of 31 years / As a teen, I met the late great Frank O. Braynard who created OP SAIL in 1964, 1976, 1986, 1992 and 2000 / In the early 1960’s he created the South Street Seaport in New York City / He believed that sail would one day come back to the world’s oceanic sealanes / Look at the beautiful Wind – Blown queens like the EAGLE, the TOVARISCH and the elegant DANMARK to name but a few / Naval architects need to get together and design hulls capable of more cargo space with containers and a propulsion under sail / A small fuel engine could be built in for docking and undocking and port transits / Wind power can be brought back if we think about / I’m J. Fred /
Nice article Andrew.
I don’t see ships being without motors or being completely carbon free. But I do see a significant scaling down of fuel burn – one way or another. I don’t see the engine’s being turned off, but automatically varying to maintain averages as far as possible.
What were the downsides in the era of sail? And how does existing technology overcome them.
On one hand weather routing – the remarkable speeds of the record breaking sailing craft are due to very sophisticated weather routing designed for and through the heat of competition. Favourable winds can be found on many routes, unfavourable winds light, strong, and nonexistent can be largely avoided.
The biggest delays in the sailing ship era were being stuck in calms with no progress being able to be made. Engine sizes are unlikely to be decreased significantly because of increased risk for the ship so target arrival times can still be met within reasonable margin.
With the first wind powered RORO being developed by Neoline having signed construction contracts in Turkey it is interesting to see how quickly the sailing configuration has changed. RORO are a low hanging fruit with clear deckspace and a relatively low profile reducing windage and heeling moment and carrying high value goods of less density.
Neoline has gone through several iterations of the sailing rig. An indication of how quickly new options are becoming available.
In the beginning this project seemed far more rational than most as it used conventional sailing rigs with about 5 distributed between port and starboard sides – something that attracted me for its simplicity and the availability of components.
Most of the blathering memes with electronic portraits from design studios of advanced wing sails and sleek aero hulls look like horrors to manage practically in the full range of conditions met at sea. Many of the hull “sketches” seem to have sacrificed burden on the alter of art deco streamlinging. In my opinion destined to float on their seas of electrons for eternity (or someone crashes the hard drive).
But by starting from rational sailing technology there have been a couple more recent versions of the sailing components. This is an indication of how quickly technical solutions are moving along. Of course in the end they might plonk for the conventional rigs and off the shelf components.
One is of two larger rigs. Each with main and headsail mounted on a “balestron” meaning that like a radio controlled model yacht where the boom of the mainsail is extended forward and the headsail is tacked to that extension. The mast rotates and the balance between the two sails allows that to happen more easily.
The second is a innovation that has been taken on by Michelin which has also signed up for contracts for shipping their products on the new boat/s (there were meant to be two, but I haven’t heard about the second for some time). It is an inflatable sail with a telescoping mast. A few years back I saw videos of a trial on a yacht and guffawed. It is an absolutely silly idea for a yacht and they seemed careful to avoid showing the deployment and dousing sequence in real time. But with the might of Michelin behind it now it looks like it might be a good fit.
We are indeed in the midst of a revolution on many fronts. It is impossible to know which technologies will come out on top. But it is clear there is significant funding in place and available. And we all get to see what happens.
I’m thinking that in the rapidly heating future we may have to forget about fast passages and promised arrival times. Those arrival dates were not guaranteed, afaik, so the consignees will just have to live with slower passages and more randomised ETAs. They will scream blue murder and then come to live with it.
Electric auxiliary propulsion on board, with weight and drag, or electric tugs at the ports?
All this is hardly going to be a bad thing for the shipowners