this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2024
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[–] [email protected] 80 points 6 months ago (3 children)

FYI, the main innovations of these kite sails compared to traditional sailing ships are that it doesn't need masts that get in the way of cargo handling and that it requires fewer crew. In other words, it's not faster or anything; it's just cheaper.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 6 months ago

You also need vastly less sail area and the things are more reliable because wind gets quite a bit stronger and reliable at 100-300 metres up. The system actually isn't new. AFAIU main reason for it not getting wide-spread adoption is that shipping lines, not ship owners, pay for fuel.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Modern cargo ships are so huge traditional sails wouldn't provide enough force to push them around. Neither will these kites, mind you. But, supplemental energy will still be a bonus, and a kite can reach higher and sit in faster, more stable winds.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Modern cargo ships are so huge traditional sails wouldn’t provide enough force to push them around.

Believe it or not, "proportionality" is a thing. You make the ship bigger, you make the sails bigger to match. Simple! Granted, previously, making sails bigger was limited by the weight of the things when hoisted by men operating manual winches, but now we've got motors now to solve that, and higher strength-to-weight ratio materials, too.

Point is: I maintain that, in principle, you could make a post-Panamax sailing ship -- even a traditional fully-rigged one -- if you really wanted to, and it would be capable of sailing at hull speed on wind power alone. It's just that they don't want to for reasons unrelated to technical feasibility.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (2 children)

You're assuming everything scales linearly, which is not necessarily accurate. The square-cube law rains on many people's parades.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I can see how you'd think that, but I'm really just asserting that these specific things scale well enough to still work at post-Panamax size.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

A bigger challenge would be sourcing enough shantymen to be feasible. I'm not sure that the world has sufficient production capacity to provide the necessary rum for more than a handful of ships.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I have it on good authority that the Wellerman will handle this issue, along with any concerns with tea and sugar supply

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Sailing cargo ship is a thing. There's a record breaker recently in fact.

[–] merc 3 points 6 months ago

It would be really interesting to see a fully rigged ship with dozens of sails where the rigging was pulled by motors and controlled by computers rather than humans. It would also be interesting to see what they could do with modern materials. Nylon sails, carbon fibre masts, steel lines, etc.

Having said that, I would bet that a real modern cargo ship would probably use fancy solid wing-style sails.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (5 children)

You underestimate the power of wind, stranger.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (7 children)

You underestimate the force of wetted surface area resistance. The sail area needed to move a modern cargo ship at the snail's pace of old sailing ships would be unmanageably large. You simply couldn't hold enough sail area to get them near their current speeds. These hybrid sail concepts are nice, but all they do is save some fuel.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

So, I got that information from a different Lemmy comment, and on the spur of your contradiction I went looking myself. My search results are flooded with mostly useless news articles (they went to tell stories, not relay technical information). Regardless, the most ambitious claim I've seen is to reduce emissions by up to 90% for a ship design that can't handle shipping containers and is about 1/4 the size of the largest ships being produced today.

Don't get me wrong, I want this to happen. In fact, I would ban carbon-fuel shipping today, if I could make it happen. That being said, I don't think we'll ever get back to 100% wind power.

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[–] SonicBlue03 65 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Hoist the mainsail and shiver me timbers.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago

Arrrr me packages going to be delayed? I'll keel haul the lily lubber!

[–] [email protected] 38 points 6 months ago (4 children)

They are literally kites—not sails. I’ve never seen a sail flying 100 ft above a ship before.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago (3 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinnaker

When a vessel is running (meaning moving in the same direction as the wind) it can fly a spinnaker, which is just a kite on short lines.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (4 children)

The mast on the ship in the picture is litteraly 127 feet.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

I saw it once in sea of thieves. Pretty sure it was a graphics glitch

[–] [email protected] 34 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 61 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (7 children)

“What differentiates it from other wind solutions,” says Bernatets, “is that the wing is not just pulled by the wind and countered by the ship.” Instead, it flies in figure-of-eight loops, which multiply the pulling effect of the airflow to give what he calls “crazy power.”

“Plus, we fetch the wind 300 meters above the sea surface, where it’s 50% more powerful,” adds Bernatets. The combination “explains why the power is tremendous for a system that is very compact, simple on the bow of the ship, and can be retrofitted on any ship, not just new ships,” he says.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

The retrofitting part is great news

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

“What differentiates it from other wind solutions,” says Bernatets, “is that the wing is not just pulled by the wind and countered by the ship.” Instead, it flies in figure-of-eight loops, which multiply the pulling effect of the airflow to give what he calls “crazy power.”

That's an innovation over square-rigged ships, sure, but not so much over fore-and-aft-rigged ones (where the sails act like aerofoils).

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 months ago (1 children)

And what is wrong with taking stress off the engines? I hate how they report this like it is a joke, because it is still a solid step.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

They're not a joke, they're a product called Seawing, made by a French company. They're being being actively tested and can be retro fitted to existing vessels rather than requiring a new design.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Correct, I think they were saying it was being reported on as if it was a joke. Not being taken seriously as a good step towards reducing carbon emissions.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago (1 children)

But they'll steal the wind! How is that helping the environment?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

and who's making money off it. cause if there is no money, no one will do it unfortunately.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I know this isn't really anything new, but it dies look like they are making progress while is great.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

My immediate concern with these is lightning strikes on the kites

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

They will have planning for that, just like they do the container ship towers which also have to deal with lightening.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Why the fook is the flag flying against the wind?!?

[–] [email protected] 43 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Sails don't billow into the wind. They are set at an angle to it. Just enough to inflate them, creating an airfoil. The remaining wind blows across the airfoil, creating "lift" (like vertical airplane wings) that pulls the boat along more efficiently. That's why sail boats can actually go faster than the wind.

From this photo, the wind is blowing almost parallel with the sails.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (3 children)

The type of sail you're referring to is 'bermuda-rigged', like the smaller ones at the front of the boat in the picture. The big ones in the middle of the picture are 'square-rigged' which are really only good for sailing downwind.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If they really were kites, ships could sail across the sky.

[–] brbposting 8 points 6 months ago
[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

We have missed you Mr Picard Maneuver x

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Hey I literally just finished watching The Battle episode a few minutes ago for the first time. K thx bye now

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Hey, that's awesome! Hope you're enjoying the watch.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

🙆‍♀️

[–] captain_aggravated 4 points 6 months ago (5 children)

The thing about those big kite sails is the wind has to be coming from pretty much astern for them to work; if the ship is sailing into even a quartering headwind they're of no use.

There's a technology...I forget what they're called, some kind of turbine, where you have a couple of tall spinning cylinders on the deck, which interact with the wind in such a way to provide thrust for the ship, this is mechanically simpler, fewer ways it can go wrong, you can just hinge them down and secure them in a storm or to pass under bridges, and they can drive the ship in quartering headwinds.

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