Wind assisted ships - research project

[size4riggerboots]

Hi Peeps

Wondering if anyone can help. I'm starting my research project (Foundation Degree phase 3) and am looking at wind assisted ships. Mainly I'm thinking of looking at kite sails and wondered if anyone out there has sailed on one yet?

Any help most gratefully recieved!

Boots

[kayak]

Re: Wind assisted ships - research project

I guess theres those windstar cruise ships aswell, they're kind of wind assisted aren't they?

[steamer]

Re: Wind assisted ships - research project

Have a chat with the Classic Boat Museum on the Isle of Wight-they have an interesting Redwing with a rotor sail...bit weird to explain, better if they do!

[dawg]

Re: Wind assisted ships - research project

Hey Size4

This could make for an interesting wiki article...

[size4riggerboots]

Re: Wind assisted ships - research project

Windstar are wind assisted yes, but they're basicly big (and kinda ugly) yachts. What I'm after is first hand info on things like tankers with kite sails or other new emerging green technology. Been doing internet research a-plenty and found a few things, unfortunately all the journal articles seem to be from the mid 80's, which I feel has to be a wee bit out of date. Skysails have now launched as a commercial company and there are a few ship that have been retro-fitted with them already. A good article that gives the idea of my reseach area is http://gcaptain.com/maritime/blog/oc...-ship-designs/ check out the second picture from the bottom too, it's brilliant- in an Heath Robinson kind of way!

[Malim Sahib]

Re: Wind assisted ships - research project

Two ships spring to mind - Stevie Clarkes had a small bulker with a large rotary sail fitted atop the accommodation for some years in the 1980s.
Present day, one of the 'Beluga' ships is currently running around with a large sail fitted - it looks a bit like a large modern parachute attached to a length of wire which is in turn attached to the ship.

[alistairuk]

Re: Wind assisted ships - research project

I have some friends who work for WindStar, while its probably not the type of "wind assisted" ships you want, as a last resort if you PM me an email address I can ask them to get in touch with you.

[willbish]

Re: Wind assisted ships - research project

I have just been introduced to my mentor for the HCMM. He is a retired deep sea pilot and has told me he is now involved in research for Wind assisted ships. I can pass on details if you're interested?

[size4riggerboots]

Re: Wind assisted ships - research project

Willbish, that would be amazing, thank you! Pm me the details would you?

[size4riggerboots]

Re: Wind assisted ships - research project

Ok, I have my angle now...

Wind assisted merchant shipping, why aren?t people jumping aboard?

As fuel and transport costs rise, and the environmental impact of merchant shipping comes further under the spotlight, why are the governments not providing support and funding to companies involved in the research and development of green technologies, and why are ship owners being so slow to consider these options as realistic and practical?

I have chosen to base my dissertation on this field of research. So far in my reading I have found little evidence of research in this area being supported by public bodies, leaving it mainly to private companies and charities.

Skysails, a German company are the one exception to the above statement, they have actually been given support by their government and two major companies (Beluga shipping being one of these), and have launched sales of their product commercially, it would appear they currently have a monopoly on the market. http://www.skysails.info/index.php?id=472&L=2

Kiteship, an American company, however, seem to have been given no support from their government and their website shows no news updates since 2007. http://www.kiteship.com/index.php

Both these companies offer auxiliary propulsion systems based on a very simple kite idea, the systems take up very little space, can be retro-fitted, can be manned from the bridge without additional crew requirements and have a projected amortization period of 3 to 5 years. They have even been shown to improve upon a ship's stability in heavy seas.

There are other research projects and systems in development too. Most of these are based on the more traditional sail types, as well as investigating ways to improve upon the aerodynamics and hydrodynamics of ship structures, a UK based charity called Greenwave has a 4 part project doing just that. For the most part, it has been shown that traditional type sail configurations are not really practical for the shipping industry as they generally require too much space on deck and cause drag in unfavourable conditions that negates the benefits received in good conditions.

So, the technology is there and has been proved to work, but what is holding people back from these kite based options?

This question was also posted on various maritime groups on Linkedin.

[dawg]

Re: Wind assisted ships - research project

'ere you go

http://www.officercadet.org/pmwiki/pmwi ... Technology

I'd send your project to the politicians... any green bandwagon to secure a particular demographic of voter is bound to appeal to them.

Money is usually the reason for why most things do or don't happen I suppose...

[size4riggerboots]

Re: Wind assisted ships - research project

Er, right, when I've written it, and it's been verified and marked, I'll pop it on there (otherwise I'll end up getting accused of plagurising from my own work!)... it's not a piece of research on the technology per se, there's plenty of research about that already, I'm looking at why the industry isn't more active about embracing it really.

[dawg]

Re: Wind assisted ships - research project

I'm just making some space for anything you want to put about it, whenever you want to... seeing as though I was prompted to assemble some kind of structure for the wiki... I'm just leaving spaces for thing people have mentioned in general... nothing more.

[size4riggerboots]

Re: Wind assisted ships - research project

Ok, ta, I'll try and stick some links up there at some point, is there an idiots guide to writing script for wiki?

[dawg]

Re: Wind assisted ships - research project

http://www.pmwiki.org

If I can do it... ...anyone can

all you need to know is:

!Headlines
!!Subheadings
...
!!!!!really small ones

[[link]]
[[link|the text the viewer sees]]

#numbers

*bullets

' 'italic' '

' ' ' bold ' ' '

' ' ' ' ' both! ' ' ' ' '

\\
[[<<]]
for spaces

don't worry about the rest... (for now )

NB... don't put "." or "/" inside "[[ ]]" ...it just does something else...