holy shit, a wind powered ship. what a marvel of modern tech
But wind is unreliable, I’m excited about new hydro powered ships where the crew actually push the ship along using long water-pushing paddles.
Won’t help climate change, crews emit too much methane.
It’s not the crew’s fault, it’s the intensive way they’re bred. We need vegan ships.
Vegetables are really bad at rowing though.
What are you talking about?
The vegetables are in neat rows in every garden I have ever see.
smh my head
That ship has got to be quite a bit heavier than pre-industrial sail ships though right?
This is fascinating, the sails look quite different from what I would have imagined given the name. Looks more like those ships with the rotating cylinders on them visually, even though of course those operated on a very different principle.
Excited to see how well this works. Would be amazing if they could slash fuel usage significantly, I remember reading even those oversized kites already did a fair bit.
Amazing, I was reading about the idea of them doing this a while ago. Makes me wonder if the future of shipping will see a return to some of the old trade routes that are more favourable for the winds.
Also would be great if it reduced the number of whale strikes with the propellers.
This is pretty incredible! I hope more industries adopt this mindset and begin to find ways to combat climate change. It’s going to take all industries exerting this level of change!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Pyxis Ocean’s maiden journey, from China to Brazil, will provide the first real-world test of the WindWings - and an opportunity to assess whether a return to the traditional way of propelling ships could be the way forward for moving cargo at sea.
Enabling a vessel to be blown along by the wind, rather than rely solely on its engine, could hopefully eventually reduce a cargo ship’s lifetime emissions by 30%.
It was developed by UK firm BAR Technologies, which was spun out of Sir Ben Ainslie’s 2017 America’s Cup team, a competition sometimes called the ‘Formula One of the seas’.
“This is one of the most slow-moving projects we’ve done, but without doubt with the biggest impact for the planet,” its head John Cooper - who used to work for Formula One team McLaren - told the BBC.
“Wind power can make a big difference,” says Dr Simon Bullock, shipping researcher at the Tyndall Centre, at the University of Manchester.
He said new cleaner fuels will take time to emerge “so we have to throw everything at operational measures on existing ships - like retrofitting vessels with sails, kites and rotors”.
The original article contains 881 words, the summary contains 193 words. Saved 78%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
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I don’t have much to say other than we’ve come full circle.
30% fuel increase is pretty impressive. Now I want to see a cargo ship tack.
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I wonder how practical it would be to recommission old nuclear aircraft carriers as cargo ships
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They’d be in repair most of the time like right now
If it was practical they would be doing it already.
You misspelled profitable
It is far more than that.
It needs to be cost effective (which might include profotabilit6), be feasible to implement, sustainable, and a bunch of other stuff too.
Aircraft carriers and subs being the only transportationethod using nuclear is a good sign that it isn’t practical for shipping. That is likely a combination of nuclear requiring highly trained staff that are not just out in the work force, the ability to procure a reactor and maintenance parts, the ability to obtain fissible material, the ability to dry dock a ship with a nuclear reactor, and a bunch of other stuff that could even be affordable without being practical for reasons beyond costs.
Profit is what’s left after all that shit. My point stands lol
We don’t always do the most practical thing though.
For instance lateen sails are not the best sail design but is used by every sail manufacturer currently.
Best depends on many factors beyond things like efficiency, weight, or durability. Lateen sails are easy to implement with a single mast, are easy to store and maintain, and everyone that has sailed has experience with them. Other sails might do a better job of catching the wind, but with tradeoffs on maintenance and usability.
Practicality is often complex and leans towards easier maintenance and established knowledge.
This is not the fabled rotational sails. They look more traditional.
