Cargo Sailing Ship: a near future reality?

Commercial Kites

I think there was a kite used by Cargill for some time but it either was a limited trial or was not successful- either way I don't think they are using it any more ( please correct me if I am worng and perhaps share some info on the ship)

 

>The graph is almost 10 years old, it's pretty useless for anything.<

Not really , except for a few bumps the fuel price is trending DOWN , and now with fracking , and horizontal drilling the trend will continue DOWN in fuel prices.

Should large trucks be given the ability to carry the heavy fuel tanks required to operate on CNG the price will go down even more rapidly.

The air police already require multiple fuels for ships for generating power near their sacred shores, or in port.

 

fortunately so

So the rationale for cheap fuel prices are either to have fracking effluent in the water or SOX in the air around our sacred shores - yes absolutely let the price be high. Everyone has a choice and mine is not to be ill due to contamination in the air I breath or the water I drink.. but please feel free to get as sick on your own pollutants as you like.
What a rediculous argument.

 

I had an interesting discussion off-line about the performance of Kites, and the area of usefulness. I am posting this for future reference

"Extreme Danger from Kites (on boats)
Fred Ball
Launching a traction kite from directly downwind WILL lead to broken equipment and people. There have been fatalities.
The kite surfing equipment has multiple quick release systems to allow the kite to be jettisoned if things get out of control.
A kite flies in an area of sky which approximates to one quarter of a sphere; all of this except the edge of the vertical arc can be considered as a power zone where the kite can rapidly accelerate increasing the apparent wind and lift exponentially "
http://www.ayrs.org/Catalyst_N28_Jul_2007.pdf

 

I I thought in a recent race the kite boarder got to the top mark behind the moth but in front of the 49er?
Apparent wind is a wonderful thing

 

I would love to see the film.

edit: found it



Of course, the comparative weight of the hulls and the size of the sails is an important consideration.

One of the big problems is that the 49er lost a tack after the start etc etc

maybe cargo ships wont get into 'apparent wind' speeds



Edit -PS - if you dont have the correct underwater shape ( like a cargo boat) , Kites wont get you upwind

 

Lee boards anyone
The dutch had them on cargo vessels although was a few years ago..

 

Yes - a very good idea. Conserves room, easy to deploy and retrieve

 

The next move for ships is lng, plenty under constuction and lng bunkerers also being built.
Kills fuel cost and emissions in one fell swoop.
Offshore industry in many places can also run on the fuel they have on site, that will be a massive saving.
Hard to steal as well..
Why road transport isnt all lng is anyones guess?

 

Distribution and lack of power, basically.

LPG is only 2/3rds the powe of Gasoline, Natural Gas even less.

If you have a big fuel tank, it doesnt matter, but for anything less than a bus, its problematic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquefied_petroleum_gas
LPG has a typical specific calorific value of 46.1 MJ/kg compared with 42.5 MJ/kg for fuel oil and 43.5 MJ/kg for premium grade petrol (gasoline).[6] However, its energy density per volume unit of 26 MJ/L is lower than either that of petrol or fuel oil, as its relative density is lower (about 0.5–0.58, compared to 0.71–0.77 for gasoline).

LPG, vaporised and at atmospheric pressure, has a higher calorific value (94 MJ/m3 equivalent to 26.1kWh/m3) than natural gas (methane) (38 MJ/m3 equivalent to 10.6 kWh/m3)

 

lee boards ;LNG ; kites

Lets start with lee boards. They work very well and have done for a long time. However given the slab sided midship section of most modern ships, the hull side acts as a huge lee board anyway. The historical advantage was gained on round bilged barges and boats with very shallow draft. Neither condition can be attributed to a modern bulk carrier or tanker.

LNG is catching on but there areas of concern. As Mr Watson rightly said volume for tankage needs to be much greater to achieve the same range. The tanjs must be kept at a low tempreture which means leaving some gas in them - otherwise you risk cold shocking the tank when filling which can cause fractures. Best results are delivered with LNG specific engines ( retrofit on a 90,000 DWT Laker is $23mil. )
Hidden down side - methane slip. If the unburnt gas is released to the atmosphere it is vastly more detrimental than CO2. Losses when purging lines and fueling have not been added into the "Green equation" for the real difference in GHGs from LNG.

tractor kites have problems with launch and recovery, but I did not hear of any deaths ( please post any details on this if you have them)
The largest fuel consumption problem is that the angle of drive is the horizontal angle off tge ships heading of the tow line. As the kite is launched off the bow the kite is effectively pulling the bow off course unless the apparent wind is directly from astern. Considerable rudder angle is required to counter this affect. And there is a fuel cost to make this correction.

Once again mr Watson is correct in the contention that at normal ship speeds tge apparent draw ahead angle is not going to be great enough to have close to as dramatic an affect as it does with a kite board.

 

The tangential thrust of the Rotor looks even more appealing in the light of sail and kite vectors.

 

the first big one as in piston engine ( plenty of lng tankers with turbines)

http://gcaptain.com/main-engine-ins...ed&utm_campaign=Feed: Gcaptain (gCaptain.com)

 

Fascinating

"Late last month, engineers lowered the 539-ton engine into place aboard the first of two new Marlin-class containerships being built for Tote, Inc. The engine itself is also significant because it is the first commercial installation of the new ME-GI engine, a dual-fuel, low-speed two stroke, from MAN Diesel and Turbo. The 8L70ME-C8.2GI engine was built under license from Doosan Engine in South Korea and delivered to the shipyard in July."

Edit :This is worth its own thread I think - I will stick it under Propulsion

 

I am bringing this thread to life (rather than starting a new one) because the idea about wind-assisted technology seem to have been brought back to life by industries too: http://worldmaritimenews.com/archives/216616/the-re-emergence-of-wind-power/

There is also the lively thread about flettner rotors in this forum, which also indicates that there is a niche of interest about this technology in the boating comunity.

The above article talks about this paper by CE Delft, a Dutch non-profit organization: http://www.cedelft.eu/publicatie/st...r_wind_propulsion_technologies_for_ships/1891 . The paper is quite comprehensive, exposing many pros and cons (both technical and economical) for the current wind-assisted technology. However, the authors admittedly had to simplify the physics of the wind-assisted navigation in order to make the analysis humanly possible. For example:

"In summary, side forces induce heel and leeway angles which, in turn, induce additional resistance. This effect has not been accounted for in this report but may be expected to be significant."​

- the above simplification may be a critical point (IMO) for the accurate calculation of pay-back period, but nevertheless the paper remains very interesting.