BREMEN, Germany – Putting a harness on ocean winds, a German shipping company plans to unfurl a giant high-tech kite over a cargo ship next year to boost the vessel’s propulsion and conserve fuel.
The “SkySail,” a 191-square-yard kite tethered to a mast, has successfully undergone years of trial runs, and Bremen ship owner Beluga Shipping believes it will help its vessels cut fuel use by 15 percent to 20 percent.
The MV Beluga SkySails, now being built and fitted with a paraglider-shaped sail and a “smart” central steerage unit, will make its maiden voyage in early 2007.
“I got the idea on a sailboat a few years ago,” Stephan Wrage, inventor and founder of SkySails GmbH & Co. KG, told Reuters. “I love flying kites and found sailing rather slow. I thought the enormous power in kites could somehow be utilized.”
The technology he has developed is a throwback to an earlier age of maritime travel when ships relied solely on wind. But it also addresses a key concern of the modern age: climate change.
Backers of SkySail call it a “green” project – by cutting fuel use it could help reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
Wrage, 34, said that depending on the vessel and the winds, fuel costs for shippers could be cut by more than $1,000 a day.
After four years of successful tests, it is anything but a pie-in-the-sky project.
The inventor first tested a prototype of the SkySail on a 11.5-foot boat, then gradually increased the size of the craft before testing it last year on a 55-meter (180-foot) vessel, the Beaufort.
SkySail’s price tag – $660,000 to $3.3 million – along with doubts it will deliver promised savings and its reliance on fickle ocean winds could limit demand at first.
Wrage said ships will initially need to carry an engineer to operate the sail, which is about as big as a medium-size passenger jet.
“It’s going to save money in the long run, and it’s environmentally friendly,” said Verena Frank, project manager at Beluga, a shipping firm with 40 vessels.
“We’ve integrated the system into our new ship from the start of construction, but ships can also be retro-fitted,” she said in an interview in this windswept northern port city with a rich seafaring tradition dating back to the 8th century.
“Ours will be the first commercial use in cargo shipping,” Frank said. “There will be some teething pains,” she added.
SkySails can use powerful offshore winds between 325 and 950 feet above the surface with the help of the high-tech control pod, but they would be useless with head-on winds and would not benefit ships traveling above 16 knots.
The sails are unlikely to make much of an immediate impact on the overall fuel and environment problems facing shippers.
Shipping carries more than 90 percent of the world’s traded goods. There are 30,000 merchant ships carrying oil, gas, coal, grain and electronic goods.
Wrage has a staff of 33 and in 2007 expects to equip three more ships with the SkySail. He projects 1,500 vessels will have the system by 2015, when he reckons he will have 800 employees.
“It was important for me to prove that you can make money working hand in hand with nature and not against it,” he said.
“I think there could be a lot more linking of ecology and economy.”
