Pyxis Ocean, an 80,000 DWT bulk carrier, fitted with two WindWings, a pioneering rigid wing technology, has set sail on its maiden voyage from China to Brazil.
The bulker, owned by Mitsubishi Corporation has been chartered by Cargill, one of the world’s biggest ship charterers. Cargill has been actively exploring wind assisted propulsion as one cleaner energy option.
“It is risk taking. There is no guarantee … that the economics are going to work,” Jan Dieleman, president of Cargill’s ocean transportation division, told Reuters.
The Pyxis Ocean‘s maiden journey 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.
Folded down when the ship is in port, the wings stand 123ft (37.5m) tall when raised, or only 10 meters shorter than the main mast on the clipper ship Cutty Sark. The wing sails are built of the same material as that used for wind turbines.
Optimally, sail assist propulsion could eventually reduce a cargo ship’s lifetime emissions by 30%.
The rigid wing sail technology was developed by the 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.
He thinks this voyage will be a turning point for the maritime industry.
“I do predict by 2025 half the new-build ships will be ordered with wind propulsion,” he said.
“The reason I’m so confident is our savings – one-and-a-half tonnes of fuel per day. Get four wings on a vessel, that’s six tonnes of fuel saved, that’s 20 tonnes of CO2 saved – per day. The numbers are massive.”
The Windwing sails were produced by Yara Marine Technologies.
Another piece of nonsense for the OOW to deal with keeping a lookout from the Bridge. Naturally the IMO is useless in enforcing the ROR but will race to punish those involved when something, as it will, goes wrong. Imagine this going up the English Channel or past Singapore at night for example.
Good Watch
One would hope that they have thought it through and given one of the oiks a bicycle so he can pedal back from the prow lookout station to warn the bridge if they are heading for anything expensive.
Are we going to see Great Lakes style forward bridges on future ships?