The world’s first commercial sailing ro/ro, the 136-meter (450-foot) Neoliner Origin, was launched recently in Tuzla, Turkey, and will now undergo six months of fitting out before entering service in mid-2025. The new ship is expected to slash carbon emissions by up to 80% compared to conventional cargo vessels.
Designed by French company Neoline and built by Turkish shipyard RMK Marine, the ship can carry 5,300 tonnes of freight with a ro/ro capacity of 1200 linear meters, 400 cars or 265 TEU containers. The Neoliner Origin is equipped with the AeolDrive & Solid Sail rigging solution developed by Chantiers de l’Atlantique setting 3,000 square meters of sail on its two masts. The rig is foldable to allow access to a majority of ports.
“Thanks to the wind, and by reducing speed from 15 knots (about 30 kilometers or 18 miles an hour) to 11 knots, we can cut fuel consumption and therefore emissions by a factor of five compared with a conventional ship,” Jean Zanuttini, president of Nantes-based Neoline, told AFP.
The ship will leave Turkey during the summer of 2025 for the French Atlantic port of Saint-Nazaire, then will begin its first rotation toward North America, serving the French island of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, the US port of Baltimore and Halifax in Canada.
Zanuttini said the shipyard would soon begin work on a second similar ship.