It seems that two French engineers have come up with new technology to move cargo ships across the ocean. Wait for it. Kites.
Two engineers at the French aerospace company Airbus came up with the idea in 2016, launching Airseas to further develop the technology. After years of research, they are currently testing the kite on a cargo ship traveling between France and the US.
That's what CNN calls news. Sails can move ships. Who knew? Most naval experts agree that sails came into use around 4000 BCE and remained the most common way to move ships until steam came into play in the early 1800s. And now, wind power is new technology?
Gimme a break.
4 comments:
Ooooh, ooooh, I know! Steam! It'll be so much better! Oh, wait, nukes are just fancy boilers. Nevermind; the greenies would never go for it unless the boilers were fired by pollution-less coal. Oooh, oooh, I know! Muscle power! Like the classification of my
canoe. Nevermind.
I presume the French engineers did an exhaustive study of wind patterns and realized significant fuel/time savings?
If the photograph shown is the cargo ship headed to the U.S.. After studying the picture for a while wondering why it didn't seem right. I think I know what bothers me. Having spent time in and out of harbors and marina's amongst fuel and wind driven vessels. First I noticed that vessel is throwing too much wake for that much sail area it must be at least clocking 20 to 25 kts. But something else was bothering me and after staring at the pic a while it dawned on me that behind the stern of a sail vessel there is only a very little bubble action coming from the chines. that vessel has a full blown prop cavitation action going on behind it. Bob (what do you call a guy with no legs and no arms and falls overboard)
Snort... That pic is BS, they are under power, and probably doing 15kts or so. They ARE NOT doing that on that little kite!
Let's not be short sighted here. Sails or a kite system only assist the standard propulsion, not replace it. And with both there will be upper limits in materials strength, cost, durability, and location and mass of these systems. For smaller to medium cargo ships this may be a good way to save fuel and/or to go a little faster. I have my doubts that either could help much with the giant vessels that are out there these days.
I do like that the kite flies way up high. Perhaps that could allow larger ships to have 8 or 12 masts with high tech sails?
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