Apparently some French wine makers have begun transporting wine to Ireland on a 3 masted barque. The ship, which is 171 feet long, delivered 60,000 bottles from Bordeaux to Dublin saving a reported 18900 lbs of CO2 (4.9 ounces per bottle). Is this the start of a trend? I doubt it, but as a sailor, I love to see this sort of thing (Sail magazine had a little blurb about it this month). There have been some amazing advances in materials that could allow another great age of sail, and as bunker fuel gets more and more expensive I think we might start hearing about real world applications of some of the kite sails that people have been experimenting with.
Indeed. I think that we're rapidly approaching the point where they make a lot of sense. Bunker oil is about the nastiest shite out there, but even it has to be wildly expensive these days. I'd love to see the square riggers make a come back and yachts like the Maltese Falcon show where the State of the Art has gone. Boy, to have the quid to buy that thing. It's not really a yacht, it's a bloody ship, and in the right wind conditions she can fly (20+ kts). She's even sailed through a Cat 1 hurricane without issue.
We have the Falls of Clyde on display in Honolulu which was a steel hull four masted oil tanker. It probably won't be around much longer though. Falls of Clyde - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Needs a full restoration again. Future hazy for Falls of Clyde - The Honolulu Advertiser - Hawaii's Newspaper
Even if ships just used sails as assists, when the wind was favorable, it would help a lot....a hybrid tanker....kind of like a giant Prius. That would be cool. Ooh! Ooh! All the Toyota hybrids should be imported ONLY on hybrid, sail assisted cargo ships.....awesome. Oh, and Maltese Falcon is for sale for something like $250 million.....wonder why it's for sale....what's the owner building next??
Being the subversive smart nice person that I am, I once had a tshirt made that said: War is Peace Freedom is Slavery Ignorance is Strength Time is Money As for the sailing ships, I hunch we'll be seeing many more of those in future. Let's just hope we don't have to row.
Already being done. Green Car Congress: Beluga Shipping Launches MV Beluga SkySails I can't find the follow up article but on their maiden voyage they saved like 20-30% fuel or something. The sails should be deployed on all ships!
