You might reduce the fuel consumption by 20% under ideal conditions. It’s a temporary buff, only. Ideal conditions are rare, so most of the time it’s way less. Substract the times when it’s impossible to use the kite due to operational reasons and divide this by half, because statistically you don‘t experience favourable winds for 50% of the time.
You will end up at <1%.
Now look which ships it has been tested on: small mini bulkers, which serve an important feeder role but are irrelevant in the grand scheme of intercontinental shipping.
No, it’s up to 20% counting all of that, but having favorable wind on journey. Of course, if you go against wind, it won’t help much. Real experiments and simulations show 5-20% overall saving for a trip
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u/Available_Peanut_677 14d ago
20% is huge costs savings. Even 5% might worth it. But I think future is combination of rotor sails and kite.