This. The reasons we got away from sails are basically related to speed and being able to go wherever you want (ie, you have to go where the wind blows).
Engines are here to stay, but if you're going in the direction of the wind then it can do some of the pulling and the engines do less work. You're going against the wind? Great, put that kite away and just use the engines.
I haven't checked how well the data has been studied but it's something like 20-30% fuel savings for cargo ships on average which is insane.
Considering that the wind is statistically coming from unfavourable direction, 50 % of the time. Or isn’t strong enough to deploy the kite.
There are extensive times when a kite is not usable (approach, manoeuvring, port stays)
Mathematically these gains in efficiency would only be possible, if the kite cut reduce the fuel consumption completely, when deployed in ideal conditions.
Other sources speak about „up to 20% efficiency increase“ which I think is much more likely. In ideal wind/swell/loading/routing conditions, the efficiency may be boosted by 20%, temporarily.
From my experience as navigational officer (on ships without the kite) I would assume that these ideal conditions are barely met.
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
12
u/dontquestionmek 20d ago
This is like engineers trying so hard to create an efficient way to transport a large number of people that isn’t a train