New Concept: Beluga Shipping’s “SkySail”
December 5, 2006 by SwizStick
Filed under QuickNews, Seafreight
It’s certainly an interesting idea, although it sounds like it will be some time before it is economically feasible. Via The Scotsman:
The “SkySail”, a 160 square-metre kite tethered to a mast, has successfully undergone lengthy trial runs and now the shipowner, Beluga Shipping, of Bremen, Germany, is building the container vessel MV Beluga SkySails, equipped with one, to make its maiden voyage early next year.
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Backers of “SkySail” call it a “green” project – by cutting fuel use it could help to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
Mr Wrage, 34, said that depending on the vessel and the winds, fuel costs could be cut by more than £500 a day.
After four years of tests, it is anything but a pie-in-the-sky project.
The inventor first tested a prototype of the SkySail on a three-metre boat, and then gradually increased the size of the craft, before testing it last year on a 55-metre vessel, the Beaufort.
But SkySail’s price tag – at between £330,000 and £1.65 million – doubts that it will deliver the promised savings, and its reliance on fickle ocean winds could limit demand at first.
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