Die „WindWing“-Segel eines Frachtschiffs sparten bis zu 12 Tonnen Treibstoff pro Tag. Nach einer sechsmonatigen Weltumsegelung liegen die Zahlen für die nachgerüstete „Pyxis Ocean“ vor.

>A shipping vessel left China for Brazil while sporting some new improvements last August—a pair of 123-feet-tall, solid “wings” retrofitted atop its deck to harness wind power for propulsion assistance. But after its six-week maiden voyage testing the green energy tech, the Pyxis Ocean MC Shipping Kamsarmax vessel apparently had many more trips ahead of it. Six months later, its owners at the shipping company, Cargill, shared the results of those journeys this week—and it sounds like the vertical WindWing sails could offer a promising way to reduce existing vessels’ emissions.

>Using the wind force captured by its two giant, controllable sails to boost its speed, Pyxis Ocean reportedly saved an average of 3.3 tons of fuel each day. And in optimal weather conditions, its trips through portions of the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans reduced fuel consumption by over 12 tons a day. According to Cargill’s math, that’s an average of 14 percent less greenhouse gas emissions from the ship. On its best days, Pyxis Ocean could cut that down by 37 percent. In all, the WindWing’s average performance fell within 10 percent ts designers’ computational fluid dynamics simulation predictions.

I want to be excited but apparently a ton of fuel only costs about $500. I hope there’s actually a feasible ROI here, since a reduction of 3.3 tons only equates to a savings of about $600k per year, assuming 365 sailing days which probably isn’t accurate. I assume these cost a few million, so the return period will be several years.

Yes thats fine, but how many seagulls did those sails kill???? 😉

This great. And it takes a long time for engineering to be figured out but damn – a cover from Popular Science 1980: [https://www.ebay.com/itm/284189404855](https://www.ebay.com/itm/284189404855)

Edit: fixed typo

We’ve been sailing the seas with sail for thousands of years, fossil fuels maybe 120 years? Why the hell don’t we simply ban fossil fuels from the oceans completely so competition is fair? Let’s say by 2026.

Why did the article title say „12 tons a day“ when the actual article says it saved an average of only 3.3 tons? 12 tons with the absolute best it could do, but that is almost 4 times what it does on average.

>Using the wind force captured by its two giant, controllable sails to boost its speed, Pyxis Ocean reportedly saved an average of 3.3 tons of fuel each day. And in optimal weather conditions, its trips through portions of the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans reduced fuel consumption by over 12 tons a day.

We saw one of these on the Garrone in Bordeaux and it was SUPER impressive.

This was earlier in ’23 and they were having a „maiden voyage“ ceremony…champagne bottle smashing and all.

Very neato!

I’m no maritime engineer but those things sure look like at risk of rolling the ship if there’s a strong wind from the side.

Wondering what that translates into in cash terms, for the 6 month trial ?

A ship powered by wind? What will they think of next!

Wind driving a boat who would have thunk? Crazy how thousands of years ago boats used the same technology. And we are just now adding it to our boats to save fuel. Motor sailer have been doing this same thing for a 100 years.

I’m no expert but these „sails“ seem very inefficient to me? Why not extend them more outwards to expand the surface area to use more wind? Surely we have the technology for it. Can someone explain?

First I thought that was ai but that’s pretty cool and hopefully more ships are build like this.