The Return of Sail Power: Cargo Ships Are Turning Back to the Wind

ggumby about 4 hours ago 17 commentsRead Article on gcaptain.com

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3eb7988a1663•about 2 hours ago

If anyone else was confused why those pictures were of giant tubes and not canvas sails, you are not alone. Apparently those are some version of "Suction Sails". The vendor's website has a graphic that explains it, though it was fighting my ability to scroll.

https://bound4blue.com/esail/

jstanley•about 2 hours ago

Possibly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotor_ship ?

SamBam•about 2 hours ago

Most of the sails in the article seemed to be rotor sails, but the suction sail mentioned by GP seems to be a type of turbosail.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbosail

m463•about 1 hour ago

interesting that the rotor sail principle can be used with planes too:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_effect#In_aviation

(can't help but think "tilt rotor" of a different kind)

dylan604•about 1 hour ago

The rending of the Maersk ship really strains the concept. If the containers are stacked that high, would it not block the wind going to the solitary sail?

maxerickson•about 1 hour ago

The force is perpendicular to the sail.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flettner_rotor

stackghost•33 minutes ago

There are two visually similar sails. Some are rotating tubes that generate lift via the Magnus effect, and those are not “suction sails”, strictly speaking.

A suction sail is a more or less conventional airfoil that houses an axial compressor to basically suck in air which causes the boundary layer to stay attached which generates lift via the same mechanisms as an aircraft wing.

From a distance and to a casual observer they’re pretty similar.

3eb7988a1663•27 minutes ago

The article did mention suction sails for the Maersk Tankers, but it does seem like the bulk of the article was about the rotating tubes.

walrus01•about 1 hour ago

The most recent example, it's somewhat down the page at the gcaptain URL:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliner_Origin

WalterBright•about 1 hour ago

This seems to happen once every 20 years.

sien•about 1 hour ago

Yep. They alternate decades with the 'Airships are returning for cargo' groups.

walrus01•about 1 hour ago

To date, they've achieved a very high level of advancement in making a new airship that looks like a butt. Sir Mixalot would be proud.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=airship+t...

iAMkenough•40 minutes ago

Soon we’ll need to provide proof-of-age just to look up at the sky.

lukeify•35 minutes ago

I'd be down for a future of awesome looking ships and giant zeppelins gracing the sky.

fsckboy•about 3 hours ago

Growing up as I did in an old seafaring town, quite near Ahab's ports of call, I love the romance of the sea and I listen exclusively to sea chanties.

For low-value and bulk cargo, ships make sense, and modern computer-controlled sail trim and wind energy harvesting probably makes a great case. But high value cargo is largely today shipped by air. Nvidia wants money for its chips ASAP, too valuable to sit around non productively while being steamered. Maybe with surplus wind energy they could mine bitcoin while en route?

A sort of related topic, about 20 years ago during peak farm-to-table "buy local" fashion, the NY Times pointed out that lamb shipped from New Zealand (where is that on a map, I can't find it?) to New York City arrives with a lower carbon footprint than lamb delivered by trucks from nearby upstate NY farms, such are the economies of scale in shipping.

But now, blow me down me hearties, I look forward to dining on New Zealand lamb carried to my door by the winds of fortune!

upboundspiral•about 2 hours ago

If there was a direct and maintained electric train route + stronger food regulation in the US you could dine on fresh local produce with a lower carbon footprint.

International cooperation and trade is great, but in the US specifically the economic behemoths have used globalization to paper over the real problems that we face at home (we haven't truly invested in infrastructure in a long time, the meat we produce is rejected on health standards abroad, etc). I doubt the smokescreen will last much longer with Trump et al blowing up international agreements.

fsckboy•10 minutes ago

NYers dine on fresh local produce without subsidies or government interference.

Farm fresh vegetable produce is perishable and goes from fresh to wilted/rotten very quickly. It is in the capitalist interest with no regulation to move fresh produce as quickly as possible to the supermarkets and onto the shelves. Every day trucks bring fresh produce from NJ and LI and upstate NY into the city and it immediately goes onto the shelves for sale. No communist system could do it as well.

Produce is an extremely profitable segment of supermarket sales. The markups are very low (no communist could compete) but the turnover is very quick. While a can of beans might sit there a few weeks, customers love fresh produce. So hypothetically, they could make a 0.5% markup (you going to take public transit to NJ to buy produce a half a point cheapter?), but that's every week, so in a year it's a healthy 25% markup for the supermarket's investment. I made up the numbers to explain the concept, but that in a nutshell is supermarket economics. Maybe they mark up 2% and the annualized profit is 100%. Tiny margin, healthy profit, point made. Very efficient, happy customers, happy supermarkets.

Trucks bring produce farm to table, maybe a distribution stop. Trains are for bulk stuff and not route flexible, so it's not clear they contribute any advantage to the mix, but I love me trains too.

And it's not just NYer's, that's just an urban extreme example, every supermarket chain the the country operates like this.