Kite-assisted ship to set sail in January
By Darren Murph 
posted December 19th 2007 4:31AM
posted December 19th 2007 4:31AM
If you thought a solar-powered ferry was far out, get a load of this. Reportedly, a 132-meter long vessel will be making its maiden voyage next month, but rather than chugging copious quantities of diesel while traversing the Atlantic, it'll be sipping down fuel and receiving a good bit of help from the computer guided kite attached to its bow. The $725,000 device will be tethered to a 15-meter high mast and will fly some 300 meters above the ship in order to catch enough wind to actually aid in its movement. It's suggested that the SkySails kite propulsion system will slash fuel consumption by "up to 20-percent," saving the operator some $1,600 per day and reducing carbon emissions all the while. 'Course, all the company has to do now is make sure the January trip is a success and it'll have a list of to-be owners a mile long.[Via Slashdot]
Funny, I thought those were called "sails".
do you see a mast in that picture? a kite is loosely connected by wires :=
@ Carrie
lol...my thoughts exactly
What boats have you been on?? :s
Funny how we often tend to turn back to simple solutions...
In other news GM is unveiling there new climate friendly vehicle sure
to create waves and reinvent the way we look at using costly fuel...
They call it a "horse". Four legs of emission free (well
almost)innovation.
Why, in the illustration, is the ship carrying what looks like missiles?
those are actually wings and masts of wind powered power stations.
Why so silly? They are torpedos of course.
M
these looked more like warp drive engines to me
56 more years to go, guys
Cap'n! The wing! She's firing on us!
so what happens when a bird or two decide to make a big o hole in it? :)
thats pretty kool actually to see some thing aid ships cuz they take SO much fuel to move..
That's when the missiles come in handy.
Fire ze missiles!
Are there rockets on the boat?
those are parts of offshore wind generators.
Two things
1: Are those missiles?
2: Why is technology moving backwards? These "Kites" (Aka, sails) were around centuries ago! This should be powered by some form of ubercell (tm?) that costs 0.0002p to manufacture, and lasts 2000 years!
Pfft, technology my ass.
Indeed... 2000 yrs old. And kitesurfing is what 1500yrs old, right?
Come on! Development of "power" kites really started with the nasa in the 60-70's. They developed a wing called "Nasawing" that was hooked to rafts to get survivors out of the sea. Now sails/powerkites like those developed by skysails but much much smallers were on the market for 20-30 yrs. Then inflatable kites appeared (6-10 yrs ago at max) with new stearing and "depower" systems. Inflatable kites are radically different, since they are made of inflatable structure, unlike the powerkites that look like parachutes. Finally Ozone implemented these "depower" system into their powerkites, taking it to another level and re-creating kitesnowboarding/kiteskying. In the mean time development of powerkites led to the actual super stable kites that have a very wide operating range...
Now skysail developed 1) super extra large sails (the smallest is 120 square metters!!!) 2) used the newest stearing/depower systems and implemented an autopilot 3) developed and auto-lauch and recovery system. If all that was developed 2000 yrs ago... we would be flying in our cars and reading minds :-)
My bad I haven't read correctly.. not 2000 yrs old but centuries... which is still very wrong ;-)
Dude, you obviously still haven't read my comment right.
Nevermind.
Dude:
"2: Why is technology moving backwards? These "Kites" (Aka, sails) were around centuries ago! This should be powered by some form of ubercell (tm?) that costs 0.0002p to manufacture, and lasts 2000 years!
Pfft, technology my ass."
Skysail is an actual technological breakthrough not science fiction.
Using the wind to move ships? That'll never work.
wow that looks, ugly...i think. but in other comments, i liked the coments in this entry. i really wished the people that responded to the blu-ray, hd dvd were more like you guys.
without being rude is what i mean.
You all are forgetting the main question... How they hell do they steer?? I know they still have a rudder, but, wind blows north, they aren't going south... unless they rev up the inboard diesels and pull the kite down. Doesn't sound like they're saving that much!
There are multiple wind directions happening at any given moment, they just have to change the altitude of the kite. Plus, there is something called the trade wind which is fairly constant in how it moves, and I am sure they are hoping to use this kite mainly when going with the trade winds. If they only use the kite 50% of the time, it's still a huge fuel saver over a no-kite solution.
i saw this a few weeks ago on a Modern Marvels episode. I thought it was pretty speculative, but I'm glad they're really giving it a trial run!
It seems like it's pretty good idea to save fuel, but I'd only be concerned if they manage to get the freighter airborne.
i cant wait to see how google plans on putting ads on the kite
considering the price, it would be 15 months before they saved a dime.
"list of to-be owners a mile long"?
It will take about 5 years until the kite has paid for itself, 6 years including interest.
That is assuming it has favorable wind, not technical problems and the maximum saving is achieved all the time. That maximum is like all manufacturers claims to be taken with a sack of salt.
So it's looks more like 12 years to be realistic. I can't imagine the Kite sailing for 3 years without maintenance.
These shipping co's are all about profit. In that competitive
business going green is going under.
So, I doubt that to-be owner list is all that long...
didnt i see this on waterworld....... go get emm mariner
Some day we will develop the technology to attach larger "kites" to the ship ... possibly with fixed poles. I say we call these new fixed-kites, "Sails" ... any takers?
What would be the kite's dramatic advantage over sails? (which is a proven technology)
The higher the "sail" is, the more consistent the wind, and is also faster. Since there are less air molecules in higher elevations, there is less friction allowing those air molecules to move faster. however that also means that you need a larger sail to match the same power since the air is less dense.
One benefit for having a kite rather than a sail is that sails can be too tall to move under bridges, while a kite can be rolled up and all you got is the mast which is considerably shorter than a mast for a fixed sail.
And for everyone whining about kites being an old tech, the foil kite, the one in the picture, is a new technology allowing the kite to be directed by contorting the shape of the kite.
Having worked for Kite For Sail ( www.kiteforsail.com ) I have to say kites offer many advantages to sailing and burning diesel.
Recently Kite For Sail made two inter-island crossings between Maui and Molokai and then Maui and Lanai. Using the kite propulsion system we saved approximately 50% of our fuel cost.
Kites used to pull a ship along are very different from sails. Not mentioned in Austin's post is that there is a tipping force as the wind pushes against the sails.
Another benefit I see is that you can steer the kite on courses of 50% into the wind (see http://www.skysails.info/index.php?id=46&L=1 )
Check out http://www.kiteforsail.com for great videos and more information a Hawaii based company working in this field.
Ok so how do they get this giant kit up in the first place? And what happens when you're in the middle of the atlantic and the sucker collapses?
I thought the same thing most of you did - what? It's just a variation of the sail - but then I thought, okay, so wait a minute. Why aren't we just using sails? Seriously. I don't know much about boating or anything, but it makes sense that we could put giant sails on giant cargo liners and use a combination of their motors and the sails together for maximum efficiency. It seems there has to be a good reason why this isn't being done - because, otherwise, why isn't it? - but what is it?
Wind moves faster as you go higher ?
I think many of you don't understand the size of the freighters and the size of the kites. Lots of you are saying "Aren't these just sails," or "Why don't they just use sails?"
There are many reasons. First off, For sails to be effective, you would have to construct multiple stable masts for the ship. These are ships that are multiple football fields long. Not the old wooden galleons of the 17th century. Building a mast that would not break and enable sails large enough to be effective would be a tremendous undertaking and would add substantial tonnage to the freighter, which would increase fuel consumption and decrease the efficiency of the wind.
Next, a kite can go much higher than sails, where wind speeds are typically strong enough to rip your skin off vs. wind speeds at sea level which are a gentle breeze to whip-your-hair-around speeds at best.
Third, winds in the upper layers of the atmosphere never die down. A sail can fill with wind, then die down. Winds 300 meters up are 99% constant.
Forth, kites can be tethered to the front of the ship, giving it a much more significant pull. This also allows for low maintenance, since if the ship used sails with masts, there would be cabling running everywhere to keep the mast stable. Kites are also cheaper to make and easier to repair, since all you have to do is bring it down with a winch, while sails would require a near complete deconstruction to reach damaged areas to the tops of the massive sails that would be required to propel a freighter.
I think that answers most things, but I'm sure people will continue to say that all new inventions are stupid and backwards, despite the fact that these kites could never have been created in the past or controlled the way they are now. Which reminds me, has anyone seen professional kite fliers? They can control their kites with two wires and make them do all kinds of tricks and go in any direction. Now think of a powerful computer, precisely controlling each wire. This allows for very specific direction.
There's actually a very good technical explanation on skysail's website: http://www.skysails.info/index.php?id=46&L=1
Now regarding "the quality of the product", well that's a good point. Kites tend to become porous along the years. The more it is subject to wind and sun, the worse is the effect (kitesurfers, don't let your kite in the sun for too long!!!). But I don't know what material was used by skysail...
Actually, if you look closely, those are wind generators, the aft cargo is the poles to mount them on, and the forward is the blades themselves. I think this is really cool technology.
You guys have never been kite surfing... I was, and I was thinking about computer-controlling the wires when I did it.
I think this is totally awesome technology. If they somehow manage to make strong enough cables and kites these could be even larger and pull the whole boat. Engines would only be needed when it's nearing the port when the kite must be pulled in.
I imagine they would find some very strong wire material, some very strong kite material, and have a kite that can unfold in the air so there's no sudden tug when it goes up. The computer control would have to be really good too - even if the wind in these heights is stable, the kite has to go up, and it needs to cope with turbulence. I bet there's a bunch of engineers traveling along with the maiden voyage...
Birds?? Good luck to the birds that get in the way of a 120 sq meter kite.
I actually have been doing this for the past four years. I always keep a 10' flexifoil quad kite in my 18' ski boat. If I ever breakdown in the middle of a lake or something, then I know I'll have some method of getting back to shore. I'll admit though, I've only had to use it once. But I'll tell you, while it's not a fast method of propulsion, it's a whole lot faster and easier on you than paddling an 18' boat with an oar. You may get some strange looks, but it's better than having to wait for someone to help you out.
There were a lot of experiments in the 70s during the oil crunch with sails in oil and frieght ships. When oil prices went back down they stopped it. Now it looks like its making a comeback. This was in popular mechanics over 6 months ago I think. In the article I think they went further to suggest a lighter than air ship (aka blimp) that could lower a tow cable to a ship and then launch a kite.
And if the technology is proven, I am sure the costs will go way down so that the ROI is in single digit years.
hmmmmmmmm......slashing fuel use by 20%.......O WAIT! SAILBOATS USE NO FUEL AT ALL!!!
Rip your skin off??? Maybe just a bit of exaggeration there? I mean i think wind fast enough and strong enough to rip my skin off would rip a kite to shreads.. but that's me.
Human skin is not the most resiliant material on the planet...
The cycle continues. Bring back the Tall Ships.