11–20 of 46 posts
[0] http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-1328...
[1] http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f109/colonial-or-greenwi...
It would be extremely ironic if this would be use by an oil tanker. Jokes aside, this is great, but it will never be the primary mode of propulsion since those tankers are on a timeline and you can't predict wind as much as a combustion engine.
It would be extremely ironic if this would be use by an oil tanker. Jokes aside, this is great, but it will never be the primary mode of propulsion since those tankers are on a timeline and you can't predict wind as much as a combustion engine.
If you can save up to 20% in fuel, you bet they would try it.
If shell owned and operated their own boats, maybe, but I haven't seen that.
Kind of a dumb question but I'll ask anyway. If the wind is blowing in the exact same direction as the ship is travelling and you begin to retract the sail - do you recoup some of the energy you use during this retraction process through increased pulling power of the sail? Is the ship being pulled a little stronger during the retraction process or the exact same amount as if the line wasn't being retracted? Im imagi…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you can save up to 20% in fuel, you bet they would try it.
They won't, because the cost of fuel is passed to the shipper, not whoever owns the boat. If shell owned and operated their own boats, maybe, but I haven't seen that.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17885284
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Read the caveats at the bottom of the article -- the ship owner who has to make the capital investment doesn't pay for the fuel, so there's a perverse disincentive to invest in this technology (assuming it works).
Not really a disincentive, if the person paying the fuel could pay less it for it while using fleet X it would surely be a competitive advantage to the fleets owner. Perhaps the keyword in the quote is "untested", with a unwritten "why bother unless I have to / other owners do it".
This looks like an excellent idea but does anyone have the numbers? What kind of force could one expect from these? It got me thinking all kinds of electronic control systems to deploy/undeploy these.
2 megawatts. Tremendous amount of force.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you can save up to 20% in fuel, you bet they would try it.
They won't, because the cost of fuel is passed to the shipper, not whoever owns the boat. If shell owned and operated their own boats, maybe, but I haven't seen that.