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Future sailors: what will ships look like in 30 years?

theguardian.com

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Re: Future sailors: what will ships look like in 30 years?

#31

Post by ihattendorf »

Retric wrote: post #21
krschultz wrote: post #15

As someone that has designed (military) ships, here are my thoughts. - LNG is definitely happening, and that alone will make a massive difference in emissions. - No shit smoother bottoms and bulbous bows are better for efficiency, that's been standard practice for decades and large cargo ships are generally not that old. - Counter rotating props are interesting, I could see that being a big win but the mechanical com…

What about solar? I know it does not scale down very well or work for the military, but solar seems useful for the largest ships. MV Barzan is a container ships that's 400 m x 58.6 m. If you take say 400m x 50m * 24% solar panels that's ~6500 HP in full sun. I know the engines are significantly larger than that but not sure how much they use at cruising speed.

Quite a few large container ships have 100,000+ HP combined. How much they use at cruising speed, I'm not sure.

Re: Future sailors: what will ships look like in 30 years?

#32

Post by Grazester »

bluGill wrote: post #22
krschultz wrote: post #15

As someone that has designed (military) ships, here are my thoughts. - LNG is definitely happening, and that alone will make a massive difference in emissions. - No shit smoother bottoms and bulbous bows are better for efficiency, that's been standard practice for decades and large cargo ships are generally not that old. - Counter rotating props are interesting, I could see that being a big win but the mechanical com…

I would expect counter rotating props to be more reliable. Instead of one big engine/prop you have two smaller ones. While it is more likely that something will break, it isn't a catastrophic failure: you continue to your destination using just the other engine/prop.

Counter rotating props run off the same engine(usually how its done) would offer nothing in terms of redundancy if anything fails.

Re: Future sailors: what will ships look like in 30 years?

#34

Post by ceejayoz »

rs999gti wrote: post #7
wil421 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So pirates will be able to steal nuclear material? What happens if a container sinks near a popular beach? I doubt people want these kinds of risks. I’d expect gas and diesel to be used for airplanes and ships for a long long time.

>So pirates will be able to steal nuclear material? Why couldn't private security be part of international freight? The costs for this security could be added to freight costs. For example, Russian private security contractors successfully protected ships near Somalia - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XJ0nblZjZE >What happens if a container sinks near a popular beach? I doubt people want these kinds of risks. Govern…

> Governmental navies don't experience these risks?

The number of nuclear navies numbers in the single digits, and of those, only a handful use nuclear powered ships in any sort of numbers.

Re: Future sailors: what will ships look like in 30 years?

#36

Post by dragonwriter »

rs999gti wrote: post #4

Maybe nuclear power for commercial ships? Global navies have proved and refined nuclear power technology for their ships. Why not apply this technology to the commercial sector, instead of carrying gallons of diesel?

> Maybe nuclear power for commercial ships?

Four have been built (by the US, Germany, Japan, and Russia), starting in the 1950s (one per decade from the 1950s to the 1980s), but it's never really caught on. The most recent built was refitted and returned to service in 2016, after having been decommissioned and awaiting disposal for nearly a decade, the rest have been scrapped.

Re: Future sailors: what will ships look like in 30 years?

#37

Post by djrogers »

Drdrdrq wrote: post #12

What I'm waiting for is for foils to become useful. It doesn't make sense to (only) replace energy source, drag should be minimized too. Admittedly it will take a long time for technology to be ready for these huge ships though.

Foils simply won’t work at speeds that cargo ships travel at.

Re: Future sailors: what will ships look like in 30 years?

#38

Post by gk1 »

krschultz wrote: post #15

As someone that has designed (military) ships, here are my thoughts. - LNG is definitely happening, and that alone will make a massive difference in emissions. - No shit smoother bottoms and bulbous bows are better for efficiency, that's been standard practice for decades and large cargo ships are generally not that old. - Counter rotating props are interesting, I could see that being a big win but the mechanical com…

> As someone that has designed (military) ships

Hey, me too! I see you were at Electric Boat. I was at NAVSEA HQ at around the same, probably making your life difficult. :) Though I did surface combatants, not subs.

Re: Future sailors: what will ships look like in 30 years?

#39

Post by forapurpose »

krschultz wrote: post #15

As someone that has designed (military) ships, here are my thoughts. - LNG is definitely happening, and that alone will make a massive difference in emissions. - No shit smoother bottoms and bulbous bows are better for efficiency, that's been standard practice for decades and large cargo ships are generally not that old. - Counter rotating props are interesting, I could see that being a big win but the mechanical com…

> LNG is definitely happening, and that alone will make a massive difference in emissions

An important, if often repeated point: Natural gas reduces emissions at the point of consumption; that may be balanced out by higher climate change impact when it's mined.

If someone has good, conclusive information on that issue, it would be appreciated.

Re: Future sailors: what will ships look like in 30 years?

#40

Post by gk1 »

djrogers wrote: post #18
krschultz wrote: post #15

As someone that has designed (military) ships, here are my thoughts. - LNG is definitely happening, and that alone will make a massive difference in emissions. - No shit smoother bottoms and bulbous bows are better for efficiency, that's been standard practice for decades and large cargo ships are generally not that old. - Counter rotating props are interesting, I could see that being a big win but the mechanical com…

I think the biggest win for wins in the near term will be kites, not full-on sail rigged ships.

See my post in this thread. Kites have not taken off. I don't know why.
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