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How to design a sailing ship for the 21st century?

solar.lowtechmagazine.com

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Re: How to design a sailing ship for the 21st century?

#61

Post by marcinzm »

dtech wrote: post #53
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All trees, even those which are not cut down for constructing a sailing ship, also eventually rot and release most of their captured carbon. Only those which are burned efficiently in a high-oxygen environment turn completely into CO2. In a natural forest, it's true that a tiny fraction of this biomass derived from atmospheric CO2 rots incompletely on the forest floor and is turned into a small amount of carbon-rich…

Tree contains X Co2 => Tree gets cut down without replacement => ship gets made and rots => X Co2 releases into atmosphere. Net Co2 = +X Tree contains X Co2 => Tree dies => New tree grows in opened up space. Net Co2 = 0

Why do you assume the tree would not be replaced, we plant more trees than we cut down nowadays for example. The only reason to not replant the tree is if the land was being used for something but then the tree would have been cut down anyway ship or not.

Re: How to design a sailing ship for the 21st century?

#62

Post by rocqua »

samatman wrote: post #45

> Lithium-ion batteries are very compact, but they cannot be considered sustainable and bring safety risks C'mon this is silly. The dominant safety risk of a small vessel (and all of these are small in modern terms) is capsizing in heavy weather, with the loss of all hands. LiFePO batteries, built into a bank with really excellent waterproofing, would be quite adequate to the job. If lithium battery technology in gen…

I think for ships of this size, fire is a bigger risk than capsizing.

Re: How to design a sailing ship for the 21st century?

#63

Post by rocqua »

marcinzm wrote: post #61
dtech wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tree contains X Co2 => Tree gets cut down without replacement => ship gets made and rots => X Co2 releases into atmosphere. Net Co2 = +X Tree contains X Co2 => Tree dies => New tree grows in opened up space. Net Co2 = 0

Why do you assume the tree would not be replaced, we plant more trees than we cut down nowadays for example. The only reason to not replant the tree is if the land was being used for something but then the tree would have been cut down anyway ship or not.

The original quote at the top of this thread says that ships were build from trees that were felled _and not replaced_. The discussion started from that assumption.

Re: How to design a sailing ship for the 21st century?

#64

Post by irishjohnnie »

atlantageek wrote: post #30

I struggle with this whole article. It implies keeping a sailing ship labor intensive just with a few electric winches. Wing Sails seem like a better approach and I assume they are much less labor intensive.

Yup. OceanWings by VPLP https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/vplp-design-signs-its-f...

Re: How to design a sailing ship for the 21st century?

#65

Post by Lev1a »

maCDzP wrote: post #59

If you are interested in an account of how it was to sail tall ships I can recommend “Around Cape Horn” [0] If you are curious about sailing tall ships. And have the means. Apply to one of these ships [1]. I have gone sailing a couple of times and it’s one of the most rewarding experiences I have had so far. [0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9tuTKhqWZso [1] https://sailtraininginternational.org/sailtraining/

German documentaries about the "Peking"s journey home to Germany from NYC [0] and then the restoration process itself [1] in Germany. Unfortunately for international viewers there are only auto-generated subtitles (and translations from those) which from a quick look are just horrendous.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n11HVFKO0jA

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So609NxlTcw

Re: How to design a sailing ship for the 21st century?

#66

Post by outworlder »

samatman wrote: post #45

> Lithium-ion batteries are very compact, but they cannot be considered sustainable and bring safety risks C'mon this is silly. The dominant safety risk of a small vessel (and all of these are small in modern terms) is capsizing in heavy weather, with the loss of all hands. LiFePO batteries, built into a bank with really excellent waterproofing, would be quite adequate to the job. If lithium battery technology in gen…

> If lithium battery technology in general proves to be unsustainable, we may as well pack up and go home, because decarbonization isn't going to happen.

Exactly.

Lithium is not that uncommon. It's just that the reserves that we have found (so far) where nature helpfully decided to concentrate it for us are not very common. If we don't use those, then it's expensive to extract (both in money and energy). That's another argument for expanding renewables. Put them to work to extract lithium from salt water.

Oil had a very similar argument, but we keep finding reserves and devising ways to use previously uneconomical reserves.

Now, once extracted, we recover most of it when it comes time for recycling. I bet older marine batteries would have plenty of uses as second-life energy storage for stationary applications. It may take decades until we even have to recycle them.

> safety risks

As for the safety risks... One of the main ways to contain a battery fire is to spray water on it. Is ocean water is too salty(therefore, conductive) for this application?

Re: How to design a sailing ship for the 21st century?

#68

Post by meepmorp »

yboris wrote: post #57
luke2m wrote: post #16

Imagine the irony if a tanker ship had sails.

"Oceanbird's huge 80-meter sails reduce cargo shipping emissions by 90%" https://newatlas.com/marine/oceanbird-wallenius-wing-sail-ca...

Hypothetically. They've not built such a beast.

Re: How to design a sailing ship for the 21st century?

#69

Post by _ph_ »

samatman wrote: post #45

> Lithium-ion batteries are very compact, but they cannot be considered sustainable and bring safety risks C'mon this is silly. The dominant safety risk of a small vessel (and all of these are small in modern terms) is capsizing in heavy weather, with the loss of all hands. LiFePO batteries, built into a bank with really excellent waterproofing, would be quite adequate to the job. If lithium battery technology in gen…

Most yachts are switching to LiFePO, because they perform so much better than any lead-based batteries. Haven't heard about safety issues.
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