Airseas Seawing
The era of sailing ships has long been in the past, but thanks to the efforts of decarbonization enthusiasts, it can experience something like a Renaissance already in the current decade. The French company Airseas has installed a test system of an automatic sailing mechanism on the cargo ship "Ville de Bordeaux", which will be tested in real working conditions for six months. The customer is very strict - the Airbus corporation, which uses this ship to deliver aircraft structures from all over Europe to the assembly plant in Toulouse.
The test sail differs from the commercial version only in size, its area is 500 sq.m., against the planned 1000 sq.m. But the main thing in the system called Seawing is not the size, but the automatic adjustment of the sail operation right on the move, according to the wind situation, the weather and the movement of the vessel itself. Just adding sail traction to the work of powerful marine engines will do little, the advantage of the system is that it is "smart".
Airseas autoparus
The sail, which is actually a giant kite, extends on a folding mast on the bow of the ship, catches the wind and rises on a cable to a height of up to 200 m. Then the system begins to describe the trajectory of the eight to determine the optimal operating parameters during the current watch. Full thrust is not always needed, and the wind blows differently everywhere, but, unlike sailboats of the past, the Ville de Bordeaux in any case does not go "according to the weather", but along a pre-planned route. The task of the autoparus is not to move the ship, but to reduce the load on the engines and thereby reduce fuel consumption and emissions into the atmosphere. Research by German scientists from the Skysails project has shown that a sail with an area of 400 sq.m. can compensate for up to 2 MW of engine power, and Airseas is confident that with a favorable wind, fuel savings of 20% will be achieved. What is even more interesting, the Seawing system is installed in two days on almost any large ship and then does not interfere with cargo operations in the port.
Airseas autoparus
