1 year, 9 months ago
A merchant mariner said the ship he was piloting carrying cargo traveled only 9 knots or a little more than 10 mph. Why so slow?
He said to save fuel. This seems so slow that maybe it would be better to start using sail boats again like in the old days. Are we near the cross over point where it would be more cost efficient to use sailboats? What are the parameters? Tradeoffs? Are there any high technology container ships using sails in development?
duenhsiyen
duenhsiyen
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M$1 Answer
About three years ago the shipping lines noticed that they could save a lot of money by going super-slow. So that's what they do now. Any cargo in a hurry is going by plane anyway.
This leads to the thought, why not save even more fuel with sailing ships? It hasn't been done on a container ship level yet. The ECO-freight folks seem to have built a smaller sailing freighter. A Dutch company has a web site saying that they are working on it.
I don't think it will turn out to be practical. There are other considerations beside speed alone. Some that come to mind are crew, safety, size of ships, masts, and sails. Modern ships are huge! I don't know that sails and masts big enough are practical. Storms become much more of a factor with sailing ships. How would they get a giant sail freighter through the Panama Canal? Sailing ship crews need to be large and the sailors highly skilled.
I don't know, it is an interesting thought. Lighter than air aircraft are getting a second look now too.
It turns out solar is being tried too but doesn't look like it has enough power to matter much.
This leads to the thought, why not save even more fuel with sailing ships? It hasn't been done on a container ship level yet. The ECO-freight folks seem to have built a smaller sailing freighter. A Dutch company has a web site saying that they are working on it.
I don't think it will turn out to be practical. There are other considerations beside speed alone. Some that come to mind are crew, safety, size of ships, masts, and sails. Modern ships are huge! I don't know that sails and masts big enough are practical. Storms become much more of a factor with sailing ships. How would they get a giant sail freighter through the Panama Canal? Sailing ship crews need to be large and the sailors highly skilled.
I don't know, it is an interesting thought. Lighter than air aircraft are getting a second look now too.
It turns out solar is being tried too but doesn't look like it has enough power to matter much.
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