WISP

For some years now there has been a resurgence of research on wind assisted propulsion for ships. This is not the first time; ever since the diesel engine and propeller have dominated ship propulsion, there has been research on wind propulsion, notably at the time of the oil crisis in the 1980s. At that time this did not lead to a major uptake of wind propulsion.

Today again various research and development projects are underway, such as the WASP Ecoliner. Several wind-assisted ships (E-Ship and Estraden), and retrofits of vessels (Viking Grace, Fehn Pollux and a Maersk tanker) have been announced. Research is now continuing even though oil prices are low.

The regulatory framework is also increasing pressure to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A combination of new regulations and higher oil price provide an incentive for the adoption of wind propulsion in shipping, offering potentially large savings on emissions, fuel and cost. Still the uptake is slow.

OBJECTIVES
The objective of WISP was to overcome barriers to the uptake of wind-assisted propulsion, and specifically to:

• Improve methods for transparent performance prediction
• Use the improved methods to provide ship owners/operators with fast low-cost predictions for their fleet
• Review the regulatory perspective including status of rules and regulations, identify gaps and make recommendations, and provide examples on establishing compliance

DELIVERABLES
In addition to reports shared exclusively amongst project participants, the project delivered several publications as listed below. Further dissemination and preparation is done within the WiSP 2 project.

PROJECT PARTNERS
15 participants and partners worked together within the WiSP project: ABS, Anemoi, Bergebulk, BlueWasp, CSSRC, CWS, DSIC, Dykstra, Finocean, Hyundai, IWSA, Norsepower, TUDelft, Vale and MARIN.

WiSP is followed-up by WiSP 2.