Manoeuvring and seakeeping with wind propulsion
Conference/JournalMARIN Report 139
Date29 Mar 2024
The market introduction of wind propulsion continues to accelerate with the fleet of commercial ships equipped doubling in the last year.
And if you follow LinkedIn or the news, the number of announcements regarding new projects, but also indeed actual installations, does not show any sign of slowing down. So, it seems that wind propulsion is eventually being recognised as a major tool to decarbonise shipping and limit the dependence on alternative fuels.
Most installations are relatively modest, targeting energy savings of some 5% to 15%, which is already very useful and generally impossible to achieve with other means, except for slowing down. Such installations can mostly be implemented in a “business as usual scenario”. Only minor changes are needed to the ship, and its operations can remain the same as before.
And if you follow LinkedIn or the news, the number of announcements regarding new projects, but also indeed actual installations, does not show any sign of slowing down. So, it seems that wind propulsion is eventually being recognised as a major tool to decarbonise shipping and limit the dependence on alternative fuels.
Most installations are relatively modest, targeting energy savings of some 5% to 15%, which is already very useful and generally impossible to achieve with other means, except for slowing down. Such installations can mostly be implemented in a “business as usual scenario”. Only minor changes are needed to the ship, and its operations can remain the same as before.
Contact
Rogier Eggers
Senior Project Manager
Anton Kisjes
Project Manager
Tom van Terwisga
Team leader Resistance and Propulsion
Optiwise project
In 2022, MARIN together with several partners, started the EU-funded Optiwise project specifically to develop, design and assess methods for those ships powered substantially by wind propulsion. And we demonstrate these methods in three cases. One of them considers a cruise ship design by Chantiers de l’Atlantique, that is also the developer of the Silenseas project. As part of the project, we set out to develop a test setup in our Seakeeping and Manoeuvring Basin which allows us to model the aerodynamic loads while doing free running manoeuvring and seakeeping tests.
The new test setup
OPTIWISE - optimised wind supported vessels
Optiwise, the EU-funded project to develop, design and assess methods for ships powered substantially by wind propulsion
Tags
wind propulsion