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edweirdmuybridge OP t1_iu1wuru wrote

Reply to comment by Scalpaldr in World’s 1st bulker powered by wind sails into Port of Newcastle by edweirdmuybridge

From my understanding, they chose coal because it has a relatively uniform density and less propensity to shift around. This is important during the development process because the sail totally changes the handling of the ship and they are trying to understand how to implement these safely. Hence coal. The optics aren’t perfect, but it is best to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

It is also worth noting that this ship is a retrofit and is being sailed by MOL, which is one of the largest shipping companies in the world. If the tests go well, we could see these deployed across much of their fleet so the 5-8% savings would be significant.

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themagicbong t1_iu1z4gd wrote

Plus I thought I read that the theoretical savings can be much higher than 5%-8%, I thought I had read somewhere that it could be as high as 15-20% fuel savings, though that would require perfect circumstances at the high end, and of course there are kinks to work out like you mention with the handling. Either way, 5-8% is pretty substantial.

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Alovebird t1_iu86w9s wrote

15-20% are normally quoted for specially designed ships that are still on paper, this is a retrofit of an existing cargo ship and for that it's a pretty big amount

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