I’m not crazy right? That’s what sails are.
Reject engine
Return to Wind
Are the kites potentially a next level of efficiency for sail? Not in an overall sense, but as a supplement and in the sense that you can still design boats for maximum hauling.
Gotta wonder how much a kite would add in terms of lowering the fuel usage really though, doesn’t seem like it would make much of dent. Nor are the ships designed to take that weird force angle presumably
Ships designs are good for a variety of strains - they’re built to get tossed around in storms after all.
Also about the sails comparison - I think the kites are retractable and redeployable, ending up with a variable, lower ship profile.
Water also has super high drag forces - it sounds efficient to counteract the constant water drag using constant air drag instead of constantly burning fuel.
Also the kite in the photo would only be able to pull the ship as fast as the wind speed. The idea behind a proper sail is that you can go faster than the wind speed if it comes at you sideways.
This isn’t accurate. The kite is typically moving in the air, generating drag. This can easily surpass wind speed. You see the same effect in kiteboarding (both water and land varieties.)
Interesting. Thanks for the correction!
Gotta wonder how much a kite would add in terms of lowering the fuel usage really though, doesn’t seem like it would make much of dent.
The article says 20%. It’s even included in the excerpt copied to this thread…
Good to see that Lemmy has just as good reading comprehension as Reddit lol. Would love to see a click through rate for posts to see how many people just open straight to the comments without reading the linked article.
Not reading the article has been a tradition since Slashdot, LOL.
But this one’s really big
It goes to eleven (knots).
Cargo ship with sails are also being developed and built.
The difference I imagine is that be a kite can be retrofitted into an existing ship. Or on a new ship without too many modifications.
Ships powered by wind? It’ll never work.
Next thing they’ll claim that the wind can be used to generate electricity. Stupid climate terrorists.
blow me! they must be tacking crazy.
And horses could be used to pull platforms on 4 giant wooden wheels, that could cut carbon emissions too!
But drastically increase plop emissions
Interestingly, cars were seen as cleaner due to the lack of street poop.
Something Something full circle
The joke is people forget how bad and messy horse powered transportation was, not saying gas is great but not “oh god the shit” levels.
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Great-Horse-Manure-Crisis-of-1894/
i’ve no useful comment to add, but for those who don’t click
Horse carcasses therefore also had to be removed from the streets. The bodies were often left to putrefy so the corpses could be more easily sawn into pieces for removal.Cities must’ve been… fragrant places, for a lot of history.
Give it 50 years - we will be shocked we used to walk around in streets with 100s of 1000 of little gas burning engines coming past us.
I don’t understand what you’re trying to say - yes, you’re right, but it sounds like you’re trying to say that the kites on ships is not a good idea.
I think it was a joke about the silly reidea, but not sure where you got the take that it was a bad idea.
A sailboat? My guy that’s a sailboat
It’s not. It’s much closer to kite surfing. Most importantly you don’t need a keel for a kite and it also takes up way less space when not in use.
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We’re re-inventing sails now are we?
Its honestly not a bad idea. When Sails fell out of fashion, canvas was the height of technology, nobody gave a fuck about emisions and tanker fuel was cheap AF.
If the owners of tanker/container fleets can see a $20,000 reduction a year in fuel costs by fitting a modern well designed $10,000 sail that costs $5000 a year to maintain. They will.
If multinational trillion dollar industries can find ways to save money AND go green at the same time. Good.
You’re not going to see any boats pulled by giant kites across the ocean.
They’ve been doing just that since 2008.
Yeah but the guy and the guy he talked to haven’t seen it and aren’t gonna see it because they’re not gonna go be out in the middle of the ocean looking at passing cargo ships, so he’s not really wrong
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Doesn’t seem like the fuel savings are quite as significant as they advertise (5-15% Vs 10-35%) but still a worthwhile achievement.
Interesting. So that one ship has done it for 15 years, and no one else huh. It must be a huge success!
There are several others.
Its not exactly difficult to find. https://newatlas.com/marine/new-aden-supertanker-sails/
Maersk has also had one ship fitted with rotor sails: https://maersktankers.com/newsroom/norsepower-rotor-sails-confirmed-savings
I like how you think I care enough to try finding any others
Why are you being toxic in a conversation about ship sails? Just check yourself for a minute.
Yeah how the fuck would you get the kite up initial?? And what happens if the wind dies and it lands in the water…
Yeah how the fuck would you get the kite up initial??
You could probably launch it using a airgun or something.
Yeah but what about after it hits the water. How do you dry it before loading back in?
I dunno anything about kites but maybe the wind is always strong enough up there so that it never falls.
I would suspect that a ship with these kites has an alternative method of traversal if the kite needs to dry or whatever. If that’s even a problem at all.
In the open ocean wind is fairly consistent and predictable. If there was a risk of the wind dropping too low you’d stow the sail. Even if it did hit the water, you’d have to stop while you hauled it in but it’s not impossible.
I know it’s maybe silly to talk about sails as a new technology – and my initial response was to join the dunking. But, fuck it.
Anything that cuts the use of fuels in shipping is good and should be encouraged. If letting nitwits feel smart is the price of a better world, I’m happy to pay it.
Sails will probably survive for another thousand years, because humans are greedy and wind is free. As long as corporations can save a buck on fuel, they will.
Big difference is a modern sailboat like a ketch or sloop can maintain a straight course as much as 45 degrees into the wind. A Victorian era square rigger is greatly more limited with a range about 60 degrees off either side of downwind. A kite would be even more limited, probably within 45 degrees so it would only be useful when going mostly downwind. Still if it’s cheap and easy to deploy it’s free energy when it can be used. An interesting parallel is the spinnaker sail used on a typical sailboat flies much like a kite and can only be used within a similar downwind range. It’s a very powerful sail when it can be deployed.
ITT: people getting mad that someone tried modernizing an old idea in an attempt to do something good.
No one’s mad, we just think it’s funny
Spinnaker
Omg patent that giant Kite design quick, you’ll make a killing!
Nah my guy, think more Waterworld.
The trouble is that it takes decades to create an effective sail captain and crew, and it’s insanely hard dangerous work. Read some accounts of how sails were actually managed back in the day, and it’s terrifying (at least for people without a head for heights, gaaah).
The good part is you can program a computer to manage the whole system, with human in the loop.
Depends on the kind of sail. If they’re using any kind of spinnaker or kite sail, it requires human hands.
Maybe read the article? It’s talking about a new kind of sail that’s literally a giant kite attached at the end of a line and kept flying hundreds of feet in the air above the ship by computer control. Not a spinnaker or kite sail; something closer to a parafoil.
That’s why this is different and they aren’t talking about going back to fully-rigged sailing ships.
(Actually, who are we kidding? They couldn’t care less how hard and dangerous the work was. The real reason they like this new design because it doesn’t have masts to get in the way of loading cargo.)
To be fair, a lot of the work can be automated or remote controlled with today’s technology
Basically the best part of the film Waterworld
Kevin Costner’s angry face begs to differ.
Hey everyone…listen…hey…I got the greatest idea ever. We attach…listen… we attach the kite to a pole on the boat.
That’s gonna be one giant fuck off sail to pull a cruise liner.
Stroke! Stroke! Stroke!
New super-economy class of cruise ship passenger just dropped.
No money to afford a spot on the climate refugee cruise hyper-ships? Pay your way by turning the screw and paddling! Nutrient cubes included in package, so long as you stay in the tail.
I have been seeing such claims since watching them on Beyond 2000 tv program in the 1990s.
