Kent based Shadotec plc is working closely with Wilhelmsen Marine Consultants (WMC) and Petroleum Geo-Services AS (PGS) (both companies based in Oslo, Norway) on a joint research project investigating the potential of Shadotec wingsail propulsion for commercial ships, using the energy of free and clean ocean winds.The consortium, backed by substantial funding from the Norwegian National Research Council, has commissioned CFD Norway, based in Trondheim, to estimate the potential savings in fuel consumption (and pollution from exhaust gas emissions) achievable by employing Shadotec wingsail thrust units to assist in the propulsion of ocean going vessels. The Norwegian Marine Technology Research(Marintek, also based in Trondheim, will contribute by evaluating manoeuvrability and seakeeping.<\/p>\n
The initial project aim has been to investigate the feasibility and potential of fitting two fully automatic computer controlled Shadotec wingsail thrust units on a very high technology Ramform seismic exploration vessel owned by PGS. It is 102m LOA and fitted with the massive 30,000 bhp needed to pull many kilometres of hydrophonic streamers.<\/p>\n
The initial investigation by CFD Norway has now been completed and its analysis estimates that a PGS vessel fitted with two Shadotec wingsails, towing a typical array of hydrophonic cable assemblies at its standard speed of 5 knots in a typical North Sea wind, could save more than 5% of its fuel consumption while reducing pollution emissions by the same amount. These savings could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars per ship over the course of a year, while the recent agreement by the members of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) to progressively reduce the sulphur content of Heavy Fuel Oil over the next few years can only increase fast rising bunkers costs even further.<\/p>\n
When the cables are wound in and the ship relocates to its next field of exploration, CFD Norway has confirmed that the fuel and pollution savings might be up to double the savings projected when towing at 5 knots.<\/p>\n
Shadotec plc chairman John Walker said, ‘This is a most exciting project. Shadotec now has significantly more advanced technology, and two of these great new generation wingsails fitted to a conventional ship like the Ashington could probably reduce her bunkers bill (and pollution emissions) by perhaps 30% to 40%. Initial tests on our new technology suggest that we can offer up to 25% more thrust per unit area than before, with significantly less air drag. This means that more of our thrust will go to pushing the ship. Also, after the very successful circumnavigation of the globe by the smalls trimaran ‘Angel B, we are confident that the small craft and leisure market, which we believe has about the same commercial potential as the ship market, will now take off.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Norwegian research team has confirmed substantial fuel and pollution reduction potential for ocean going ships fitted with ‘ wingsails’ being developed by a British company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":954,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-power-propulsion"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":955,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953\/revisions\/955"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=953"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}