Will WIND Power the Future of Shipping??!

Niclas Dahl: "Wind will always be free of charge" Nestlé: 🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨

4:08 The thin strips of material are definitely not to "tell how windy it is". They are to show vortices which occur if the angle of the wing relative to wind is too steep. Smooth, laminar flow across both sides of the wing (or sail) are critical for generating maximum driving force out of a sail. Most sailing dinghies also use them to enable the crew to see the airflow and make constant sail adjustments - especially when racing.

First off, Fully Charged, you made a fantastic choice with Imogen, amazing presenter/reporter/journalist! Also, I can’t wait to see where this technology goes!

I first went to sea in 1974 - red hot new technology was wind assistance for commercial shipping. I retired as Master on very large container ships in March 2020 - guess what? We’ve had sailing ships in the 1980’s 1990’s and then it all died because it didn’t work when scaled up. We had deep sea ships with kites, ships just like the model in the video and we’ve had ships making coastal voyages in Japan and Europe using the Walker Wingsail system…………./ where are they now? Every one of them was de-rigged as the ships still needed to have engines to manouvre when there was no wind and the cargo was needed “just in time” or “Now”. Sailing was used for a fleet of wind powered sailing passenger vessels in the WindStar fleet for about 25 years but soon was reduced to just something to give the passengers a thrill, it simply wasn’t viable and they could never have maintained a set schedule without powerful Diesel engines. Vehicle carrying vessels like the model demonstrated have another problem - stability. There have been several notable accidents resulting in the loss of the vessels because of the minimal inherent stability these multi deck vessel have today, let alone with huge (and folding) masts and to get around that you need to add weight low down in the form of ballast water that makes the ship heavier and also now environmentalists have stopped us discharging ballast water taken in one place and discharged several thousand miles away without huge and expensive electrical sterilization plants onboard. Game changer - not in the least, it’s all been tried many times in the last 40 years and it failed.

With all that surface area on top, it gives a good opportunity for solar panels and on a big ship they'd be able to allocate some container spaces for battery units. This way the ships could keep moving on the occasions where the wind isn't blowing, or supplement the wind when the breeze is weak.

Nice! I did my dissertation many moons ago on the optimisation of wingmasts. This has got to help, even if it’s hybridised. The issue is the ship owner doesn’t always pay for the fuel, and the person who wants their cargo carried doesn’t want to pay to upgrade a ship they don’t own.

I have been talking about this for years so it is good to see that someone is finally taking the idea forward. I wish them every success.

Automation makes sailing ships worth a second look. The main reason why sailing ships fell out of favor once steam came along was the huge savings in crewing costs.

3:59 kind of close. Those ribbons are called “telltales” by sailors, and they indicate flow over the sail. Going upwind, for example, you vary the trim of the sail, and the heading of the boat to keep the telltale flat on the sail at the leading edge. If you have the rest of the sail set up correctly, this indicates the sail is an aerodynamic curve generating lift as an airplane wing, or a windmill blade does.

In 1983, myself, an aeronautical engineer with a sailing background, and a very talented partner, tried selling Hawaii on this. They scoffed, and we went on to win three world speed records for sailcraft. At least its moving forward.

A talking point that isn't brought up enough is the difference in oceanlife disturbance. The props of a ship slash up animals and cause crazy undersea turbulence, if the source of propulsion is above the waterline, it's an order of magnitude better for the sea.

The kite boat concept of using a parafoil would complement their concept. Their wing sales work great for crosswind and upland but downwind is their weakness. Parafoil kites, can produce enormous power down wind and allow a vessel to sail faster than the wind speed because they can be controlled to do figure 8 maneuvers and in the process generate their own wind even while the vessel is going downwind. Furthermore the equipment needed to attach a kite to the front is fairly minimal.

Not an expert, but I see two possible issues. The first is the masts will have to collapse or fold down and out of the way, especially for loading and unloading. This will add to cost, plus the more moving parts, the higher chance of something going wrong. Also, any sails large enough to push it along, can also lean the ship to the side depending on wind direction. I worry about the stability of the cargo if there is too much lean. I'm sure they can control this, especially if the sails can be collapsed, but still might be an issue if it's not automated and left to human error. I'm sure both these issues have solutions, but might make it more complicated and difficult to retrofit existing ships.

I would recommend Fully Charged to take a look at Skysails. (And maybe make a video about it) They have already operating systems. And maybe a video about high altitude wind energy in general?

This is not a new idea, Japan did it back in the 1980's with the Shin Aitoku Maru. I remember back in the mid '90s, a very similar idea for a container ship, showing up in a Popular Mechanics or a publication of this type. Then again in the early 2010's. Can't find a copy of it, but its nice to see this company along with others working on this as well. Other companies like: Norsepower, Econowind, EcoFlettner, to name a few, they already have full scale prototypes doing work now. If you look up WASP (wind assisted ship propulsion) you can find a bunch more companies working on this same idea. I hope Oceanbird can catch up and help put that wind to work.

Way kool! Some of us have been waiting for designs like this to become viable, thanks for the info.

Another thoughtful and well produced episode! Thank you

Hopefully the new rail connecting china and eastern europe will be able to allow for electrified rail transport between the east and west, reducing or eliminating the need to ship goods along that route entirely. That would make a HUGE impact on shipping emissions.

I appreciate how great of a name 'Oceanbird' is

How long are you willing to wait for your cargo? Hope I'm wrong but can't see this coming to fruition. There is a reason steam replaced sail this isn't an equivalent to EV's at all. Container ships work as they are boxy but good putting huge sails on top just makes that awkward as hell.