Quite ugly, though, it has to be said. She’s just so…squat? I much prefer the windjammers, the last sailing ships that worked as commercial cargo carriers.
Or if we’re talking cruise ships why not one that was built as a yacht in the 1930s? The Sea Cloud is the only cruise ship I could even imagine going on.
Not quite. Using either wind-driven turbines or large variable height rigid sails on large commercial vessels is nothing new. It’s been tossed around for the past 20 years, though no one has made a large scale practical model yet.
Where this needs to be developed is container ships. The amount of pollution generated by the world’s merchant fleets is staggering, with container ships being the biggest culprits. Roll-on/Roll-off vessels like the one in the animation make up a very small portion of merchant vessels.
12 days for a North Atlantic crossing is not bad (2-4 days off the normal sailing time). I can imagine in rough weather you’d have those sails reefed in quite a bit and running on diesel/LNG, but again, with sail as the primary power an LNG-fueled back-up engine would be practical.
Beautiful boat.
Agree. I went on a cruise with my wife once. It was just OK. I think it appeals to the type of person who has fun going to Vegas on vacation.
It’s an excruciatingly slow way to go places (briefly) you have never been, that you could easily get to more quickly, and spend more time there. The people you meet along the way, well. I don’t actually want to meet any people along the way. I know enough people.
Form follows function:
Clipper ships and square rigged vessels were designed for maximum speed using the only practical power available (wind), but were complete shit for cargo storage.
Given the challenge of the way that container ships are loaded and unloaded with cranes needing full overhead access unblocked by sails/masts/wings, I have to imagine that major ship builders will need to demonstrate the practicality and cost effectiveness of these other simpler vessels before getting the funding to tackle a more elaborate design that’s compatible with shipping containers. So at least it’s a start.
Given the design of most container ships, you can divide a cell with the sail rigging completely retractable and still have access to load and unload cargo. I agree that proving it to be feasible delivering at least 9-12 knots cruising speed would be necessary before you could build a proof-of-concept.
I was talking about the Star Flyer, though, not the cargo ship in the original post. Of course in her case form also follows function, the function being cramming as many people as possible into a space that still looks vaguely like a tall ship.
I appreciate your perspective – we share it, in that no, we’re definitely not doing enough as a species about climate change! On almost any level. It’s already kicking our asses and many other species’ asses, and will become much more painful over the coming years and decades. Tough to even imagine what year 2100 will look like…
However, we do have a path, we know what needs to be done, and I will say, I have sensed a palpable change over the past, say, 5 years. There are many electric and hybrid cars on the market to choose from, with almost every major automaker very clearly heading in the direction of being primarily-electric in the next handful of years. Many more options for green power are coming online, and all sorts of useful technological developments are occurring that will be useful over the course of the struggle.
I happen to think it’s likely we’ll end up resorting to some form of geo-engineering to deal with climate change and CO2 emissions that are already out there. Perhaps less than ideal, but if it helps and can be done without causing more damage than it solves, so be it. Climate change is going to be really tough, but I think we will slog our way through it, eventually. It won’t by any means be the same planet on the other side in many ways, and we won’t be the same species and culture. Yet I remain hopeful, in the long run.
No, it’s not their fault. But it’s telling that they used the example cargo of 7000 cars for what their vessel can handle. It says to me the world isn’t really ready to shift consumption patterns in a way that will address the climate crisis.
The Shin-Aitoku Maru
Oooh, papers!
I could use a pedal charging mode for the EV. Get those conversions booted up in some neighborhood near you, eh? Nice cooling circulation up in the passenger seat, plus pedals or some lightwight climing rig thing. Maybe there’s a buyer for the hardcore mode where you also compress and liquefy exhaled CO2 but it sounds uncomfortable over and above sport seatcovers (ne’mmind finding a sequestration borehole that doesn’t bail on you.)
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