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Wind-assisted propulsion is the practice of decreasing the fuel consumption of a merchant vessel through the use of sails or some other wind capture device. Sails used to be the primary means of propelling ships, but with the advent of the steam engine and the diesel engine, sails came to be used for recreational sailing only. In recent years ...
Early ships used stern or side paddle wheels, which gave way to screw propellers. The first commercial success accrued to Robert Fulton's North River Steamboat (often called Clermont) in US in 1807, followed in Europe by the 45-foot (14 m) Comet of 1812. Steam propulsion progressed considerably over the rest of the 19th century.
According to the Cousteau Society, "when compared to the thrust coefficient of the best sails ever built (Marconi or square types, i.e. ships of the American Cup [sic] or the Japanese wind propulsion system) that of the turbosail is 3.5 to 4 times superior and gives the system a unique advantage for the economical propulsion of ships."
A commercial cargo ship, the MS Beluga Skysails, was built, and launched in 2007, with a kite rig supplementing conventional propulsion. [4] A European Union -funded four-year study of wind propulsion, using the MS Beluga Skysails , reported that the ship attained 5% fuel savings overall, which translated into 530 tonnes (530 t; 580 short tons ...
SkySails' kite propulsion from upper wind power is a traction use of high altitude wind power. Up to 100 million tons of carbon emissions every year could be saved by widespread use of SkySails technology, according to the International Maritime Organization .
The apparent wind on the sail creates a total aerodynamic force, which may be resolved into drag, the force component in the direction of the apparent wind and lift, the force component normal (90°) to the apparent wind. Depending on the alignment of the sail with the apparent wind, lift or drag may be the predominant propulsive component.
The shaft was clamped and the ship limped back to Boston mid-Summer 1968, on one propeller shaft, for drydock repairs in East Boston. This negated a planned liberty port call in Edinburgh, Scotland. Eastwind departed Boston 3 weeks later and returned to salvage the remaining Arctic-East summer navigation season in the Greenland Sea.
Alcyone is a ship launched at La Rochelle in 1985 for the Cousteau Society. Alcyone was created as an expedition ship and to test the operation of a new kind of marine propulsion system, the turbosail. Alcyone ' s two turbosails augment its diesel engines. Since the accidental sinking of Calypso, Alcyone has been the Cousteau Society's ...