Decarbonising Superyachts using wind power

Written by David Barrow, Windship Technology Director

Wind power is taking off throughout the commercial shipping industry with Owners and charterers realising that the emissions controls are getting tougher, and are going to continue to do so until 2050.

Superyachts have not been hindered much yet, but it is only a matter of time before stricter regulations come in.

There have been attempts at using wind power in bigger yachts with some success, but there does not seem to be appetite yet for bigger power boats to really look at designs to incorporate fuel saving measures such as wind power.

Having watch a circa 230 foot superyacht refuel with 250,000 litres of diesel I worked out that would be roughly 700 tons of Co2 created by that one tank of fuel. 

I am sure we were all amazed, at the recent America’s Cup, to see the 75 foot yachts reaching speeds of between 50 to 60 knots purely due to the speed of the wind and even in 8 knots of windspeed they were able to sail at 32 knots, 4 times the speed of the wind. These were extraordinary yachts sailing on hydrofoils, not luxury superyachts. However it does give some idea of the great power these wing systems can provide and there are ways of delivering this to the superyacht market in future. To give you an idea the ship below with 3 35 metre masts with 3 wings on each mast, in 25 knots of wind across the beam of the ship, the wind is providing the same power as the ships engine. 

In future hulls will need to be more easily driven, more dynamic, with better stability.

There must be a middle way between the current superyacht powerboats, and superyacht sailboats, a hybrid form that is acceptable to the superyacht owner and the drive for greener superyachts in general. 

Fuel additives are also appearing that are green in the way they are produced and provide added benefits, such as cleaner burning fuel reducing soot, smoke, and other particulate matter, eliminating diesel bug, increasing fuel efficiency, making the engine run more efficiently, up to 6%. So our big superyacht would have an additional benefit of 15,000 litres of fuel to use just by adding a product like www.SulNOXgroup.com.

A time to think ahead and embrace what the future will certainly be rather than stay with current thinking and react only as legislation slowly turns the screw.

Photo by redcharlie on Unsplash