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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday March 22 2017, @02:26PM   Printer-friendly
from the spin-me-a-tale dept.

Over 200 years after steamships first began crossing the ocean, wind power is finding its way back into seafaring. Global shipping firm Maersk is planning to fit spinning "rotor sails" to one of its oil tankers as a way of reducing its fuel costs and carbon emissions. The company behind the technology, Finnish firm Norsepower, says this is the first retrofit installation of a wind-powered energy system on a tanker.

Yet the idea of using these spinning cylinders on ships to generate thrust and drive them forward was first trialled in 1924 – and shortly after disregarded. So why do Norsepower and Maersk (and the UK government, which is providing most of the £3.5m of funding), think this time the technology will be more of a success?

The rotor sail was invented by German engineer Anton Flettner. It is effectively a large, spinning metal cylinder that uses something called the Magnus effect to harness wind power and propel a ship.

How does it work?

When wind passes the spinning rotor sail, the air flow accelerates on one side and decelerates on the opposite side. This creates a thrust force that is perpendicular to the wind flow direction. Although it takes energy in the form of electricity to spin the sail, the thrust it produces means the engines can be significantly throttled back, so it reduces overall fuel use and emissions.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @05:11PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @05:11PM (#482834)

    Is this for only when you are travelling in certain directions, or wouldn't you generally need a keel? How does that work for a container ship?

  • (Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Thursday March 23 2017, @12:08AM

    by el_oscuro (1711) on Thursday March 23 2017, @12:08AM (#483001)

    You would definitely need a keel. It is just as important as the sail. For a container ship, it would have to be retractable. Then again, the keel on the little 19' Flying Scots I use to sail also have a retractable keel.

    You can sail upwind by taking to the left and right of the wind. It is obviously slower then sailing downwind.

    The strangest sensation though is sailing directly downwind without any tack or jive. You might be sailing 15 knots but you will feel absolutely no wind.

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