Inside the World's Largest Wind-Powered Cargo Ship
The Neoliner Origin is the largest cargo ship powered primarily by wind:
The Neoliner Origin, the world's largest cargo ship to use wind as its primary propulsion, has officially touched the water for the first time.
Launched from the RMK Marine shipyard in Tuzla, Turkey, it marks a major milestone in the journey towards decarbonising global maritime transport.
[...] Designed to slash carbon emissions by up to 80% compared to conventional cargo vessels, the Neoliner Origin is part of a broader effort to provide sustainable, low-carbon shipping options for major global brands.
Companies including Renault, Hennessy and Clarins are already on board, integrating this eco-friendly vessel into their supply chains as part of their sustainability commitments.
Measuring 136 metres (446 feet) in length, the Neoliner Origin is primarily a roll-on/roll-off (ro-ro) cargo ship, specifically designed to carry outsize cargo that can be wheeled on and off the vessel.
Its cargo capacity includes space for 5,300 tonnes or up to 265 containers.
[...] The vessel is equipped to carry refrigerated (reefer) cargo, ensuring perishable goods stay fresh throughout its 13-day transatlantic crossings. While its primary role is cargo transport, the Neoliner Origin also has space to accommodate up to 12 passengers comfortably, offering a unique maritime experience.
Powering this impressive ship are two 90-metre (295-foot) masts and an expansive 3,000 square metres (32,300 square feet) of sails. Wind will provide 60–70% of the vessel's propulsion, supported by hybrid diesel-electric engines when needed.
To further boost efficiency, the ship employs slow steaming—sailing at a reduced speed of 11 knots—to conserve fuel and reduce emissions. It even generates energy from its own wake, maximising sustainability at every turn.
Technicians Repairing Cargo Ship's Sails After Trans-Atlantic Voyage
The Neoliner Origin is slated to return to Baltimore in December:
The world's largest sailing cargo ship crept up the Chesapeake Bay in the quiet, rainy hours of Thursday morning, squeezed under the Bay Bridge and berthed at the Port of Baltimore.
It was there, chiefly, to unload goods — but also to get some repairs.
One of the sails on the wind-powered ship, a rare but growing breed in the world of maritime commerce, was damaged during a spate of bad weather while crossing the notoriously rough North Atlantic Ocean. While in port at the Dundalk Marine Terminal, workers were scheduled to patch up the Neoliner Origin vessel for its two-week return to France.
"The panels will be reinstalled during the Baltimore stopover so that the ship can make full use of its sails on the return trip," Gabriella Paulet, a spokesperson for the ship owner, Neoline, said in an email Thursday.
The 450-foot-long vessel, the first of its kind ever to call on Baltimore, is on its maiden voyage. It was built in Turkey and departed France in mid-October, first stopping in the French territory of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, off the coast of Canada.
There, technicians boarded and repaired the sail panels as the ship continued to Baltimore.
[...] It's the largest wind-powered cargo ship in the world, but it is just a "pilot" for Neoline, which expects to see larger ships in the coming years — both from itself and other companies.
"Hopefully, it will be surpassed soon," co-founder Jean Zanuttini said in an interview last week.
(Score: 3, Informative) by driverless on Thursday November 06, @10:16AM (2 children)
There are many cargo sailing ships larger than this, some dating back more than a century, how did they fiddle the stats to make this claim?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by spiraldancing on Thursday November 06, @11:56AM
Just guessing, but tentatively, maybe "largest currently sailing"? Not a lot of large cargo-sailing vessels in use these days, though they are starting to make a come-back.
Lets go exploring.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday November 06, @02:10PM
My understanding is that if their length measurement is right, it's a few feet longer than the previous largest cargo sailing vessels. And also, the overall trend through the 19th century, when sailing technology at least on the old-style wooden ships really reached its peak, was mostly for smaller and lighter cargo ships rather than larger ships because speed mattered more than capacity, until coal took over for sail as the main method of propulsion.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Thursday November 06, @02:14PM
I guess that the largest 'pure' sailing cargo ship was the Preußen [wikipedia.org].
There are/were several motor-sailers that were larger. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_large_sailing_vessels [wikipedia.org] )
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Thursday November 06, @05:05PM (3 children)
The first age of sail peaked with Clipper ships [wikipedia.org] which took 8-12 days to cross the Atlantic. Googling tells me modern container vessels cross in 7-15 days which makes sail sound competitive until you look at capacity. 10,000 containers is quite common, with some carrying 20,000 or perhaps more. You think that's just not possible at a glance, until you do the math and realize there's space below deck too. So you're going to need 40 of these vessels to get the container capacity of a modest container vessel. It's a cool project though and I wish them nothing but the best. More capacity is better, less fuel burned is better.
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(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday November 06, @06:03PM (2 children)
You may be surprised to know there's a new age of clipper ships built this century out of steel for cruising for tourists. Its somewhat expensive.
Entire ship gross tonnage under 10K usually. Figure a stereotypical container is usually not filled to max weight but IIRC your standard container will max out at 25 tons including the container mass (meh 2, 3 tons)
If a clipper freighter existed I don't think it would be unreasonable to carry 200 max-weight containers. Lets say 250 in practice.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Thursday November 06, @09:50PM
Cool, so they should just build that, but... If it's a true clipper style it's got all the glory of fully rigged sails, and the associated crew needed to properly handle them. Tourists love that, but shipping companies would hate having to go back to paying such large crews. Then again, could we possibly go hybrid and automate the control of the classic sailing vessel designs? Mast-bots, LOL. Crazier things have happened.
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(Score: 4, Interesting) by Damp_Cuttlefish on Thursday November 06, @11:42PM
Sadly that kind of direct comparison between traditional and modern ships tends to fall apart on volume and mass distribution. The same features that made clipper's fast ships are often directly at odds with modern cargo practices.
At equivalent tonnage a clipper still has a much finer hull, and thus much more space in which containers cannot fit.
It also needs significant ballast down low working against the force on the sails, that's either dead weight or specially selected dense cargo, right in the depths of the ship where it's hardest to unload.
And the real killer: Masts, sails and rigging all obstruct access for the cranes container shipping relies on, and any above deck containers are essentially uncontrolled sails, likely to be working against you.
The assumption that ships are big, square and open decked is very firmly baked into containerized shipping, and sailings vessels will always be round pegs clogging up the established square holes.
That's not to say it's a lost cause, Flettner rotors are a lot more friendly to both cranes and container ship crew sizes for example.
Still, for a ship with 'proper' sails their choice of a ro-ro seems like a much easier starting point. Still able to use existing high efficiency port infrastructure, no need for an unobstructed deck, and often higher margin cargo.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Thursday November 06, @05:53PM (3 children)
Have to be careful about greenwashing, its very easy to "save 100 gallons in propulsion" at the cost of "burn an extra 1000 gallons of diesel to refrigerate for extra time"
Whenever you see greenwashing you can assume its a scam until proven otherwise.
There is the meta issue that the best "green" solution to the environmental damage from shipping frozen TV dinners made with melamine and sawdust from China is to not do it.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday November 07, @03:17AM (2 children)
I had a related thought:
Okay, so now you're no longer burning bunker fuel, which is a waste product from oil refining, and so long as refineries exist, is going to be produced regardless.
So now what do you do with it?? store it forever? pump it back into the ground? spend energy to further crack and refine it?
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday November 07, @01:10PM (1 child)
Thats individual anecdote is a bad example because it goes right into asphalt. Crazy but true: You can turn used asphalt paving into bunker fuel if energy is cheap enough. Bunker + aggregate = Asphalt Paving pretty much (yes some minor details exist) I get the general idea, however.
You'd be surprised what a refinery can do if the supply/demand curves permit it. Right now its financially better to sell bunker to ships to burn, but chemically speaking it would make a fine source of ethylene (or whatever else) if the financials worked out.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday November 07, @03:14PM
Fair points.
But more generally, it still has to go somewhere, so does it really save any "carbon" on the balance sheet? (Assuming, of course, that "carbon" truly is a problem and that plants don't require it.) As with the "you had to run the cooler how much longer?" example, it may be a false savings.
I expect it's a complex balance sheet that only works if you leave out all the processing.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.