[ArpanRau]

Yep, supporting the moment from the wing via containers is the biggest structural concern. The containers are strong enough in most sea states, with reefing/feathering required in heavier winds and seas. We will stow the sail long before it encounters conditions like the ones shown in your video.

Oceanbird is awesome! The trouble is that overhauling the entire industry with new-built ships would take too long to make a meaningful climate impact, and be extremely expensive (not to mention that their approach only works for ro-ros).

Synthetic fuels will compete with aviation for the green hydrogen supply (needed to make methanol/ammonia/green hydrocarbons) and are expected to cost 2-3x what current fuels cost. This net makes our fuel cost savings case even stronger.

Industry insiders generally already know that there's really no good cost-saving decarbonization solution, and that decarbonizing fast is a hair-on-fire problem for owner/operators. The barriers standing in the way of most wind-assist devices are: poor ROI, shipyard availability for retrofits, risk to shipwoner (capital upfront), and that they don't package on containerships. We solve all these problems by using a large, efficient wing and depending on the container load path. There are technical problems to solve, but the fundamental physics works.

[mike_d]

Every "I'm going to start with a shipping container" solution eventually runs into the same problem: shipping containers are effectively empty soda cans. They are only strong when loaded exactly as expected.

Have you actually talked to anyone in the cargo ship industry about your idea?

[bkor]

> Have you actually talked to anyone in the cargo ship industry about your idea?

I worked in the container shipping industry. It doesn't sound like this person ever talked to anyone in the industry. It's not like "add a sail" hasn't been thought off loads of times before. I've seen a few times where people spend 6 months to run a project where they never talked to a person with experience. Then that project would eventually fail. Circumstances and restrictions sometimes change over time, so trying to solve the same thing every few years is a good thing. But "sail in a container", ehh..

[Turskarama]

Ultimately they don't need to use an actual standard shipping container but just a container that's the same shape on the outside.

[garrettgarcia]

It's not their container that's the issue. It's the containers below it.

[someweirdperson]

Is the sail-container sufficiently heavy to stay in place, or does it need pull on something that's holding it down?

If the sail is pulling, the container below would see a remaining uneven load from above. Is there a limit to this? Loading/unloading an unbalaned container sounds like a problem, but is it, while sitting on the ship?

[theflyingpigeon]

To me the problem is transmitting the force generated by the sails to the body of the vessel

A small to medium vessel fully loaded is like 150.000 tons. 10% of that is 15000 tons, imagine the force that needs to be transferred to the structure of the ship in a place where it was not designed to handle that force.

[someweirdperson]

Mass of the ship would matter if it was supposed to hover. Trying to google for engine thrust I found numbers that might be in the order of magnitude of 500kN (hp translated to pounds at certain speed). 10% of that through the kite 500kN. That would be enough to lift 50t, which is at the order of magnitude of the maximum mass of a shipping container. Looks like it might work.

[algorias]

"soda cans" is very pessimistic. The structural integrity of containers is very high. Specially the end walls.

The typical problem with containers is non-standard or unsecured cargo pressing against the side walls, which are indeed very weak.

[IshKebab]

Nonsense. Drinks cans are strong when filled because they are pressurised. Containers aren't pressurised. Their contents have no effect on their strength.

[mike_d]

That is why I explicitly said an empty soda can.

[theflyingpigeon]

>> Oceanbird is awesome! The trouble is that overhauling the entire industry with new-built ships would take too long to make a meaningful climate impact, and be extremely expensive (not to mention that their approach only works for ro-ros).

Shipping is responsible for like 2% of emissions. A 5-10-20% reduction on a small number of vessels for a small number of voyages is not gonna make a dent.

[julosflb]

What is the order of magnitude of the wind load generated on one single wing?

[ArpanRau]

10s of Kn . It's <10% the wingloading of a 747.