[nradov]

Container ships don't have keels or other foils like real sailboats do. That wouldn't really be possible due to limited hull space and draft. But the hulls are somewhat resistant to leeway on their own.

The various supplemental sail technologies being tried to improve merchant shipping fuel efficiency are mostly only effective going downwind. They have to make serious design compromises compared to a dedicated sailing rig in order to meet cost and space constraints. But with the cost of fossil fuels expected to continue increasing (eventually including perhaps some sort of carbon tax or emissions cap) even a minor increase in efficiency is worth pursuing.

My guess is that some sort of deployable kite sail will eventually win out instead of this wingsail concept. We'll probably start to see that integrated into new ship designs as the cost is pretty low and the equipment occupies a fairly small volume at the bow.

[hef19898]

And when those sails are integrated, which is far from certain, I somehow have my doubts the supplier will be some scrappy start up.