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Go fly a kite

9th January 2008

By 2015 more than 1,500 cargo ships may have caught the wind

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For the first time in a century, a cargo vessel will set sail in the true meaning of the word. The 10,000-tonne Beluga SkySails will embark from Bremen, Germany, this week, towed by a 160-square-metre kite, stopping at Boston en route to Venezuela before heading back again. Though the engines will still be required, the boost from the kite is expected to cut fuel use by 10 to 15 per cent. If it works, ships fitted with larger kites (up to 5,000 square metres) could reap savings of up to 35 per cent.

It makes economic as well as environmental sense to harness the wind for free. The World Economic Forum certainly thinks so: It named the project as a 2008 Technology Pioneer. And the idea seems to be catching on. Anne Staack, press co-ordinator for kite-maker SkySails, says the Hamburg company’s production capacity for 2008 has been reserved. It hopes to have outfitted 1,500 ships with sails by 2015.

Because oceanic ships are allowed to use fuel that is much dirtier than is permitted on land, they create more acid-rain-causing sulphur dioxide than global land transport. The shipping also adds to global warming. SkySails estimates that if its sails were used consistently wherever appropriate, 146 million tons of carbon dioxide could be saved every year.

Published in The Green Report in The Globe and Mail

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• Tags:
• Sailing
• Shipping
• Wind Power

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