Japan’s K-Line shipping company, together with Airseas, an aerospace company spun out of Airbus, have obtained approval in principle (AIP) from the ClassNK Classification Society for the design of the Seawing kite system, which converts energy wind energy in propelling force of the ship.
Following the same principle that is used in sports such as kitesurfing, the force of the wind is used to move very heavy ships on the water. Applied on a large scale, it is a 1,000-meter kite that flies at approximately 300 meters and what it does is help propel freighters across the sea.
According to Airseas, with this new technology applied to cargo ships, it is expected to reduce fuel consumption, saving costs, and also reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere by up to 20%.
Two engineers from the French aerospace company Airbus had the idea in 2016 and founded Airseas to further develop this technology for naval applications. After years of research, they are currently testing it on a cargo ship traveling between France and the United States.
The K-Line company, which has also been part of the project since 2019, commented that they continue “with the development of the idea and detailed engineering, setting the installation of the system and its evaluation as our objective.”
According to CNN, Vincent Bernatets, co-founder and CEO of Airseas, states that “according to the International Maritime Organization, the maritime transport sector, powered mainly by fossil fuels, is responsible for around 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions So a change is urgent.”
The fact that ships use the wind to navigate dates back hundreds of years. However, Seawing uses state-of-the-art technology to bring it into the 21st century. The kite is a paraglider, and it is launched by means of a folding mast, which also serves to collect the kite and store it when it is not needed.
To deploy it and make it fly, an automatic remote system is used that works through a box that is located under the kite, and that in turn is linked to the boat by a 700-meter long cable that supplies power and sends data to and from boat.
“What sets it apart from other wind solutions is that the wing is not just dragged by the wind and counterbalanced by the ship. Instead, it flies in figure-eight loops, which multiply the pulling effect of the air current.” to give what we call ‘crazy power,'” explains Bernatets.
“In addition, we take advantage of the wind 300 meters above the sea surface, which is 50% more powerful,” adds Bernatets. This system explains why “the power generated is tremendous for a compact and simple mechanism that sits in the bow of the boat and can be installed on any boat, not just new ones,” he says.
The Seawing has been tested for over a year on a freighter chartered by Airbus, cruising the Atlantic Ocean. The company announced in May that the tests had been successful and that the system worked and that the forecast is that tests will begin in December on other freighters.
In addition, the company has received 2.5 million euros in financing from the European Union, and states that it already has orders from Airbus and the Japanese shipping company “K” Line. It hopes to have the technology fully operational by the end of 2025.
