With its disruptive award-winning design Vindskip® communicates fuel efficiency and sustainability.
While international shipping has been running on heavy fuel oil for many decades, causing ocean acidification, acid rain and other negative environmental impacts. Exhaust gases from ships are also causing premature death of humans worldwide. Consequently, the use of heavy fuel oil must be reduced. The UN Maritime Organization (IMO) has therefore implemented a strategy to cut greenhouse gas emission by at least 50 percent by 2050, introducing the Sulphur 2020 cap to cut emission of sulphur oxides (SOx) and nitrogen oxides (NOx).
The Vindskip® design features a dynamic fuel-saving system using wind, Cruise Control and Weather Routing. The hull itself acts as a giant symmetrical vertical wing, harnessing wind energy to create propulsion and reducing drag, making the use of heavy fuel oil superfluous and thereby reducing the SOx emission with 100% and NOx 97%
For ships carrying capital goods, regularity is of the utmost importance, while reducing GHG significantly.
The Vindskip®-concept features a dynamic fuel-saving system using Wind, Cruise Control and Weather Routing Module. The patented Wind Power System will generate a propulsive force in the speed direction.
The WRM approaches the task to find an optimal route through two integrated parts. A performance prediction and a weather routing part utilizing a constraint optimization routine to balance aerodynamic and hydrodynamic forces determing the total resistance while satisfying the equilibrium condition. For the WR an implementation of the A*-algorithm on a dynamic grid is utilized. Generating a weather optimized route based on the actual weather forecast. This Route will be followed autonomously. The Cruise Control will read the WPs generated adjusting the speed and course according to the current WP and the next WP, meeting ETA with the least possible fuel consumption.
