SkySails completes first deep-sea voyage

The world?s first modern multipurpose heavy lift project carrier newbuilding, which uses wind energy as additional propulsion, has successfully completed her two-month maiden voyage last week, after a double transatlantic passage totalling about 12,000 nautical miles. With 8,000 tonnes of general cargo loaded on board, ?Beluga SkySails? safely reached her port of destination in Mo-I-Rana, Norway, having crossed several areas of adverse weather with winds of up to force twelve.

“We’ve written a new chapter in the history of shipping. Cargo ships can once again use sail,” said the ship’s captain, Lutz Held. Stephan Wrage, Managing Director of SkySails, the German company developing the towing-kite, said the system had impressively met expectations. Speaking at a press conference in Hamburg last week, he repeated claims that, depending on conditions, the towing kite could cut bunker consumption by between 10 and 35%.

Niels Stolberg, the head of the Beluga Shipping, the Bremen-based ship operator working with SkySails to trial the system, said the maiden voyage of the heavy lift project carrier newbuilding ?Beluga SkySails? had shown there was a viable way of cutting bunker consumption and limiting shipping?s environmental impact. The shipping company said the voyage from Germany to Venezuela, then to the Mississippi Delta in the USA and finally back to Europe, had provided a thorough test for the towing-kite.

It said that at times the kite had been deployed for periods of between a few minutes and up to eight consecutive hours. The 132 metre ?Beluga SkySails? has been using a 160-square-metre kite. There are plans to scale up the kite to a 320-square-metre in the coming months with a target of fuel savings of 20 to 30%. There could eventually be kites of 600-square metres. Beluga has plans to fit the kite-propulsion system to other ships in its fleet. In the last leg of its voyage the vessel sailed east across the Atlantic to Norway.

The next voyage with loaded modules for wind energy plants will take ?Beluga SkySails? from Spain to the USA.