Skysails

I wrote about this a few months ago but have been tracking it with interest. It is Beluga Skysails a German company that is working on designing a new kind of sail for big cargo ships.  This kind of energy savings is great, and looks to eliminate CO2 from places that are less sexy than cars, but far more cost effective. (Ocean shipping produces 2x more CO2 than all air traffic).

Well the first successful test was done on a trip from Germany to the USA and back to Norway and achieved a 20% fuel-savings (thats 2.5 tons of fuel and $1,000 a day) round trip using an 80 sq meter para-sail. Next step, a 160 sq. meter sail followed by a gigantic 600 sq. meter sail to be built into a new super cargo ship. More of this please! 

Below is a german video showing the test trip. Happy sailing!