farmerben Posted 2 hours ago Share Posted 2 hours ago There is a lot of interest in making maritime propulsion green. I've been looking at sailboats. Most yachts have a sail area to displacement ratio of 10-20m2 per ton. If you scale that up, it doesn't work for anything like a modern cargo ship. There are some videos out there about Magnus effect sails and inflatable sails. Nobody really breaks down the performance of these devices. I suspect they motor sail all the time and get maybe an extra 1/2 a knot of speed boost under ideal conditions. The Magnus device is powered so it's really a question of air propellers vs underwater propellers. I love sailboats, but they are mostly just expensive toys. Back in ye old days sailing cargo ships were all we had, but they were terribly slow by modern standards. The idea that you could use solar alone, also doesn't really scale. I suspect methane and hydrogen to become prominent as maritime fuels before they make it into other transportation sectors. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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