The “SkySail”, a 160 square-metre (191 square-yard) kite tethered to a mast, has successfully undergone years of trial runs and Bremen shipowner Beluga Shipping believes it will help its vessels cut fuel use by 15 to 20 percent.
The “MV Beluga SkySails”, now being built and fitted with a paraglider-shaped sail and a “smart” central steerage unit, will make its maiden voyage in early 2007.
“I got the idea on a sail boat a few years ago,” Stephan Wrage, inventor and founder of SkySails GmbH & Co. KG, told Reuters. “I love flying kites and found sailing rather slow. I thought the enormous power in kites could somehow be utilised.”
The technology he has developed is a throwback to an earlier age of maritime travel when ships relied solely on wind. But it also addresses a key concern of the modern age: climate change.
Backers of “SkySail” call it a “green” project -- by cutting fuel use it could help reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
Wrage, 34, said that depending on the vessel and the winds, fuel costs for shippers could be cut by more than $1,000 a day.
After four years of successful tests, it is anything but a pie-in-the-sky project.
- German High-Tech Sky Sail May Cut Costs, Emissions, ENN.com, December 4, 2006.
3. Talk that English Premiership giants Manchester City will be taking over Belgian club Royal Excelsior Mouscron and turn it into their feeder club has been squashed by Asanda Sishuba.
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