Back in the 1980s, the Japanese constructed a 236-fook oil tanker equipped with computer controlled sails. This ship, the Shin-Aitoku-Maru operated for at least four years and it was reported that the sails resulted in a 50 per cent reduction of fuel consumption. With the high cost of fuel and the need to reduce CO2 emissions why couldn't tankers be fitted or retrofitted with sails?

better yet- put sails on everyone's cars to lower our dependency on foreign oil.

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Hmm, Jabba the Hutt had sails on his barge.

Jabba, the environmentally conscious crime lord!

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Just imagine a reincarnation of the Great Eastern, which had paddle wheels, a screw propeller and sails. At several times the tonnage of any previous ship, she was the original Incredible Hulk.

The oceans are not exactly hospitable places in even moderately bad weather.

Go ahead, YOU go out in a sailboat in rotten weather and you'll see quickly why mankind has gotten away from them (except for sport)....

Wind Generators would be the best way to do it. There is in factat least one German ship with an auxiliary sail/parachute system.

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Oh come off it, it was regular duty in their day for clipper ships to go round 'The Horn', that is the southern tip of South America, known for some of the worst weather on the planet. Man kind has been sailing through all manner of weather, in ever larger ships, for centuries. I am not saying it isn't a supremely skilled task, what I am saying is that it is doable.

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how much energy would be saved by putting huge sails on 1000+ foot long supertankers if they have to keep zig zagging (i think it's called "tacking" in the sailboat world) just to make a little bit of headway? the extra time it takes to go across an ocean would more than eat up any money saved by putting the sails on- which leads to higher shipping costs for each barrel of oil, which leads to higher prices for consumers, which leads to lower profits for the oil companies.

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Not to mention that even when the wind is at their back, they are likely powering ahead at faster than the wind velocity in that area anyways.

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Well, somebody needs to some research then. If the prices keep going up, this will hit economy, even with an extended sail time. The question is when.

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The Japanese also experimented with running ships off peanut oil. That was over 60 years ago now.

Mention also that even with computer control, in bad weather a sailboat still needs some human interaction, whereas the oil ships are almost fully automatic.

They use the oil in their tanks, by the way. They have onboard separator refineries

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Earlier this year, a cargo vessel sailed out of Bremen with sail-assist. it was reported to have saved 20% on fuel.

http://www.beluga-group.com/News.345...tt_news%5D=505

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9898347-54.html

Cite?

We get supertankers into the Refineries and terminals on the Tees bay every day, looking up their details I don't see any that have onboard refineries.

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http://www.alfalaval.com/solution-fi...es/Pan-Yu.aspx

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Well this isn't a tanker, it's a support vessel acting as a Depot ship for the oilfield. My dad worked on something similar off Indonesia. It was a converted Tanker it sat out by the platforms and regulat tankers came alongside to load up, It also acted as a repair ship for them having a qwell fitted workshop. It provided power if they needed to work on their plant etc.

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Yeah, I was under the impression they fitted that to regular tankers as well (that's what they told me on the tour), but I couldn't find anything about it on AL's home page.
Oh well. Would be a good idea though, and make them try to be as fuel efficient as possible.

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Automated sailing systems are intended as wind-assist, not primary power source.
So if there is a head wind or a storm you just lower the sails.

Sail boats can go in any direction independent from which way the wind is blowing, going against the wind just takes longer.
With the wind coming in at an ideal angle sail ships can go considerably faster than the wind.

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crude as a fuel source? seems rather nasty, pollution wise.

Any fossil fuel uses crude oil as a source. That's what I said - it refines the crude oil into diesel and runs on that.
Those generators would run on old socks, though. They're pretty sturdy.

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Nitpick - unless the source is coal.

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