Eco-friendly cruise ships to be powered by sails
(CNN) – The French shipyard Chantiers de L’Atlantique plans to build cruise ships by hitting 80-meter “eco-friendly” paneled sails made of fiberglass and carbon.
Laurent Casting, general manager of Chantiers de l’Atlantique, said the team had long splashes as an environmentally friendly looming solution. However, cruise ships require large sails, which the team found difficult to make with current technology and clothing.
Hence the shipyard decided something new and needed to be disassembled.
The resulting design resembles, as the shipyard puts it, “an agreement”, with folding panels that make up a sailing rig used together with an engine and propeller – so it relies entirely on strong winds. Is not.
The mast of the sail can also rotate and bend, which the shipyard says will allow cruise ships to sail under the bridge – including the lining of the Panama Canal.
Test phase
Chantiers de l’Atlantique released this rendering of the action sails on a cruise ship design, which he called Silence.
Courtesy Chantiers de l’Atlantique
Solid Sail / AeolDrive has been over a decade in the making – and testing is still on, so it will be some time before these sails start operating passenger ships.
From the first phase, various testing phases have been carried out, from testing a small sail on a J80 racing sailboat to the current one – installing a huge sail at the shipyard on a 38-meter mast this fall, an extension of this expansion Will do 95-meter mast in 2022.
French sailor Jean Le Cam has also been involved in the testing process, trying early versions of the sail on his yacht, as well as on a 90-meter cruise ship that travels across the Atlantic.
The shipyard said it attracted “a lot of interest” from industry players.
Future of cruises
The Chantiers de l’Atlantique Solid Sail / AeolDrive can also serve for the supercat market, but is designed keeping cruise ships in mind, as the Silentus render demonstrates.
However, cruise ships remain under construction, and there is apparently industry interest in Chantiers de l’Atlantique’s sailing concept.
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