Seems the retro fad continues - sail power (2026 Update)

Exactly. You'd have thought he'd know better.

The reality of EcoBollox™ is that most of the time its there to deflect the attention of the likes of Just Stop Everything! to someone else by presenting oneself as the GoodGuy™. Since JustStopEverything™ are, almost by definition, lowbrow ArtStudents™ and hard left Trotskyites, with no scientific or technical education whatsoever, *actually* achieving any carbon gains is immaterial.

It is the superficial *appearance* of Doing Something About Climate Change that is important.

All of them, I'd say. You've bought something, the faster you can get that to its destination and collect the dosh, sooner you can buy another something and get *that* shipped.

Still. Everyone uses it that way so little chance of changing things.

yes.

Well that is clearly the issue here, but consider, if say China says 'fine' and the UK says 'fine' guess who is going to get all the business if the EU says 'not on our turf' It will all be off loaded in the UK and re-freighted to the EU putting them at a (yet another) competitive disadvantage.

Its just another facet of the 'nuclear or starve and freeze' dichotomy that is emerging as the real choice nations have.

Indeed. I always think of Clive Sinclair. But I use it in the meaning of a discrete jump from one state to another. Not a smooth change

Very few. One spreads seed widely, but the good ground is rare.

Galley slave as an alternative to being sent to Rwanda?

Rising fuel costs and CO2 emissions taxes are driving the costs of running ships' engines up, while automation of sails has removed teh costs of a large crew to handle them and rigid structures have removed the problems of miles of rigging getting in the way for loading. That changes the cost/benefit anlysis conmsiderably.

As the Hooties have shown in the Gulf, what matters not is speed. Reliability is everything. Renewables are not reliable.

Wind assisting a ship's engines *IS* reliable though. Fuel consumption rises if the wind doesn't blow, but the ship keeps moving at the same speed. Pure sailing ships or hybrid ships with small engines and mainly relying on the wind, *Would* be unreliable.

That's not the reason for the upturned wing tips. That's done to minimise the inefficient wingtip vortices.

Yes.

Nope. In fact the masts for the sails increase drag and so the engines produce more CO2 when the sails aren't used.

You are wrong about that given the inevitable increasing cost of fossil fuels.

Only because of that nuke was going to be used to produce nuke weapons to use against the bomber country,

Very good once the cost of fossil fuels makes ships uneconomic.

The alternative is no trade and that's unacceptable.

Because currently fossil fuels still make more sense for everyone except the military.

Quite a few, and those move by air.

More fool you.

You don't ship it until it's paid for.

But still not viable for a container ship.

If fuel oil becomes uneconomic due to taxation* then alternative fuels are likely to be adopted rather than resorting to sails. Although probably not that suited for motor vehicles or domestic boilers something like Hydrogen may be considered for future bulk carriers.

I suspect that if the costs rise with emission charges on fuel oil they will just be passed on to the consumer of the products, until the consumers start objecting to the green levies hitting their pockets.

There is another issue apart from customer impatience, and that is simple economics.

the ship costs a certain amount of capital, and that is on usually a bond type loan from some big financial house, on a fixed rate of interest. The more cargo can be shifted per year, the more money there is to repay that bond. Conversely the faster you move the ship, the more fuel it burns per tonne mile, and so there exist some compromise that returns the best rate on capital.

On a nuclear ship, where fuel cost is so low its irrelevant, you want to go as fast as possible without placing undue wear on the propulsion system.