Union Maritime makes entire own fleet sustainable

British shipping company Union Maritime’s first ship with rotor sails has been delivered. Not groundbreaking news, but it is interesting that the shipping company plans to equip its entire newbuilding fleet with wind support.

Under the banner of the Aeropower project, the shipping company plans to equip all 34 planned newbuild ships with Flettner rotors and fixed wing sails, among other things.
The first of Union Maritime’s planned wind-assisted vessels, the 18,500-dwt tanker Buran, has left for its maiden voyage from China to Singapore. This marks the commercial introduction of the company’s AeroPower fleet. Wind-assisted propulsion is expected to cover up to 10% of each ship’s annual energy requirements.

Seeking wind

The delivery of an earlier sister ship with a ‘wind-ready’ configuration provided an opportunity to model the benefit of wind propulsion technology on real routes. Union Maritime used a ‘digital twin’ simulation to test each real trip with rotor sails, comparing actual routes with wind-optimised routes.

Analysis showed that for a ship with rotor sails, looking for windier weather on a route instead of just following the shortest route, yielded greater fuel savings and emission reductions. On a wind-optimised route, a wind-assisted ship reduced 3.4% more carbon emissions, compared to a ship that took the shortest route.

Training programme

It is also notable that Union Maritime is working with the UK’s Warsash Maritime Academy and Finland’s Wärtsilä to develop a simulator training programme. This will focus not only on fuel economy, but also on safety during manoeuvring and in emergency situations. This is a crucial aspect for the safe and successful integration of wind technology into commercial shipping. This follows similar initiatives by Econowind and the German training institute Mariko, among others, which was involved in simulator training for the rotor sail installation on the Fehn Pollux.

Sources: the websites of Riviera, Marinelink and Archive today.
Image: Riviera

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