Maiden voyage announced for Neoliner Origin

Sailcargo ship Neoliner Origin is due to set sail mid-September on it’s maiden voyage, with a consignment of Renault cars, industrial machinery from Manitou and items like cognac from Hennessy and Rémy Cointreau.

It will visit the port of Saint Pierre et Miquelon, off Canada before a scheduled gala docking in Baltimore, USA on 30 September.
Nothing new in that, perhaps. But this ship, called Neoliner Origin, is powered by two large 76-meter, high tech sails and will have a carbon footprint around 80 per cent less than a cargo vessel of comparable size.

Its voyage underlines how, almost under the radar, wind powered, or wind assisted ships are rapidly growing across the globe and starting to displace highly polluting bunker fuels.
Many observers bet on a new generation of alternative fuels including hydrogen to spearhead the push for green shipping following the UN climate conference, COP26, held in Glasgow, Scotland in 2021.
But ship owners in Europe and Asia are also turning to systems such as ventifoils, rotating cylinder style units the spin and suck ships along, kites that fly hundreds of meters high and other wind devices.

Neoliner Origin has been designed from scratch to maximize wind propulsion, with an electric motor mainly for maneuvering in ports. Other wind ships are retrofitted hybrids, part wind and part fuel powered.
Gavin Allwright is the Secretary General of the International Wind Ship Association based in London whose members include wind propulsion manufacturing companies, shipping lines like Mitsui O.S.K Lines of Japan and certification bodies such as the American Bureau of Shipping.

Currently, there are over 70 large vessels already installed with some level of wind propulsion.15 years ago the number was almost zero according to the European Maritime Environmental Transport report 2025.
“There are also around 130 on order, spanning everything from a small coastal freighter of 50 to 60 metres in length, right up to some of the largest ships in the world like oil tankers of 300,000 dead weight tonnes,” said Mr Allwright on a broadcast from We Don’t Have Time during London Climate Action Week.

Exponential growth

Mr Allwright says the growth of wind ships has or is close to exponential growth.
“Going forward, the projections we have seen from third parties, is that up to 15 per cent of the fleet could be out fitted with these wind systems in the next 5 years with this building to around half of all ships world-wide having them by 2050—which we think is conservative,” he suggested.

There are multiple factors driving this growth ranging from the availability of diverse 21 st C wind propulsion technologies to modern computerized, sometimes AI-assisted wind forecasting, that harness decades of meteorological data to plot routes.

There is also growing regulations and policies that is focusing the minds of shipping lines.
The European Union recently launched a decarbonization regulation called FuelEU Maritime. By fitting a large wind system today, a ship can be compliant up to 2035.

Member states of the International Maritime Organisation have also agreed on a new energy requirement for ships which will be voted on for adoption in October and could be the first industrial sector with a global carbon price.

Shipping lines that install 20 or 30 per cent or more of wind assist should be able to be fully compliant with the new rules and thus avoid costs in the near term. And even with lower levels of wind, shippers should be able to cut compliance costs.

Mr Allwright said the business model of installing some proportion of wind “certainly” seemed to be resonating with ship owners.
“Wind is globally available, and it is available today and directly delivered to the ship with zero emissions and zero cost. So, if you are putting these systems onto your ships, you are getting the benefits straight away and there is no fuel supply chain as you don’t need to mine it, refine it, transport it, bunker it or store it on board, “he said. “And if you lease the wind systems you can move that upfront cost to operational costs. That makes a lot of sense to ship owners.”

While the epicenter of this growth in wind ships is in Europe, there is also increasing interest in China, South Korea, Singapore and Japan.
Currently, the only part of the sector not deploying some of level of wind is the super big container ships. But Hapag Lloyd in Germany, which aims to be net zero by 2045, has plans on the drawing board.

Source and image: an article by Nick Nuttall on Table Media.

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