7 ms·
Future sailors: what will ships look like in 30 years?
- gk1 8y agoI'm excited but skeptical. Energy-saving concepts have been around for a long, long time. For example, I first heard about the use of kites[1] over a decade ago, yet the company that makes them is struggling to stay afloat. The issue is that commercial ships are very expensive to build, even using parametric design — where you basically plug in your desired cargo capacity and get a complete blueprint in return. Also, margins for shipyards are razor-thin, so they need to keep production very consistent and predictable in order to stay profitable. So there is not much incentive for either shipyards or shipping companies to build ships that deviate from the standard, cookie-cutter designs. Maybe the upcoming regulation will provide the necessary incentives, but even then it will take several decades for the majority of ships—which have a lifespan of 40+ years—to be replaced with the next generation. (Former naval architect and merchant mariner.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkySails https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkySails Edit: Maybe what's needed is an Elon Musk for shipping. Someone with the resources and guts to take a big gamble on a new technology in an industry that otherwise moves at a crawl.
- killjoywashere 8y agoAnd, I have to say, as a navy surface officer, I don't see how much of any of this is going to change the sailor's life. Living on a working ship is a bit like being a mouse on the deck of a lawnmower. For all intents and purposes, you're in the machine, and it will kill you.
- forapurpose 8y ago> I don't see how much of any of this is going to change the sailor's life While sailors' lives are important in themselves, what do you see as the connection to the issue at hand, reducing climate change impact? > it will kill you Every sailor dies? I don't understand what you're getting at.
- brandmeyer 8y ago>> it will kill you > Every sailor dies? I don't understand what you're getting at. He means that life at sea is one of managed risk. For starters the ocean itself is hostile to human life. The machine is is also filled with hazards that will kill you if they aren't properly managed: steam, ionizing radiation, CO and CO2 build-up, combustion exhaust gasses, high pressure hydraulics, seawater flooding, electric shock and electrolysis hazards, rotating machinery hazards, the list goes on.
- killjoywashere 8y agoThe title is "Future sailors" and the subtitle is something about ships. Do try to keep in mind your fellow man, on the ship, keeping it running.
- bluGill 8y agoChanges for emissions are not really worth anything to shipping companies in general. However changes in efficiencies can add up quick. Fuel is a significant cost, and so if you can take it down by a few percent that change adds up.
- vvpan 8y agoWell, we could also shop at the thrift shop a little more often. Disposable cheap crap is central to Western culture.
- rs999gti 8y agoMaybe nuclear power for commercial ships? Global navies have proved and refined nuclear power technology for their ships. Why not apply this technology to the commercial sector, instead of carrying gallons of diesel?
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago> Maybe nuclear power for commercial ships? That is so 1950s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah
- wil421 8y agoSo pirates will be able to steal nuclear material? What happens if a container sinks near a popular beach? I doubt people want these kinds of risks. I’d expect gas and diesel to be used for airplanes and ships for a long long time.
- rs999gti 8y ago>So pirates will be able to steal nuclear material? Why couldn't private security be part of international freight? The costs for this security could be added to freight costs. For example, Russian private security contractors successfully protected ships near Somalia - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XJ0nblZjZE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XJ0nblZjZE >What happens if a container sinks near a popular beach? I doubt people want these kinds of risks. Governmental navies don't experience these risks? Also, read this section about liabilities for private nuclear reactors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_marine_propulsion#Civil_liability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_marine_propulsion#Civi...
- foreigner 8y agoI love how the concept sailing ships look nothing at all like traditional sailing craft. Turns out that we have over a thousand years of experience designing and operating sailing cargo craft - maybe it wouldn't hurt to look at some of the older designs guys?
- jhayward 8y agoHave you taken a look at what designers do when they have access to modern materials and control systems? They don't design Triremes, for good reason. Have a gander at the America's Cup boats, for instance.
- foreigner 8y agoSure but compare America's Cup boats with that atrocity pictured at the top of the article!
- sdhgaiojfsa 8y agoAnticipated by Paolo Bacigalupi in Ship Breaker. Great book if you're looking for some semi-dystopian SF.
- assface 8y agoThe Mighty Boosh - Future Sailors https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAbkh4TMRqg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAbkh4TMRqg
- ocodia 8y ago“Digital stowaway!”
- Drdrdrq 8y agoWhat I'm waiting for is for foils to become useful. It doesn't make sense to (only) replace energy source, drag should be minimized too. Admittedly it will take a long time for technology to be ready for these huge ships though.
- krschultz 8y agoHydrofoils are generally higher drag at low speed, they only make sense when you want to go faster than displacement speed. That doesn't make sense for most cargo, anything time sensitive is going by air.
- LeifCarrotson 8y agoThere is a large gap in price and performance between 15-knot container ships and 500-knot aircraft. The former costs $0.1 per ton and takes months (7+37+7 day cargo transit), the later costs $5 per ton and does it in less than a day. There are already lots of hydrofoil passenger ferries where passengers pay a lot less than a plane ticket but more than a slow monohull ferry ticket to get to a destination a bit more quickly. On land, you might send something across the country at 60 mph on a truck for $0.4 per ton if you don't want to wait for rail or pay for air, but as far as I know, no such middle ground exists for ocean freight. There are certainly customers who can't afford and don't need next-day air, but would pay more to get components in perhaps 5 days (60 mph hydrofoil, 6000 mile Pacific crossing, plus a day to load/unload) instead of 5-8 weeks, if there was a business that catered to that.
- krschultz 8y agoI see what you're saying, and I think that's why more cargo is moving by rail in Asia. If it was sold as a premium service it might work, but I have no idea how big that market really is when you are talking about crossing whole oceans.
- djrogers 8y agoFoils simply won’t work at speeds that cargo ships travel at.
- ryanmarsh 8y agoMuch like they look now. You might call ship designs a local maxima but the physics aren’t going to change any time soon.
- krschultz 8y agoAs someone that has designed (military) ships, here are my thoughts. - LNG is definitely happening, and that alone will make a massive difference in emissions. - No shit smoother bottoms and bulbous bows are better for efficiency, that's been standard practice for decades and large cargo ships are generally not that old. - Counter rotating props are interesting, I could see that being a big win but the mechanical complexity might not be worth it. Cargo ships are generally kept pretty simple for reliability. - I doubt we'll see widespread wind or solar power any time soon. The dynamics of wind turbines on top of a pitching platform get pretty wild quick. The energy density of solar doesn't seem high enough. - Lol, get the fuck out of here with the idea of nuclear power for cargo ships. The US Navy doesn't even bother with that complexity for anything other than subs & carriers where it's the only viable option.
- djrogers 8y agoI think the biggest win for wins in the near term will be kites, not full-on sail rigged ships.
- gk1 8y agoSee my post in this thread. Kites have not taken off. I don't know why.
- Retric 8y agoWhat about solar? I know it does not scale down very well or work for the military, but solar seems useful for the largest ships. MV Barzan is a container ships that's 400 m x 58.6 m. If you take say 400m x 50m * 24% solar panels that's ~6500 HP in full sun. I know the engines are significantly larger than that but not sure how much they use at cruising speed.
- ihattendorf 8y agoQuite a few large container ships have 100,000+ HP combined. How much they use at cruising speed, I'm not sure.
- 8y ago
- Gravityloss 8y agoThe following contains simplifications. The shipping sector is squeezed by regulations and fuel prices. If you burn a tonne per hour and it costs a thousand bucks, thats about 8 million bucks per year. If oil price goes up, shipping gets more expensive. Those with newer more efficient or alternative fuel using ships get hit less. If oil price goes down, it is the opposite. Regulations need to be predictable. Ship building projects take a long time. If you can be sure that your fuel costs will be high in the future, an investment in better efficiency will pay itself back in a shorter time.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ape4 8y agoSeems sensible to have some solar panels. Even to make power for living quarters.
- carwyn 8y agoSurely the most effective way of improving shipping efficiency is to stop shipping as much? The principal of locality can be applied to far more than memory architectures.
- gk1 8y agoDesigning a better ship is easier than overhauling global trade.
- InitialLastName 8y agoSure, but I can't get labor priced low enough to build my consumer throwaway products locally.
- rs999gti 8y agoThis could be done but it would probably kill or slow technological progress and economies. For example, China is extremely good at manufacturing, Japan and South Korea are great at electronics manufacturing, Germany engineering disciplines, etc, etc. North America could do this but everything would be very expensive or impossible to source locally. Also, what about food? Do you enjoy coffee? Well it got to North America on a ship. How about bananas? Same thing, that tropical fruit's year round availability is due to shipping logistics. The same thing applies to most "everyday" goods like chocolate, transistors, cotton, etc, etc. Also, going back to China, they don't only manufacture cheap goods to be shipped to Wal-Mart. They are also a major farming and agriculture producer.
- tzs 8y agoA lot of ship cargo consists of things that (1) we need a steady supply of, and (2) have a very long shelf life. For such cargo it doesn't matter how long the transit time for any particular shipment is, as long as shipments are arriving at the destination often enough. I wonder if we could make unmanned cargo boats that spend most of their time drifting? Drifting can be quite effective at long distance ocean transport. For an example look at the Friendly Floatees accident [1]. A ship accidentally lost 29 000 floating bath toys in the middle of the Pacific. Over the next 15 years they reached land in on both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of North America, the Pacific coast of South America, Australia, and Europe, and came close to Japan. I'm imagining a ship that drifts, occasionally using an engine to get into known currents that will help it toward its goal or avoid currents known to hurt. Places where two or more significant currents pass through the same region could be used to route traffic. They could have tow ships stationed there that can move drifters between the currents We could have a large fleet of such drift ships carrying suitable commodities with very little environmental impact, with a smaller fleet of normal cargo ships providing fast transport to fill in the gaps caused by the randomness of the drifting fleet arrivals. The above idea is based on the proposals I've seen to do something similar in space. Briefly, there are orbits that can move an object from Lagrange points of one pair of bodies to Lagrange points of another pair using very little energy, but they can take a very long time. The proposals are to start using those to regularly send supply ships to various moons and planets that we think we may want to send humans to later. Suppose the path to some particular moon takes 30 years. If we start sending supply ships down that path now, sending one every 6 months, say, then 30 years from now they start arriving. Then we can send the humans. The ship with the humans only needs to take enough supplies for the trip out, making the trip much more feasible. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_Floatees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_Floatees
- stereocodes 8y agono one, even from the military posters, mentioned the new salt water engines that are in development? https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/09/seawater-to-fuel-navy-vessels-_n_5113822.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/09/seawater-to-fuel-n...
- ape4 8y agoCool. But only for jet fuel. ie for air craft carriers.