I think the big argument against more efficient cargo ships is that they have long lifetimes and new ones aren’t built that fast.
I think we should built giant cargo tugs with wind and solar power. They can just hook up to a cargo ship in the high seas and tow it. That way we can keep the existing ships.
I think this phrase would frighten any professional sailor. Tugboats don't really operate very far from shore, for good reason. You don't want to be in a storm and see the giant load to which you are strapped passing you and starting to roll.
The point is, the most dangerous points in the operation of a vessel are those when more than one vessel is in close proximity to another because it adds the extra problem of "we need to not hit the other guy" onto an already formidable stack of problems to be solved.
This isn't like programming where a little complexity can be handled at a trivial cost. Even if the tugs were say, AI controlled, so that endangering other sailors wasn't an immediate concern, these tugs would still be potential sources of catastrophic damage when fighting inclimate seas due to the size and materials they would have to be made from to actually make any significant difference in getting a fully laden cargo ship from A to B.
Tugs are justifiable on inland waters or near ports because they are generally there to replace the ship they are towing's need or means to manoeuvre, enabling smaller, tighter movements than the ship is capable of under its own power. It also enables a transfer of control from a helmsman who may not know the particulars of a port or waterway at that time, to that of a local who's only job is juggling ships in that port day in and day out.
Think of tugs as Valets. You don't want to deal with the hassle of dealing with one on the open sea, and it is guaranteed one you bring along with you won't know anything useful about where you are going. Best to just let the destination worry about it.
The best approach would be to develop a system that could be relatively quickly integrated into current hulls during a quick refit, or to start designing new hulls with the system from the get go. The physical world doesn't take kindly to hack jobs.
Disclaimer: not a sailor, just fascinated by logistics. If I have made any undue assumptions, please feel free to correct me.
You wouldn't want to be in a conventional tug at all in open ocean conditions, regardless of the tow or no tow at all.
You would need a new kind of tug, more resilient to waves and storms, with crew quarters, room for provisions and all of the life saving gear a normal open ocean ship has. You may as well build a new cargo ship.
So they didn't remove the propeller(s)? That's going to be a serious drag in a towing situation. And no, you can't just switch them on and off; they weigh many tons.
It's possible to retrofit existing ships with some of the new approaches. Just over a decade ago the company SkySail produced a kite like system that could be added to existing cargo ships to achieve multiple %age fuel savings.
> There’s a structural problem slowing down the process: ship owners (who have to make the investment) often don’t pay for the fuel – that’s the charterer’s duty. The charterer on the other side doesn’t charter the ship for long enough a period to make low-carbon technologies pay back. — Henning Kuehl, head of business development at SkySails
and
>Fuel costs mostly get passed onto the shipper so we see little use in installing potentially expensive, untested technology to which we see no other benefit. Basically I am interested but will not be the first to try it on a large scale. — Anonymous ship owner
So essentially it looks like the incentives are all in the wrong places for such technology to see rapid implementation.
That's not practical, the high sea can be incredibly dangerous, even with modern nautical technology. Most tech out there is informational, there's very little you can actually do if the ocean decides to throw a tantrum.
Also, ships don't just go to waste when they reach EOL, if they do. They get scrapped, similar to a car I guess, but a lot of material can be reused or recycled or sold, and so on.
Anyways yeah, giant tugs, not a good idea. Not a good use of resources.
>I think we should built giant cargo tugs with wind and solar power. They can just hook up to a cargo ship in the high seas and tow it. That way we can keep the existing ships.
This is the reverse of when managers make ridiculous assumptions about programming that stem from a complete lack of understanding.
I think we should built giant cargo tugs with wind and solar power. They can just hook up to a cargo ship in the high seas and tow it. That way we can keep the existing ships.