adapted from http://www.stuff.co.nz/4366832a4560.html

Slower boats to China

Oil at more than $US90 ($NZ118) a barrel is concentrating minds in the shipping industry. Higher fuel costs and mounting pressure to curb emissions are leading modern merchant fleets to rediscover the ancient power of the sail. 

The world's 50,000 merchant ships, which carry 90 per cent of traded goods from oil, gas, coal, and grains to electronic goods, emit 800 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year. That's about 5 per cent of the world's total.

Also, their fuel costs rose by as much as 70 per cent last year. 

The world's first commercial ship powered partly by a giant kite set off on a maiden voyage last week, in an experiment which inventor Stephan Wrage hopes can wipe 20 per cent, or $1600, from the ship's daily fuel bill.  If the maiden voyage is a success, inventor and chief executive Wrage hopes to double the size of its kites to 320 square metres, and expand them again to 600 square metres in 2009.  The company hopes to fit 1500 ships by 2015.

GO-SLOW

But if Skysails is a relatively elaborate solution, another development shows the march of progress is not always linear: shipping companies seeking immediate answers to soaring fuel prices and the need to cut emissions are, simply, slowing down.

Slowing down by 10 per cent can lead to a 25 per cent reduction in fuel use. 

In Hamburg, the Hapag-Lloyd shipping company last year reduced the standard speed of its ships to 20 knots from 23‹ knots, and said it saved a "substantial amount" of fuel.

"We've saved so much fuel that we added a ship to the route and still saved costs," said Klaus Heims, press spokesman at the world's fifth-largest container shipping line.

"Why didn't we do this before?  We calculated that 5 knots slower saves up to 50 per cent in fuel."

Slowing down has not involved a decrease in capacity for the company. For container ships carrying mainly consumer goods from Hamburg to ports in the Far East, the round-trip at 20 knots now takes 63 days instead of 56, but to make up for this it added a vessel to the route to bring the total to nine.