Return to the age of sail?

You know fuel prices are going up and carbon emissions standards are tightening when we return to a prior age to harvest technology. Now admittedly, the picture above isn’t your garden variety xebec (great scrabble word btw,) but it is interesting that the hybrid technology of the 19th century is making a comeback.

This kind of reminds me of kite surfing technology wed to a cargo ship. Pretty different than the prior implementations that combined coal burning steam engines with traditional sailing ship technology. I’m looking forward to seeing one of these things pass by my window.

Technorati Tags: Sailing | Ship | Hybrid

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 5th, 2006 at 7:28 am and is filed under Business, Transportation, Wind.

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Another Wind Harvest Approach January 30th, 2008 6:11 am

[…] Back in December, 2006 we first wrote about SkySails, the company that wants shippers to return to the age of sail. Well, since that time they’ve grown up a bit and now have commercial product. The idea is simple, harness a large ship to a kite/sail with a large area (~600 m2) about 300 m above the surface where the winds are stronger and more consistent. The result? Up to 15% savings on fossil fuel consumption by letting the wind help out. Watch the SkySail in Action […]
SkySails takes Flight March 25th, 2008 12:13 am

[…] December, 2006, Return to the Age of Sail, we first reported on SkySails. The concept is simple, use an enormous kite-sail in conjunction […]