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Re:Maersk installed 100-foot-tall rotating sails on one of i... by Jsharm on Friday August 31, 2018 @02:01PM (#17887615)
A little embarrassed to ask but why would normal sails not work?
Re:Maersk installed 100-foot-tall rotating sails on one of i... by jabl on Friday August 31, 2018 @02:46PM (#17887879)
I guess too labor intensive, and probably problems scaling up to the size of current ships. Consider the last generation of sailing cargo ships before steam took over (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windjammer ), those were around 2000-5000 GRT, compared to a big container ship today at something like 170000 GRT. The tonnage difference is rather massive.

Also, if you look at pictures of windjammers, masts, rigging etc., would get in the way of cargo handling. Less so on a tanker compared to, say, a container ship, of course.

Re:Maersk installed 100-foot-tall rotating sails on one of i... by wingerlang on Friday August 31, 2018 @02:10PM (#17887670)
I don't know, but this looks very space saving and have much less moving parts.
Re:Maersk installed 100-foot-tall rotating sails on one of i... by interdocken on Friday August 31, 2018 @02:23PM (#17887759)
maintenance. the materials used for actual sails stretches eventually and is less effective. presumably these towers have very little to replace.
Re:Maersk installed 100-foot-tall rotating sails on one of i... by jhayward on Sunday September 02, 2018 @04:42PM (#17898541)
They have a very expensive, hard to replace, and high maintenance bearing at the base of the tower that carries the full force of the sail leveraged by a long moment arm. This bearing (along with lack of height = low wind) has been the reason that Flettner sails and wind turbines haven't been economical in the past.