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This weeks Interesting Ship is brought to us by MarineBuzz.com:

Thanks to increasing oil prices! Here comes E-Ship 1 from ‘Enercon’, one of the world’s leading companies in the wind energy sector from Germany. E-Ship 1 uses wind energy to cut down fuel costs and also helps to reduce emissions. Unlike Beluga Skysail which uses a huge parasail, E-Ship 1 uses four giant 25 metre high, 4 metre in diameter, rotating, vertical metal sailing rotors positioned two fore and two aft to harness wind energy. The sailing rotors are also called as Flettner rotors.

Here are some interesting features of E-Ship 1:

• Sailing rotors use wind energy to propel the ship and works on the the principle of Magnus effect named after German physicist, Heinrich Gustav Magnus .
• This concept was demonstrated by a German physicist Anton Flettner in 1924.
• The alphabet E stands for: ENERCON, Electro-technology, Environment, Economy, Ecology and the alphabet E also implies: Energy, Earth, Endurance, Encouragement, Experience, Experiment.
• Ship is under construction at Lindenau GmbH shipyards , Kiel and on August 02, ship naming and launching ceremonies took place.
• E-Ship 1 is expected to be delivered by December this year.
• The E-Ship’s main components such as sailing rotors, the highly efficient main engines, and the ship’s streamlined silhouette (above and below the water line) are developed directly by Enercon engineers.
• E-Ship 1 has been designed to cut down fuel costs by 30 percent.
• Technical data of E-Ship 1: [Continue Reading →]

UPDATE:

A while back we post this incident photo of two large gantry cranes collasping under strong winds at Jaxport.  Well Thanks to Fred Frey in this Maritime Monday and TugboatLife.com for pointing us towards video of this incident, which is now circulating the web.  I think TugboatLife nailed it by saying “looks like a starwars scene.”  Let’s take a look…

August 13, 2008: From what appears to be the result of strong winds whipping through the area, a 125 ft., 950-ton container crane collapsed, slamming into a second crane of the same size.  Both cranes crumbled to the ground in a heap of twisted metal, damaging a third crane.

The cranes, located on Jaxport’s Blount Island Marine Terminal in Jacksonville Fl., cost an estimated $6M each.  Luckily, no injuries were reported.

Investigators are looking further into the incident, as the cranes have withstood tropical storms for 25 years without a hitch.

For more information on this and other maritime incidents, check out Cargolaw.

Today’s hottest job market for mariners is Offshore Oil and Gas but this is by no means the only controversial industry segment which presents opportunities to mariners. Like exploratory drilling, Offshore wind farms have also raised controversy among industry experts but presents unique job opportunities for those looking for more than the average liner run. Today we look at the 5 most interesting wind turbine designs.
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Helix Wind

Helix Wind, who offers a well-designed system that creates electricity to power any home or small business. The Savonius turbine-based design catches wind from all directions, creating smooth powerful torque to spin the electric generator. It’s mounted up to 35 feet high, in winds as low as 10 mph, thus allowing the Helix system to fulfill electricity needs, while being congruous with the environment. The strength of the wind is captured by Helix’s distinctive and efficient vertical blade design. The vertical Savonious 2.0 and Savonious 5.0 have a patent pending design which empowers the turbine to convert wind power into energy less than 5 decibels above background noise. Translation… The noise that the turbine makes is similar to the noise generated when wind passes through a tree or a house, compared to conventional horizontal wind turbines that operate at up to ten times above the wind speed, which is responsible for the piercing whistling sound near wind farms. (Source: gLiving.tv | Video) [Continue Reading →]