Wind Propulsion Vessel E-Ship 1 – Interesting Ship of The Week

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:
  • Length: 130 metres
  • Width: 22.5 metres
  • Draught: 6-9 metres
  • Tonnage: 10.500 tdw / 9.700 tdw
  • Speed: 17.5 knots
  • Engine power: 2 x 3,500 kW
  • 3 holds below deck, capacity: 20.580 m³
  • Ice class E3

The Aurich based Enercon will start using the vessel to transport their wind turbines and components worldwide after the trials of fully equipped E-Ship 1 in 2009.

The principle of propulsion in E-Ship 1:

A spinning cylinder in a moving airstream creates a lateral force perpendicular to the direction of the airstream which, when used on ships, propels the ship to move forward.

Here is video of the launching of E-Ship 1 in August 2008:

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