SkySails GmbH & Co. KG, a limited partnership based in Hamburg, Germany, has developed a partial propulsion technique for seagoing vessels that harnesses the wind, ushering in a modern age of sail.

The system, which uses a single mast, a tether and a kite, was developed on the principle that wind is free and oil is not. The SkySail wind propulsion system does not replace the traditional oil-fuelled propulsion system but works together with it, reducing a ship’s fuel consumption by 20%, in ideal conditions, as well as its greenhouse-gas emissions.

As there is pressure on the shipping industry to become compliant with the Kyoto Protocol by 2012, the SkySail system is in a position to reduce operating costs by reducing fuel consumption and providing a degree of otherwise costly emissions management.

The kite itself owes more to an airplane wing than to traditional sails. It resembles a very large parasail.

The kite operates best at heights between 100 and 300 metres above the sea, in winds of three to eight beauforts at sea.

To launch the kite, the mast telescopes upward, lifting the kite.

When the kite, folded accordion-like when not in use, catches the wind, it unfurls and an automatic system of winches slowly releases the kite’s rope, until the kite reaches the optimal height and angle.

Once in the air, the kite manoeuvres in a pattern like a figure-eight, which triples the ship’s propulsion energy, compared with traditional sails of the same surface area. The SkySail can set a course of up to 50 degrees to the wind, as well as sail downwind.

To bring the kite in, the automatic system works in reverse. The process takes 10 to 20 minutes. When not in use, the SkySail system is stored in the forecastle.

The lead financier of the SkySail system is Luiken Oltmann Gruppe GmbH & Co. KG, a private shipping-industry financier based in Leer, Germany. Leading shipping companies — Triton Seatrade, Reederei Wessels, Reederei Jüngerhans, Briese Schiffahrt and Reederei Opielok — are among its top investors and eager to reap the benefits of the perfected project.

In February 2007, MV Beluga SkySail, the first commercial vessel equipped with the SkySail propulsion system, proceeded under sail, although with engines also engaged, from Germany to Venezuela. Beluga Group specializes in transporting large industrial equipment.

SkySails GmbH now offers systems for cargo ships, fishing trawlers, super yachts and sport yachts.

The SkySail system may be on the cutting edge of shipping, but, under pressure from high fuel prices over the summer, some more traditional models of sails made a return as well.

In July, a group of French merchants, Compagnie de Transport Maritime à la Voile, chartered a 108-year-old British ship, the Kathleen & May, to deliver a cargo of French wine to Dublin. The trip took six days, and the ship returned to the Continent with a cargo of Irish whiskey.

The French company continues to build a niche in transporting goods — French wine in one direction, Scotch and Irish whiskey in the other — across the English Channel, with zero emissions. The Belem, another CTMV ship, has delivered wine farther afield, from southern France to Montreal and Quebec City, as part of the provincial capital’s 400th anniversary celebrations.

— KATE BETTS-WILMOTT