Largest Cargo Sailboat Completes Historic First Atlantic Crossing
14 comments
·November 8, 2025Aurornis
defrost
I have a dim recollection of exactly this as a VC proposal likely put to YC in the past 24 months or so.
I think the notion was to fit masts to existing container ship and stacks, and I gsve it scant attention as my intuition (I once studied actual civil/mech engineering prior to jumping ship for applied math) suggested masts are better as integral parts of ships rather than bolt on after thoughts.
EDIT: Wingsails to reduce cargo ship fuel consumption (April 2023)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35426482
I’m Joseph, and along with Arpan and Bailey we are the founders of OutSail Shipping. We’re building a sail the size of a 747 that rolls up into a shipping container.
When deployed, it will generate thrust from the wind to reduce the fuel consumption of a cargo ship. An array of these devices will reduce fuel consumption on ships by up to 20%. These sails are easily stowed and removed to cause no interference with cargo operations.
Here’s a short video showing our prototype:
Not quite as I remembered .. kite sails, et al. are a good idea, I'm still a bit torn by the physics of a container deployed boom extension sail and the thrust transmission to the ship. Still, I haven't modeled it, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt.
EDIT2: Both links appear dead, so I guess that was a swing and a miss. Still, good to see such ideas pursued.
EDIT3: Also related
350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat (April 2024)
tengwar2
This is an area I have some peripheral involvement with. For retrofitted sails on bulkers, the figure of 10% saving in fuel is the usual one mentioned rather than 20%. However given the long life of ships, there is much more interest in retrofit than in new build.
You mention container ships. I haven't seen anything explicit on these, and I think the reason is probably that they cruise much faster than bulkers and tankers, which means the potential savings from sail is smaller. I would have thought 20% optimistic even for a new-build.
defrost
Retro fit is clearly a preferred path for a new approach given ship life spans and size of existing global transport fleet.
My gut objection to the container approach taken above in the first link was existing container locking mechanisms for ships can struggle in severe weather to keep the boxes on the boat .. additional forces from a sail (in good weather) might well mimic the forces that break stacks in bad weather.
Your point is well taken, I might suggest that container ships could be segregated into fast and slow cargo and that might help somewhat with total fleet fuel consumption. (pure spitball notion).
barbazoo
Made me think of this a couple months back
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/11/shipping...
aerostable_slug
> The 136-metre-long vessel had to rely partly on its auxiliary motor and its remaining sail after the aft sail was damaged in a storm shortly after departure.
Well, that's a bummer. That said, this does seem the way of the future. We just need to either figure out maintenance robots and/or find a way to keep human crew happy on long, slow voyages across the Pacific.
Aurornis
> or find a way to keep human crew happy on long, slow voyages across the Pacific.
The few people I know who pursued jobs on boats did so because they liked being out at sea, away from land.
Combine that with the modern availability of high speed internet via Starlink and entertainment is not a problem.
jacquesm
> The few people I know who pursued jobs on boats did so because they liked being out at sea, away from land.
Maybe it wasn't just the land they were getting away from.
aidenn0
Apparently late 19th to 20th century wind cargo ships had their crew essentially subsidized by the fact that some countries (IIRC in Scandinavia?) required commercial sailing experience to get a pilot's license. For bulk cargo (e.g. grain or guano) the economies worked out.
rdl
The rigid aerofoil sails seem more maintenance-free. Some of those are inflatable as well.
waltbosz
> find a way to keep human crew happy on long, slow voyages across the Pacific.
Makes me think of Rory Sutherland's ideas for getting passengers to be ok with a long ride duration on the Eurostar https://www.instagram.com/reel/C98_wbssLjG/
nradov
You've got to be kidding. Using a fully sail powered cargo vessel is a PR stunt, not the way of the future. Regular motorized cargo vessels will probably use some form of sails to slightly reduce fuel burn on downwind legs but it's physically impossible to move huge volumes of cargo purely by sail power in an economical way. There just isn't enough energy in the wind.
jacquesm
That's both wrong and right at the same time. There is plenty of energy in the wind, but when it isn't blowing in a favorable direction for your journey it will cause you to have to considerably lengthen your trip or end up in places where you don't want to go. It also isn't as constant and/or reliable as a motor. But until a few hundred years ago wind was all we had, and there is no reason why you could not make a containership that is wind powered just like it used to be. It's going to be interesting to see what kind of hull that would be. When the wind is blowing, favorable direction or not and it exceeds your expectations you're going to find out that there is more energy in the wind than you are prepared to deal with. If you've ever been on a sailboat in a storm that is the last thing you would write.
ForHackernews
There are even more crazy steampunk ideas out there, like pulling ships with giant high-altitude kites https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/giant-kite-sai...
I love that they're trying this. It appears the more practical goal might be retrofitting existing vessels with large sails to augment the motors, but making a point with a fully wind-powered vessel is a good show. Well, it would have been fully wind powered if not for the damaged sail. Good on them for sticking with the journey, though. I hope they keep running the vessel and get a few more fully wind powered journeys.