A Performance Depowering Investigation for Wind Powered Cargo Ships Along a Route

Abstract

Abstract. For a sailing yacht, depowering is a set of strategies used to limit the sail force magnitude by intentionally moving away from the point of maximum forward driving force, potentially reducing the ship speed. The reasons for doing this includes among others; reduction of quasi-static heeling angle, structural integrity of masts and sails and crew comfort. For a wind powered cargo ship, time spent on a route is of utmost importance. This leads to the question whether there is a performance difference between different depowering strategies and if so, how large. In this research, a wind-powered cargo vessel with rigid wings is described in a Velocity Prediction Program (VPP) with four-degrees of freedom, namely surge, sway, roll and yaw, with a maximum heel angle constraint. The resulting ship speed performance for different depowering strategies are investigated and the implications in roll and pitch-moments are discussed. The wind conditions when depowering is needed are identified. A statistical analysis on the probability of occurrence of these conditions and the impact of the different depowering strategies on the required number of days for a round-trip on a Transatlantic route is performed.