A cargo ship’s ‘WindWing’ sails saved it up to 12 tons of fuel per day - eviltoast
    • You’ll be shocked to find that electric cars have been invented 50 years before Benz came around with what today is considered the “invention of the automobile” by slapping an internal combustion engine on it.

    • space@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      8 months ago

      You can’t use traditional sails on a ship of that size and mass, they wouldn’t make much difference and would need a large crew to operate.

      If you want to apply the concept to modern ships, you need to design stronger sails (e.g. made of metal), you need to make it easy to operate with a small crew and you need to also design them in a way that doesn’t interfere with cranes in ports.

      It’s not as easy as just slapping sails and calling it a day.