Cruise ship Viking Grace to harness wind power with century-old techStaff Writer | April 12, 2018
Viking Line's flagship cruise liner Grace has received an upgrade this week. Ship workers in Turku installed a mechanical rotor sail on the vessel that is expected to significantly conserve fuel and reduce carbon emissions.
Shipping Norsepower has been developing its rotor sail tech
Compared to many other cruise ships that run on diesel around the world, Grace — fuelled with liquid natural gas (LNG ) — is already relatively environmentally-friendly.
The vessel has traversed its island-dotted routes through the archipelago between Turku and Stockholm, Sweden since 2013.
The principles behind the rotor sail technology itself is not new and actually about a century old, but the company said the need for more environmentally friendly power options has brought it back into use.
The extra power that the 24 meter-tall and four meter in diameter rotor sail provides is a result of a physics phenomenon known as the Magnus effect.
When the rotor spins, passing air flows at a lower pressure on one side than the opposite side, Viking Line explained in a press release on Wednesday.
Norsepower has been developing its rotor sail tech for the past five years and Viking Line said that it plans to use more of its rotors on its next passenger ferry which is currently being built in China.
The yet-to-be-named ship will be equipped with two of Norsepower rotor sails and is expected to be operational sometime in 2020. ■