Smart Green Shipping’s sea trials a success

Smart Green Shipping (SGS), the UK-based company behind the development of the FastRig wing sail and FastRoute performance modelling tool for wind optimisation, has announced the results of sea trials conducted in late 2024.

The trails – which we trailed in our Totally Sust podcast interview with SGS’ CEO & Founder, Diane Gilpin last December – were delivered as part of the Winds of Change project (supported by the Government’s Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition Round 3), and saw FastRig’s wind-assisted propulsion (WAP) system fitted to the MV Pacific Grebe nuclear waste carrier (which SGS had chartered for the occasion).

With shipping operators keen to minimise time away from commercial operations (and hence potential lost revenue), the speed of FastRig’s installation process was as much part of the trial as the sea-going portion itself – and all was conducted to time and on-budget. According to Gilpin, the trials themselves also “demonstrated FastRig’s ability to address key market concerns, such as […] impact on vessel structure and operational safety (particularly visibility), and additional energy consumption to power WAPs.”

The success of FastRig’s sea trials, carried out in accordance with scientifically rigorous protocols drawn up by the International Towing Tank Conference (a voluntary association responsible for “the prediction of the hydrodynamic performance of ships […] based on the results of physical and numerical experiments”) allowed for a holistic assessment of vessel performance and overall impact, rather than isolating the performance of FastRig alone. This also facilitated independent verification of the accuracy of SGS’ FastRoute tool too (by the University of Southampton and cleantech consultancy Houlder).

With FastRig’s benefits now proven in real-world maritime conditions, SGS has moved its attention to commercial deployment – with its team actively collaborating with industry partners worldwide to scale wind propulsion across their global fleets.

Posted by: Craig Wentworth at 10:26

Tags: shipping   renwewables