After completing installation on the first vessel in January, Spanish automated wind-assisted propulsion system specialist bound4blue has installed four 24-meter eSAIL suction sails on the second of the planned five tankers owned by Danish Maersk Tankers.
Maersk’s 29,445 gwt medium-range (MR) tanker Maersk Tahiti was fitted with the ‘plug and play’ eSAILs at Chengxi Shipyard in Jiangyin, China, which will help it to slash emissions, achieve double-digit fuel savings, and enable simpler regulatory compliance, bound4blue reported.
In total, 20 units will be installed on five Maersk MR tankers, marking bound4blue’s largest ever single agreement . The first installation, on board the Maersk Trieste, was completed in January .
“The agreement with Maersk Tankers reflects the wider scaling up of wind power adoption across the industry. Wind, and particularly suction sail technology, delivers massive advantage in both environmental and commercial contexts, and appreciation of this reality is blossoming,” said bound4blue CEO and Co-Founder José Miguel Bermúdez .
“It marks an opportunity for us, of course, but more than that it demonstrates a chance for forward thinking owners to simplify an increasingly complex regulatory and operating environment with proven technology and a free – and freely available – power source.”
The Spanish firm explains that the autonomous eSAILs work by drawing air across an aerodynamically optimized surface to generate lift up to seven times greater than conventional rigid sails of a comparable size. The system reduces engine load, delivering compelling fuel and CO₂ savings while improving Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII) ratings.