Check out the video here.

A large kite installed on a merchant ship is expected to save shipping fuel costs by up to 20% and do its part for the environment. The kite-fitted MV Beluga Skysails cargo ship will make its maiden voyage in early 2008 and its inventors are hoping to start a small revolution in greening our deep blue seas.

Gary Osoba <> writes:

This is the same principle utilized in a proposal made in a 2000 lecture at Tehachapi - what I would call in-situ dynamic soaring using the jet stream to power an around-the-world glider flight. The glider would fly away from the jet core, tethered by a thin composite line of several thousand feet leading to the towing and unpowered glider, which I called the "nurse wing." Of course, it could be made more efficient through the use of a highly efficient flying wing instead of a kite.

A flight condition which sweeps a stable and circular path is best, since power extracted is a function of the swept area for the flight path, not simply the wing area of the nurse wing. The nurse wing would be flying against the wind, while the manned glider would be flying with the wind. The difference in wind speeds between the jet core and adjacent winds make the flight possible, with energy being extracted dynamically due to this difference and transferred by the thin line in the coupled arrangement.

I envisioned a deployable flying nurse wing that would launch folded from the glider fuselage, likely lengthened, flown remotely into its position in the jet core once the glider was up there.

Thanks to David Glover.