CSSC Jiangnan Shipbuilding has launched “Jiangnan Intelligent Sail” of independent design, and based on the “China Jiangnan type” VLGC brand PANDA series, timely launched China intelligent sail assisted ship concept design —— Wind Boosted Panda?.

The design of this ship takes energy saving and consumption reduction and GHG emission reduction as the short-term goal, takes the independent design of China's intelligent sail industrialization as the long-term goal, and constantly innovates new technologies to improve the comprehensive competitiveness of ships.

The “Jiangnan Intelligent Sail” launched by Jiangnan Shipbuilding is based on the principle of sail used on the sandproof flat-bottomed wooden boat (Sha Chuan) first used in Chongming, Shanghai.

Sha Chuan belongs to the flat bottom boat, featuring good stability, poor speed, relatively small shallow resistance to draft, hence multiple masts and sails, rope control by wind direction, thus changing the direction of the windward side. Early sails, however, were fixed sails, attached to a mast. This kind of sail has obvious disadvantages, as it can only accept the wind, if against the wind, it can not move normally. In addition, due to the sail material and skeleton material, the whole sail weight is heavy, hoisting a sail needs a lot of manpower.

“Jiangnan Intelligent Sail” is based on high performance computing platform to carry out the sail aerodynamic characteristics assessment and airfoil parameters selection, with key technology under independent control, capable of intelligent adjustment of the wind attack angle on the sail with changes of the wind speed and wind direction angle, facilitating the best booster effect on the sail, and arranging the interplay between the sails composing sail combination to select the best position of the sail layout.

The R&D team carries out the overall planning for the wind boosted system, carries out the comprehensive economic benefit analysis and environmental benefit analysis combined with the route database. It is projected that after 1 pair of Jiangnan intelligent sails are installed on the portside and starboard side, incoming wind of BF5 under the best angle at design speed of full load condition can save energy by 4%. Applying the automatic control system equipment facilitates flexible and simple operation by the crew, automatically reduces the height according to the requirements of the air draft, lowering and hoisting with ease. In case of harsh sea conditions, sails can be quickly collected and stored to ensure the ship safety. The sail surface material is selected from polymer composite material. Under the structural strength requirements of ensuring the wind pressure, whole sail lightweight design is carried out.

Furthermore, “Jiangnan Intelligent Sail” features simple and convenient installation, without the need of docking installation, it can be installed anytime and anywhere in line with the needs of the shipowner.

In the future, “Jiangnan Intelligent Sail” will see a modular design, which is composed of basic sailboard, suitable for the ship type arrangement and combination of different sizes, shorten the development cycle, bring better products and investment returns for the ship owner, and contribute to the global shipping GHG emission reduction cause.