The need of reducing the CO2 emissions and the increasing oil prices that affect the maritime industry fostered Yves Parlier to launch the project “beyond the sea®” dedicated to the development of kite auxiliary propulsion devices. The team is composed of several engineers researchers and students from several engineering schools as well as professional kite surfers sailors and fishermen. The ultimate goal is install the system on a container ship of the company CMA-CGM in order to validate the system. The aim of the project “beyond the sea®” is to develop kite auxiliary propulsion system devices. The flying kite consists in a Leading Edge Inflatable (LEI) kite. A LEI kite consists in a single skin canopy maintained by an inflatable tube structure. The main steering actuators used for kite control consist in pulleys and winches installed on the deck of the ship. The whole system is controlled by a computer dedicated to kite operation. Several trials were performed with kites developed by the “beyond the sea®” project.
Nowadays maritime transportation represents 90 % of the global trade and the amount of goods actually loaded aboard ships have increased considerably. The current world fleet is constituted of 100 000 commercial ships and 1 000 000 fishing ships. Moreover shipping is estimated to have emitted 1 046 million tonnes of CO2 in 2007 which corresponds to 3.3 % of the global emissions during 2007 according to the Second IMO GHG Study. Kite operation on ships has many advantages: By taking advantage of wind which is a 100 % renewable energy the ship’s energetic needs are reduced. Depending on the required efficiency kite propulsion can relieve the conventional diesel engine. According to the report of the United Nations “Review of Maritime Transportation” a kite auxiliary propulsion system can save up to 20 % fuel. For instance a container ship fuel consumption is about 150 000 litres per day. Using a kite as auxiliary propulsion system the fuel saving could amount to 30 000 litres per day (i.e. about $ 20 000...