Giant Sails Actually Help Cargo Ships Save Fuel, And The Planet In Turn

April 2, 2024 by Lewin Day 81 Comments

Shipping is not a clean business. The global economy is fueled by trade, and much of that trade involves hauling product from point A to point B. A great deal of that product goes by water. Shipping it around uses a great deal of fuel, and creates a great deal of greenhouse gas emissions. It’s bad for the environment, and it’s costly for shipping companies.

Any gain in efficiency can be an edge in this regard, and beneficial for the planet to boot. Now, it appears that good old fashioned sails might just be the tool that companies need to clean up their fleets. And it’s not some theory—real world numbers back it up!

Where The Wind Takes You

Sea transport has been branded as a significant contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for about 3% of the total. Shipping companies in turn are under increasing pressure to innovate and adapt, both for the good of the planet and their own coffers. It’s perhaps a small blessing that saving fuel and slashing emissions go hand in hand, and companies are desperate for any technology that can deliver on those goals.

Enter the WindWings, a revolutionary “wind assisted propulsion” concept developed by BAR Technologies. In partnership with ocean freight firm Cargill, these radical sails were installed aboard the Pyxis Ocean, a Kamsarmax bulk carrier chartered from Mitsubishi. These aren’t the canvas and rope constructs of yore . Instead, they’re a set of towering metal sails that stand 123 feet tall, designed to harness the wind’s power and propel the massive bulk carrier across the oceans. Continue reading “Giant Sails Actually Help Cargo Ships Save Fuel, And The Planet In Turn” →

A silver and black bike sits in front of a dark grey bridge. It is on a hard surface next to green grass. The bike has a large basket area in front of the steering tube that then connects to the front wheel which is at the other end of the basket from the handlebars. It is best described as a long john bike, but is a more modern take on it than the wooden box Dutch bike.

Building A Cargo Bike Dream

September 12, 2023 by Navarre Bartz 54 Comments

Cargo bikes can haul an impressive amount of stuff and serve as a car replacement for many folks around the world. While there are more models every year from bike manufacturers, the siren song of a custom build has led [Phil Vandelay] to build his own dream cargo bike.

The latest in a number of experiments in hand-built cargo bike frames, this electrified front-loader is an impressive machine. With a dual suspension and frame-integrated cargo area, this bike can haul in style and comfort. It uses a cable steering system to circumvent the boat-like handling of steering arm long john bikes and includes a number of nice touches like (mostly) internal cable routing.

The video below the break mostly covers welding the frame with [Vandelay]’s drool-worthy frame jig, so be sure to watch Part 2 of the video for how he outfits the bike including the internal cable routing and turning some parts for the cable steering system on the lathe. If you get an urge to build your own cargo bike after following along, he offers plans of this and some of his other cargo bike designs. [Vandelay] says this particular bike is not for the beginner, unlike his previous version built with square tubing.

Looking for more DIY cargo bikes? Checkout this Frankenbike, another front loader, or this Russian trike.

Continue reading “Building A Cargo Bike Dream” →

Automate The Freight: Autonomous Ships Look For Their Niche

October 11, 2021 by Dan Maloney 46 Comments

It is by no means an overstatement to say that life as we know it would grind to a halt without cargo ships. If any doubt remained about that fact, the last year and a half of supply chain woes put that to bed; we all now know just how much of the stuff we need — and sadly, a lot of the stuff we don’t need but still think we do — comes to us by way of one or more ocean crossings, on vessels specialized to carry everything from shipping containers to bulk liquid and solid cargo.

While the large and complex vessels that form the backbone of these globe-spanning supply chains are marvelous engineering achievements, they’re still utterly dependent on their crews to make them run efficiently. So it’s not at all surprising to learn that some shipping lines are working on ways to completely automate their cargo ships, to reduce their exposure to the need for human labor. On paper, it seems like a great idea — unless you’re a seafarer, of course. But is it a realistic scenario? Will shipping companies realize the savings that they apparently hope for by having fleets of unmanned cargo vessels plying the world’s oceans? Is this the right way to automate the freight?

Continue reading “Automate The Freight: Autonomous Ships Look For Their Niche” →

RORO Vessels: Driving Cars Across The Ocean

September 23, 2021 by Dan Maloney 27 Comments

YouTube does a pretty good job of making itself a target for criticism, but one thing you can say about their algorithms: when they work, they really work. Case in point, the other day I found a suggestion in my feed for a very recent video about salvaging a shipwreck. I can’t begin to guess what combination of view history and metadata Google mined to come to the conclusion that I’d be interested in this video, but they hit the nail on the head.

But more importantly, their algorithmic assessment of my interests must have been a goldmine to them — or it could have been if I didn’t have a minefield of ad blockers protecting me — because I fell down a rabbit hole that led me to a bunch of interesting videos. As it turns out, the shipwreck in that first video was of a cargo ship that was carrying thousands of brand-new automobiles, which were all destroyed in the fire and subsequent capsizing of a “roll-on/roll-off” (RORO) vessel off the coast of Georgia (the state, not the country) in 2019.

Thus began my journey into RORO vessels, on which automobiles and other bulky cargo are transported around the world. And while my personal assessment of the interests of Hackaday readers probably is not as finely tuned as Google’s algos, I figured there’s a better than decent chance that people might enjoy tagging along too.

Continue reading “RORO Vessels: Driving Cars Across The Ocean” →

SpaceX Offers NASA A Custom Moon Freighter

April 15, 2020 by Tom Nardi 58 Comments

Under the current Administration, NASA has been tasked with returning American astronauts to the Moon as quickly as possible. The Artemis program would launch a crewed mission to our nearest celestial neighbor as soon as 2024, and establish a system for sustainable exploration and habitation by 2028. It’s an extremely aggressive timeline, to put it mildly.

To have any chance of meeting these goals, NASA will have to enlist the help of not only its international partners, but private industry. There simply isn’t enough time for the agency to design, build, and test all of the hardware that will eventually be required for any sort of sustained presence on or around the Moon. By awarding a series of contracts, NASA plans to offload some of the logistical components of the Artemis program to qualified companies and agencies.

For anyone who’s been following the New Space race these last few years, it should come as no surprise to hear that SpaceX has already been awarded one of these lucrative logistics contracts. They’ve been selected as the first commercial provider for cargo deliveries to Gateway, a small space station that NASA intendeds to operate in lunar orbit. Considering SpaceX already has a contract to resupply the International Space Station, they were the ideal candidate to offer similar services for a future lunar outpost.

But that certainly doesn’t mean it will be easy. The so-called “Gateway Logistics Services” contract stipulates that providers must be able to deliver at least 3,400 kilograms (7,500 pounds) of pressurized cargo and 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) of unpressurized cargo to lunar orbit. That’s beyond the capabilities of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, which was only designed to service low Earth orbit.

To complete this new mission, the company is proposing a new vehicle they’re calling the Dragon XL that would ride to orbit on the Falcon Heavy booster. But even for this New Space darling, there’s not a lot of time to design, test, and build a brand-new spacecraft. To get the Dragon XL flying as quickly as possible, SpaceX is going to need to strip the craft down to the bare minimum.

Continue reading “SpaceX Offers NASA A Custom Moon Freighter” →

Automate The Freight: Shipping Containers Sorted By Robot Stevedores

May 13, 2019 by Dan Maloney 28 Comments

Towering behemoths are prowling the docks of Auckland, New Zealand, in a neverending shuffle of shipping containers, stacking and unstacking them like so many out-sized LEGO bricks. And they’re doing it all without human guidance.

It’s hard to overstate the impact containerized cargo has had on the modern world. The ability to load and unload ships laden with containers of standardized sizes rapidly with cranes, and then being able to plunk those boxes down onto a truck chassis or railcar carrier for land transportation has been a boon to the world’s economy, and it’s one of the main reasons we can order electronic doo-dads from China and have them show up at our doors essentially for free. At least eventually.

As with anything, solving one problem often creates other problems, and containerization is no different. The advantages of being able to load and unload one container rather than separately handling the dozen or more pallets that can fit inside it are obvious. But what then does one do with a dozen enormous containers? Or hundreds of them?

That’s where these giant self-driving cranes come in, and as we’ll see in this installment of “Automate the Freight”, these autonomous stevedores are helping ports milk as much value as possible out of containerization.

Continue reading “Automate The Freight: Shipping Containers Sorted By Robot Stevedores” →

Stretch Bike Hauls All

April 1, 2014 by Will Sweatman 43 Comments

cargobike

Need to haul some stuff? Got nothing to haul it with? Then fashion yourself a cargo bicycle! We’ve seen cargo bikes before, but none quite like this one. Built from a German “klapprad”, [Morgan] and his father fashioned a well constructed cargo bicycle which is sure to come in handy for many years.

They started by cutting the bike in half and welding in a 1 meter long square tubing extension. The klapprad style bicycle is made from thick metal stock, making it sturdy and easy to weld. This process also make it a true “stretch” vehicle as opposed to one that replaces the front end in order to keep the handle bar assembly near the rider.

Along with some nicely done woodwork and carbon fiber, they used parts from an old mountain bike including a front fork, front bearing and handlebar, tubing from an old steel lamp, a kickstand from a postman motorcycle, ~~and a kitchen sink~~ to complete the build. It should handle well so long as the weight of the cargo is not heavier than the weight of the driver.