Germany's largest fishing vessel is due to leave the Netherlands this week, towed by a giant kite harnessing trade winds for South America that will help reduce its fuel consumption by up to a third.
The 15,000 tonne Maartje Theadora is the first fishing vessel to use the system, in which a 160 square metre blue and white kite similar to a paraglider, pulls the ship on a 300 metre rope, assisting its main engine.
"The challenge for us is to see how it works during trawling, because then the ship is not moving from A to B but it is turning and moving around," said Diederik Parlevliet, Head of fishing firm Parlevliet & Van der Plas, who are operators of the ship.
It harks back to an earlier maritime age, when merchant ships – especially from the Netherlands – sailed the seas to Asia and the Americas. Modern steam power replaced sails, cutting travel times and making it more predictable.
Parlevliet said the SkySails system was expected to cut Maartje Theadora's fuel consumption by about 10 per cent in the first phase of the pilot project, supported by about €780,000 of funding from the European Union and Germany.
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