Sails: deck strengthening must be considered
Oceanbird represented the scale of its sail with Lego models at SMM (Source: Charlie Bartlett)
“I've worked with ballast treatment systems and scrubber systems in the past… it is somewhere between the two, in terms of complexity,” he told Ship Repair Newsletter. “So, yes, you have a hundred or so things to take into account, and load carrying structures is one of them.
“As a starting point, we try to find a location on the base where you have good structure from the start. So, on a bulk carrier or a tanker, it would be somewhere on top of the transversal bulkhead, for example, and by that you could probably get the sail without too much reinforcing underneath.”
Because of the wind putting lateral pressure on the sails’ mounting point, engineers have to think hard as to whether the deck will be able to cope long-term. “It's more risk of long-term cracks and fatigue, structural damages,” explained Alfred Rapaport. Performance Engineer at Oceanbird. “It's something we have considered quite a lot in this candidate that we're going to install on right now and have already done the reinforcements on actually.
“This first installation we partnered up with, then we have the advantage that that ship is built in a way that it is already quite sturdy and strong.”
