The World’s Largest Wind-powered Cargo Ship Just Made Its First Delivery Across The Atlantic
Source: Fast Company, Adele Peters
Photo: Ronan Gladu/TOWT
A French startup is bringing sails back to the shipping industry.
When a new cargo ship set sail from France to New York last month, loaded with hundreds of pallets of champagne, wine, and cognac, it was the first time in nearly a century that a large cargo ship crossed the Atlantic powered almost entirely by the wind.
The French startup that designed the ship, called TOWT (TransOceanic Wind Transport), argues that sailing cargo ships can viably compete with container ships running on fossil fuels.
“We know the wind is abundant, and we’ve known it for centuries,” says Guillaume Le Grand, the startup’s cofounder and president. Now, he says, “the meterological models, the satellite communications, and the routing intelligence that we can put behind it make wind a reliable source of propulsion.”
This isn’t a traditional sailing ship
The company’s first vessel, called Anemos, is very different from a traditional sailing ship. It takes some inspiration from sailboats used in racing. First, the masts are made from carbon fiber. That makes them so lightweight that they can be much taller than the traditional version made from wood. The extra height means that they can hold up sails that are around twice as large, and catch more wind.
The sails are deployed with a mechanized system rather than sailors working by hand. “You could actually handle the whole rigging—the seven sails on board, and 3,000 square meters of sail—with just one remote control,” says Le Grand. At around 265 feet long, the vessel is a little bigger than the Cutty Sark, the famous British clipper ship. But while the Cutty Sark had 48 sailors, Anemos has just seven.
Custom routing software helps the ship use as much wind as possible. As a backup, the ship also has diesel electric engines. When there’s not much wind, those engines can be used in a hybrid mode at very low power. Around 95% of the time, Le Grand says, the ship can rely entirely on sails.
On the first journey, delays meant that the ship missed the best weather window, and it needed to use fuel when it first left France. But the last 10 days of the trip were powered by the sails. Because the company uses its own system to unload cargo—and most container ships sit for days at port before they can be unloaded—the total time for delivery is faster than the typical alternative. (The capacity of the ship, however, is much smaller than the largest modern container ships, which can hold more than 20,000 shipping containers; Anemos can carry around 1,000 tons of cargo on pallets.)
When the wind is strong enough and the ship is moving quickly, the propellers in the engines can spin backwards, generating power from the wake in the water. That energy can be used to run electronics on board, from the kitchen to ventilation.
Brands are using the service to help their own climate goals
The shipping cost is slightly higher than customers would pay on a standard container ship, Le Grand says. But TOWT also offers long-term contracts with a predictable price, without the wild swings that come from using diesel or fuel oil. And the first customers are willing to pay a little extra because it can help them reach their own climate goals—and because saying that your product was delivered on a sailing ship is good marketing. Brands can add a QR code to their labels that links to data about the CO2 savings on each journey.
While others are betting on alternative fuels to decarbonize shipping, Le Grand argues that wind power is a better option because it’s available now. “The shipping industry, even though they seem to be willing to decarbonize, is sort of kicking the can down the road,” he says. “Everyone’s hoping or pretending that cheap, reliable, really efficient decarbonized fuels are going to arrive tomorrow morning, like Santa.” Some so-called solutions may really be greenwashing; liquified natural gas, for example, can cause significant pollution through methane leaks.
TOWT now has two ships, and will begin making monthly transatlantic crossings. After they deliver wine and spirits from France to the U.S., the ships will travel to South America to pick up coffee to take back to Europe. Six more vessels are on order, and will be in use beginning in 2026. Ultimately, Le Grand hopes to have hundreds of vessels. The company is also beginning to talk to industry associations about how to train a new generation of sailors. “We want to formalize and create a proper training for a modern sailing cargo captain, which doesn’t exist,” he says.