Chantiers de l'Atlantinque, the French shipbuilder, said that it would test tall composite mast and solid sail on its site in St Nazaire in a move to make their use on large ships closer to becoming reality.
This autumn, the company will test a 38 metre tall composite mast and solid sail of 550 square metres on the quayside at its site, while a year later, a full sized mast of 95 metres in height with solid sail of 1,200 square metres would be erected. This would be the height of masts to be used on a 200 metre long sail powered cruise ship that the yard has designed.
Speaking an online presentation on 16 February, Chantiers de l'Atlantinque CEO Laurent Castaing said that solid sails have so far been tested on a small sailing yacht and onboard a sail powered cruise ship, on which one such sail had been fitted. Both tests showed that the concept works.
As the name would suggest, solid sails are made of composite material and parts of them are connected to each other by metal rings. This means that the sail folds in largely the same way as do sails currently in use. They can also partly lowered to reduce the amount of wind they catch in strong wind conditions.
Castaing said that conventional sails and masts would not be strong enough to bear the load of the wind in the scale that Chantiers de l'Atlantinque is planning to use them in their concept design three masted cruise ship.
The mats in the concept design vessel tilt up to 70 degrees forward to reduce their height, which is a requirement in the cruise industry as ships need to pass under bridges e.g. at Verrazano Narrows outside New York, Golden Gate in San Francisco and Oresund between Malmo and Copenhagen in Scandinavia.
Castaing said in his presentation that some owners have already expressed an interest in the solid sail concept cruise ship. They can also be used in other ship types, such as container vessels, he said.
