Houlder joins Winds of Change project

The project, which will run from April 2023 to 2025, will see an SGS FastRig wing sail retrofitted on a large vessel. FastRig wing sail is an automated wind propulsion machinery being developed by Smart Green Shipping at a land-based site at Peel Ports Hunterston Port and Resource Centre in collaboration with Malin Group. 

Further to this, the company will develop its weather routeing TradeWind software that creates route plans for wind optimisation.

Houlder will lend its expertise in engineering system integration and vessel performance monitoring, initially completing a vessel survey, then studying the integration feasibility of the FastRig on the ship, identifying safety risks and ensuring regulatory and class society technical requirements are addressed in full.

It will further develop the concept design for the integration of the FastRig, before working with Malin Group and Caley Ocean Systems on the installation and vessel modifications required.

Subsequently, the Houlder team will support the sea trials and demonstration of the wing sail. Sensors will be installed to monitor the performance of the vessel and its engine throughout operations, both before and after the FastRig has been installed, and when the wing sail is both stowed and active.

This monitoring will allow calculation and verification of the power savings, and therefore the fuel and emissions savings, available from the FastRig, as well as specific items of technical interest such as leeway angle, heel angle and motion damping due to its presence. The data collection and analysis will also support SGS’s computational simulation requirements. 

The Winds of Change project receives funding from the UK Department for Transport as part of the Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition Round 3. The project also received £3.2M (US$3.8M) in private funding and a further £1.8M grant from government body Scottish Enterprise.

Project partners include the University of Southampton, SGS, Humphreys Yacht Design, Houlder, Malin Group, Caley Ocean Systems, Argo Engineering, Lloyd’s Register, MOL DryBulk and Drax.