K Line acquires Airseas' Seawing ship kites business

Japanese shipowner Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha (K Line) released a statement on the acquisition, saying it had created a new company, Oceanicwing in France in January to acquire the Airseas business.

"The goal is to strengthen the development and commercialisation of ’Seawing’, an automated kite system," K Line said.

K Line said it expects Seawing to reduce CO2 emissions from vessels by approximately 20% and noted the technology’s suitabililty for retrofitting or installation on "any type of vessel", saying "no energy production or supply facility is required".

During development testing, the kite technology developer has seen its system generate average fuel and emissions savings of 16% for a "normalised transatlantic voyage", and the company said its findings put it on the right track for further refinement.

"The 16% projected fuel and emissions savings were calculated from the tonnes of traction measured on the Seawing system during the final round of sea trials on 5,291-dwt roro vessel Ville de Bordeaux, owned by Louis Dreyfus Armateurs, during transatlantic voyages. This initial performance data is in line with Seawing’s broader development roadmap aimed at delivering average savings of 20%," Airseas said in a post on social media outlet LinkedIn.

In October 2023, in real-world trials in the Atlantic, Airseas used Ville de Bordeaux as a data-gathering and validation hub for the Seawing wind propulsion system that uses automation to deploy and control a kite on flights where the kite flies in figure-of-eight patterns. 

"The trials have... enabled Airseas to validate the technology’s automation system, which successfully controlled the Seawing’s dynamic flights without any human intervention. This builds on earlier technical achievements in the sea trials on Ville de Bordeaux, including the validation of automated take-off and landing phases, the first traction flights with the kite in ’static’ position, and dynamic flights that increase the kite’s traction power," Airseas said.

At the time, Airseas said the next steps on the Seawing development roadmap would include ground-based tests at its new research and development centre in Dakhla, Morocco, as well as sea trials on a 211,982-dwt capesize vessel owned by K Line, which had purchased five Seawings with options for up to 51 in total.

• K Line to fly a kite on one bulker, maybe 49 other vessels
• K Line joins wind propulsion association
• ClassNK grants AiP for automated kite system