Women in Maritime Today: bound4blue’s Cristina Aleixendri harnesses the wind

When Spanish aerospace engineer Cristina Aleixendri cofounded a small start-up with the unusual name of bound4blue in 2014 to sell wind propulsion to the shipping industry, the prospects weren’t exactly promising. 

It was more than half a century since the last of the cargo-carrying sailing ships were retired and decades since French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau invented the suction sail. While the concept of the suction sail was ahead of its time, it laid the groundwork for what bound4blue is making a reality today.

Also, as Ms Aleixendri tells us, international shipowners were far from sure they needed wind power. But in her role as deputy chief executive of bound4blue, Ms Aleixendri has steadily overcome that initial scepticism. “Looking back, I’d say one of the biggest milestones was closing our first major agreements with international shipowners at a time when wind propulsion was still considered ‘nice to have’ rather than a solution for today”, she explains. “It helped shift the perception of the technology from prototype to real, scaleable impact and it set us on the path to become a reference in the sector.”

It’s a measure of how far bound4blue and wind propulsion has come that in late February, three of the Barcelona-based company’s 22-m tall eSAILs were installed on Pacific Sentinel, a tanker owned by Eastern Pacific Shipping, at the Besiktas Shipyard in Turkey. “It’s not every day you get to install the largest suction sails ever on a tanker,” comments Ms Aleixendri, “but today we did.”

Orderbook filling up

Meantime, bound4blue’s global orderbook is filling up. “We don’t see the wind as a thing of the past – it’s the future, and every installation proves that”, she predicts. Since the first installation in 2021 on a Panamanian fishing vessel, the group has installed suction sails on seven vessels, with over 50 eSAILs on order across 11 ships. And far from being reluctant to embrace wind propulsion, shipping companies are queuing up. Today, bound4blue’s clients include Eastern Pacific Shipping, Maersk Tankers, Marubeni, Klaveness, Odfjell and Louis Dreyfus. “Bringing bound4blue to this point has been no small feat, but the real challenge now is to keep scaling up”, she says. “We need to grow our team, expand our offering, strengthen partnerships, and increase production.”

Ms Aleixendri sits right in the middle of bound4blue’s ambitions. “As deputy chief executive I oversee the company’s strategic direction and help steer its growth across key areas like business development, communications, and partnerships”, she says. “I work closely with the rest of the leadership team to ensure we stay aligned with our mission to scale wind propulsion globally. My role also involves representing bound4blue in industry forums and regulatory discussions, building relationships with stakeholders, and ensuring wind propulsion has a strong voice in the maritime decarbonisation agenda.”

But how did she end up in the shipping industry? Was it by accident, through a particular passion or sense of mission? “A bit of all three, maybe”, Ms Aleixendri explains. “My background is in aerospace engineering, so the step into maritime wasn’t the most obvious one. But I’ve always been passionate about using technology to solve real-world problems.”

“When I came across the opportunity to cofound bound4blue [with two others], it felt like the perfect mix of technical challenge and mission-driven purpose. The environmental impact of shipping is massive and wind is a free, abundant energy source we were simply not using. That clicked for me.”

It also helped she has studied business and innovation, and the combination with aerospace engineering works well. “It allows me to move between technical and business discussions quite naturally”, she says.