• 0x0@programming.dev
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    2 months ago

    “We know the wind is abundant, and we’ve known it for centuries,”

    Gee really?

    As a backup, the ship also has diesel electric engines.

    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.

    If it left “last month” on the 31st i’d say that’s about 50%, not 95.

    Cool idea but humans want that crap plastic useless trinkets tomorrow, not next month. Time will tell…

    • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 months ago

      A ton of things that come by sea doesn’t matter much on time. Think about steel and vehicles and raw goods and all the other stuff that isn’t direct to consumer. A month or so isn’t a big deal in many cases.

      The problem is that if my math checks out and what is written in the article is true, then this sail boats capacity is less than 1/4 of a single percent of the bigger fuel powered ships. You’d have to make and sail another 500 just to equal the capacity of 1 normal cargo ship.