Jumbo sheds more light on Jumbo Jubilee wind assisted propulsion

Jumbo Maritime, a member of the JSI Alliance, has recently installed two mechanical sails to its heavy-lift vessel Jumbo Jubilee. The decision was taken to boost the vessel’s efficiency and cut carbon emissions. 

The sails are an addition to a whole package of upgrades such as the new anti-fouling measures on the propellers, and ongoing monitoring of the hull’s anti-fouling layers. The company’s approach is to apply multiple fuel-saving solutions to a single vessel, thereby making possible the measurement of each technology’s contribution to the overall picture.

However, the question remained whether this type of addition is right for the vessel due to the positioning of one of the sails, between the vessel’s two 900-ton cranes. The company said the sails have a relatively small footprint and are suitable for heavy lift vessels. Additionally, the sails are flexibly mounted on a customised frame engineered in-house by Jumbo structural engineer Estelle Bongers. With this, the sails can be moved, or even transferred to another vessel should additional space be required for cargo.

Jumbo Technical Manager Andres Cassanova explains, “While not fully optimised for our vessel type, these sails will help us to gather valuable insights on real-world fuel savings and explore further optimisations that will allow Jumbo to reduce its environmental footprint even more.”

Banking on AI power

The installation of the mechanical sails followed the application of an anti-fouling coating on the ship’s propeller as well as the introduction of an AI-powered anti-fouling hull coating monitoring system.

The system is capable of capturing data such as vessel speed, geographical position, as well as sea water temperature and other parameters. This allows it to make predictions and make notifications when there is a risk of accelerated fouling.

“This can be viewed as a type of intelligent cruise control,” explains Cassanova. “It allows us to set a fuel consumption or maximum speed limit. With this, the eco-control system takes over and, based on RPM and propeller pitch, is continually adjusting to ensure optimally efficient performance, minimal fuel consumption and emissions.”