Wind-Assisted Shipping Gains Ground as Airbus RoRo Adds Rotor Sails

French shipowner LD Armateurs has completed the installation of six towering rotor sails aboard Spirit of Toulouse, a new roll-on/roll-off vessel being built to transport aircraft components for Airbus across...

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Caption: LD Armateurs’ Spirit of Toulouse, built for Airbus transatlantic transport operations, fitted with six 35-meter-tall Norsepower rotor sails at an outfitting site in Shanghai, China.

Photo: LD Armateurs/Norsepower French shipowner LD Armateurs has completed the installation of six towering rotor sails aboard Spirit of Toulouse , a new roll-on/roll-off vessel being built to transport aircraft components for Airbus across the Atlantic.

The installation, completed at a shipyard outfitting site in Shanghai, makes the 168-meter vessel the largest RoRo ship equipped with wind-assisted propulsion and gives it more mechanical sails than any other ship, according to LD Armateurs and Finnish wind propulsion specialist Norsepower.

Each of the six rotor sails stands 35 meters tall and measures 5 meters in diameter.

The rotating cylinders harness wind to generate additional thrust, reducing the workload on the ship’s main engines and, in turn, its fuel consumption.

The vessel is also equipped with two dual-fuel main engines and two generator sets capable of operating on e-methanol, bio-methanol or marine diesel oil.

The combination is intended to reduce fuel consumption and emissions without relying entirely on alternative fuels.

Spirit of Toulouse is the first of three sister ships being built for LD Armateurs under charter to Airbus.

The other two vessels, Spirit of Mobile and Spirit of Mirabel , will also receive six rotor sails each.

The ships will transport large aircraft assemblies between Airbus production facilities in Europe and North America, replacing the manufacturer’s existing transatlantic fleet.