Development of ships of the future

The planet population has doubled between 1960 and 2010, and are expecting a 50% growth by 2040. From this rapid growth it is important to mention that in 40 years the world seaborne trade has quadrupled from just 8 thousand billion tonne-miles in 1968 to over 32 thousand billion tonne-miles in 2008. Today, the international shipping industry is vital to the functioning of the Global Economy as it is responsible for the shipment of about 90% of the world trade. Indeed the cost of transport by sea does not represent a barrier to trade. As an example the shipping costs have increased by only 70% in the last 50 years while the American retail prices have risen by almost 700% on the same period! Thanks to the standardization of shipping sector, with the emergence of containerization, maritime transport remains a highly competitive way of moving the goods all over the world. This “Box Concept” has been the key driving of the development of liner shipping. In order to optimize the movements of goods all over the world, the trend is to order more and bigger containers ships.

[...] How can ships fit with the evolutions of the world? To face the problem of continuing growth, the shipping sector first decided to develop the size of the ships. Indeed, larger ships can offer considerable economies of scale in an increasing market, as they enable the diminution of smaller ships required to ship in 2006, will not remain the only one for a long time, as bigger containers ships possibilities are currently studied (22,000 TEU). We can also notice the evolution of VLCC ships (Very Large Crude Carrier - Dwt 200,000-320,000) to V-Plus ships (Improved ULCC because of the double hull, with a capacity of over 441.000 Deadweight) A few years ago, the innovative idea concerning ship construction was the speed of the ship. [...]

[...] In order to reduce the shipping sector carbon footprint, innovative ships designs are based on the utilisation of the environment strength. At sea, winds are strong, estimated at 20 knots. That is why, wind powered ships are able to reduce the reliance on diesel engines. At the moment shipbuilders think about the sails (technology of the last century ships) and kite (innovative ideas based on kitesurf) designs. A 160 square meters kite, flying at 600 feet above the sea- where winds are even more strong than at sea level-, enable to save up to 20% of diesel consumption. [...]