It´s Official, Peak Oil is soon!

The International Energy Agency has produced a report revising it´s projections for the onset of Peak Oil. Read George Monbiot´s assessment of the report compared to the IEA´s previous position over at celsias or at his own site along with his other articles.

Sail assisted cruise ship

I caught a program on TV while hanging out in southern Spain about a couple cruising the Med in a small sailboat. In the background I saw this amazing craft. Check it out at the Professional Travel Guide site which is where I found the image.

Wind assisted shipping

Here´s an interesting post over on Roland Piquepaille´s Technology Trends
which is also where I found the excellent graphic. Thanks Roland.

"German designers, who tested a prototype last year, estimate that such a hybrid sailing ship would see a 50 percent reduction of its fuel consumption. Danish and Japanese companies are also designing wind-assisted ships."

The rest of the post is very interesting and is well worth a visit to the site.

Sailing

Hello all,
I´m back on dry land, caught up on my sleep and fresh produce consumption and am looking forward to getting back to the blog. We are still in Spain and have internet access only at the local internet cafe so I´m limited in what I can do at the moment. I´ve got lots of thoughts about increasing the use of sail for shipping and want to do a series of posts on it at some point. It will have to wait until I get more done on my thesis though as it will require some research.

For now suffice it to say that I don´t think a return to square rigged ships is the way forward as they are quite limited in their ability to go upwind and this affects their ability to sail to a schedule. Also the amounts of manpower required on a traditionally rigged brig is quite high. So much to think about. I believe some ships are using kites to increase fuel economy downwind. I hope to look into this at some point.

Thanks for sticking with us during my break and I hope to provide you with lots of content in the months to come.

Robb