Month: November 2025

UPDATE II – Neoliner Origin

This picture from a webcam at the Baltimore, Maryland harbor shows Neoliner Origin being welcomed and led into port by the seagulls. The seagulls are shown in the yellow circles. Others have disappeared behind the ship.

This article is an UPDATE to two previous articless having to do with using wind power on modern ocean-going cargo ships. The first article was posted on October 1, 2018 (Cylindrical Sails) and a First UPDATE to that article was posted September 18, 2020 (UPDate – Sails from Sweden).

The discussion in this Second UPDate article celebrates the arrival of a wind powered “Roll On – Roll Off” (Ro-Ro) vessel that arrived in the Port of Baltimore on 30 October 2025.

In line with the concept of an UPDate, a future discussion of the cylindrical sail concept may be found on The Maritime Page that may be found at https://maritimepage.com/rotor-sails-on-ships/. As discussed in that article the concept of cylindrical and rotating sails has been around since 1920. The concept continues to be studied and numerous ships have been fitted with cylindrical sails in the past two decades.

Regarding the sails being developed by Swedish company Wallenius Marine and Danish company KNUD E. HANSEN in the First UPDATE, they are reinforcing their position in sustainable shipping with the development of the Sleipner RoRo. The Sleipner RoRo may be fitted with “wing sails,” which are rigid aerodynamic sails.

This Second UPDate could have been written as a stand-alone article on the maiden transatlantic voyage of the Neoliner Origin, but I feel it is an UPDate to the original article regarding the concept of wind power for ocean-going cargo vessels.

The Neoliner Origin is a 5,300-ton sailing roll-on/roll-off (Ro-Ro) cargo ship especially fitted for carrying cars. It was commissioned by Neoliner, a French company and was designed by the French naval architecture firm, MAURIC. It is a medium-sized ocean going vessel, and is discussed by M. Jean Zannotini, the CEO of Neoliner in an interview which may be found at https://youtu.be/dUdaBnJ58jI . The interview also contains a description of the vessel and its purpose in combating global-warming which is driving climate change. The design of the Neoliner Origin reduces the emissions of it transatlantic voyage by 80% to 90% from a typical voyage for delivery of cars and machinery. Ocean shipping moves the vast majority of goods manufactured from the country of origin to markets around the world. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) ocean shipping is responsible for 3% of the global greenhouse gas emissions.

Neoliner Origin’s propulsion is provided by two sets of sails mounted on two 90-meter (295 feet) masts. There is 3,000 square meters (more than 32,000 square feet) of total sail area. The ship’s speed under sail is 16 knots (more than 18 miles per hour). A ‘knot’ is the nautical term (nautical mile per hour) for the speed of a vessel. A knot is approximately equivalent to 1.2 miles per hour. It is noted that ocean cargo ships have an average speed of 18-20 knots.

The masts can be lowered/tilted (with sails furled as pictured in video) to less than half their height to enable the ship to pass under bridges as it enters and leaves ports. While in port the ship uses a diesel-electric hybrid propulsion system for maneuvering. This same diesel-electric hybrid system may be used if the sails are damaged during crossings. This was the case on the Neoliner Origin’s maiden voyage to North America and Baltimore as a storm at sea damaged the aft sails.

The following websites were visited and were utilized in the development of this article.

The picture used in this article may be found at https://youtu.be/7emUPVzVBTE; it is a screen-shot at approximately 1:15 minutes into the video. The video was taken/provided by StreamTimeLIVE.