The Usuki Pioneer is a bulk carrier that operated successfully between 1985 and 1995 with a combined motor and sail propulsion system. Almost 20 ships were equipped with this drive.
After the end of the "classic" sailing cargo shipping , systems were developed around the world against the background of the high bunker prices during the oil crises in the mid-1970s and early 1980s, with which an attempt was made to reduce the fuel consumption of an otherwise conventional cargo ship with the help of a sailing device .
As early as mid-1979, the only 83 GRT motorized sailing ship Mini Daigo was launched, on which a similar sailing system was successfully tested. This basic concept was at the 1980 significantly smaller sail motor tanker Shin Aitoku Maru by Nippon Kokan in cooperation with the JAMDA ( YES pan M achinery D evelopment A developed ssociation) and implemented.
Based on the experience obtained in this way, the Nakamura Steamship Company in Kobe in 1984 commissioned the Japanese Usuki Tekkosho shipyard in Saiki to build the Usuki Pioneer . The Usuki Pioneer was used to transport wood and grain between Japan and the American west coast. The actual motor sail operation could take place up to a wind force of 9 Beaufort and was carried out without any significant disruptions until 1993; however, the sail system collided with port facilities in a south-east Chinese port. In 1995 the sail system was dismantled, as the increasing need for maintenance and repair of the sails with the lower bunker prices at that time no longer allowed efficient regular operation.
In 1987 the ship was renamed Swift Wings and, after several changes of owner and name, has been sailing under its current name Thepsupharat since 2011 .
Sail arrangement
The two automatically controlled, rigid but foldable JAMDA sails developed by NKK are attached to a front and a rear mast and should bring about a fuel saving of between 10 and 30 percent, depending on the route and wind. The results were better than expected, probably due to the better roll damping.
Individual evidence
↑ Dudszus, Alfred; Köpcke, Alfred: The big book of ship types. Augsburg, Weltbild Verlag (licensed edition by transpress, Berlin), 1995, p. 310. - ISBN 3-89350-831-7
↑ Galuppini, Gino, World Cyclopedia of Ships Volume II, merchant and passenger ships from their beginnings until today, Südwest Verlag, Munich, 1988, p. 85. - ISBN 3-517-01077-4
↑ Ronald O'Rourke, Navy Ship Propulsion Technologies: Options for Reducing Oil Use , Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, Department of the Navy - Naval Historical Center, 2006, p. 19
