UK's Union Maritime christens new Aframax tanker fitted with "wing sails"

UK shipping company Union Maritime formally named its newest Aframax product tanker in a ceremony in Shanghai on Wednesday, June 11.

Named Brands Hatch, the ship is still under construction at the facilities of China State Shipbuilding Corporation subsidiary Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding.

The newbuild has an LOA of 249.95 metres, a beam of 44 metres, and a total cargo capacity of approximately 800,000 barrels of various types of crude oil products.

The ship is also fitted with three 37-metre "wing sails," which can be retracted when needed — for example, when passing under a bridge. The wing sails were designed by Bar Technologies and supplied by CM Energy Tech.

Brands Hatch also recently began undergoing sea trials. Delivery is scheduled to take place in the coming weeks.

Editor's note: Over the last four decades or so, Baird Maritime has seen many similar proposals fail dramatically, with technology characterised by complexity, expense and almost total lack of result.

Funding for such projects inevitably involves direct subsidies, or subsidies-in-effect to the companies pushing them on governments or other gullible investors (not to mention very generous remuneration for the executives involved). Such businesses or business units tend not to stick around very long at all.