An event designed to show off a new hybrid windship had to be cancelled this week due to the wrong weather for sea trials.
So while journalists had prepared to visit the Canopee in Le Havre on Tuesday, the vessel remained some 500 km away in Brest in Brittany.
TradeWinds has gotten wind that the event was cancelled so that the ship could undergo further sea trials “in specific weather conditions”.
These will have to be done in the waters off of Brest in the Bay of Biscay (Gulf of Gasgoyne in French), as they cannot be done in the busy waters outside of Le Havre.
The Canopee is designed to use wingsails to reduce emissions to move launcher parts to French Guiana.
The hybrid vessel propelled by four wingsails and two diesel engines is about to begin its first wind-propelled voyages under a 15-year contract carrying space launcher parts from Europe to the Pariacabo port in Kourou.
After construction was completed in December, the 1,000-lane-metre ro-ro was outfitted with four Oceanwings sails built by AYRO.
Its big unveil to the press was scheduled to take place on Tuesday and the vessel is understood to have performed most of its sea trials successfully.
“Sometimes we don’t have all the weather conditions for the last trials we need,” said a spokesperson for the shipowner said.
Contractual concerns
While wind conditions were a factor, contractual concerns were a bigger concern, she added.
As the vessel is “a worldwide first”, the needs of insurance and legal entities made the sea trials more complicated. That meant the decision to postpone the visit had to be taken at the last minute, a day before the meetings with journalists were scheduled to go ahead.
The Canopee is owned by Jifmar Guyane and chartered to shipping company Alizes, which will operate the vessel for French-German space launcher ArianeGroup.
ArianeGroup will use the vessel to carry components for its Ariane 6 rocket launcher for the European Space Agency.
The ship is the latest addition to a small but fast-growing fleet of vessels that are harnessing the power of wind to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
