Geogas, a Swiss shipowner of mainly LPG carriers, will test out a huge kite on one of its vessels as it looks for ways to improve its fleet performance.
It is part of the company’s ongoing decarbonisation journey, according to deputy chief executive Victoire Boudet.
Geogas has finished rolling out a new weather routing and performance tool, as well as being an early proponent of LPG as a fuel, and has turned its attention to wind propulsion.
The latest idea the company is trying is a kite system from French start-up, Beyond the Sea.
Beyond the Sea has a kite system, SeaKite, that is similar in appearance to the AirSeas solution.
SeaKite was installed on an Airbus vessel and, since 2024, has been owned by K-line through another company, OceanicWing.
Beyond the Sea entered the market with a smaller liberty kite, which has been installed on oceangoing yachts, such as those racing in the Vendee Globe.
It acts as an easy-to-deploy emergency system should any yachts become demasted in the middle of the ocean.
Chief executive Marc Thienpont said Beyond the Sea has been developing its kites for more than a decade, first as a safety tool and then larger systems for maritime decarbonisation.
The more industrial systems evolved from smaller trials, but now the kites are 200 square metres in size. The company has also designed a 400 square metre kite.
As well as signing a deal with Geogas, Thienpont said Beyond the Sea has also signed with Ultranav, with both companies helping the wind tech firm with the development of the 400 square metre system.
While other chemical and gas tanker operators have opted for other wind propulsion methods, such as Flettner rotors and suction sails, Boudet said the option for these is limited due to the Geogas trading model.
Initially, a smaller 50 square metre kite will be installed on the Geogas-owned 5,000-cbm Forbin (built 2011).
TradeWinds understands this could be replaced with a 100 square metre kite, or even larger.
Geogas operates a fleet of 57 LPG carriers ranging from 4,000 cbm to 90,000 cbm, fully owning 11 of them.
Some of the latest newbuildings it has ordered — including the newest 90,000-cbm Jean Raspail and Freycinet (both built 2022) — were constructed with LPG dual-fuelling capabilities and could be adapted to run off ammonia if the company sees this as a viable fuel in the future.
While some of the vessels chartered in have exhaust cleaning scrubbers to remove sulphur emissions, Boudet said Geogas is not a fan of the technology.
Another reason to opt for dual-fuelled gas is that LPG is mainly composed of butane and propane gases, so it produces very little SOx when combusted.
The online voyage optimisation tool the company has rolled out is from French start-up Syroco.
It requires no hardware to be installed on board, although it does rely on vessel information such as hull and engine characteristics, as well as operational and local weather data.
