The Ville de Bordeaux RoRo Ship Achieves Significant Fuel Savings with Wind Propulsion Technology
Just over a year since the installation of three fixed suction sails developed by Spanish cleantech engineering company bound4blue, the Louis Dreyfus Armateurs (LDA)-owned roll-on/roll-off (RoRo) ship Ville de Bordeaux has ‘knocked it out of the park’, having accomplished a ‘tremendous’ reduction in harmful pollutant emissions.
The Airbus-chartered vessel, which was built in 2004, was fitted with three 22-meter eSAIL suction sails in March 2024. As understood, the installation was co-funded by the European Union (EU). According to the Spain-based wind propulsion specialist, across 12 months, the RoRo ship achieved average daily fuel savings of 1.7 metric tons.
A third-party assessment conducted by the French organization Bureau Veritas Solutions Marine & Offshore (BVS) reportedly confirmed that the 5,200 dwt Ville de Bordeaux has the potential to accomplish annual savings of 568 metric tons of fuel and reductions of 2,181 of well-to-wake (WtW) carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
Peak fuel savings are projected to reach as much as 5.4 metric tons of fuel per day, bound4blue’s officials have shared.
As disclosed, the reductions reported on the ship — which transports Airbus subassemblies from Europe to the United States — were achieved without the use of weather routing and exclude the ‘substantial’ regulatory benefits linked to wind propulsion adoption.
“We’re thrilled to see this hard-working vessel making significant daily savings, with really exciting peak numbers that demonstrate huge potential. These results showcase how existing vessels – and not just newbuilds that have been designed for energy efficiency and wind propulsion – can harness this clean, renewable and accessible power source for transformative benefits,” David Ferrer, CTO of bound4blue, highlighted.
Sharing his thoughts about the results onboard the Ville de Bordeaux, Mathieu Muzeau, Transport & Logistics Managing Director, LDA, added: “It’s hugely rewarding to see the scale of savings enabled through this early adoption, while the performance achieved was also noteworthy – with a boost to vessel speed – as was the complete simplicity of operation.”
Over the past year, bound4blue officials said that they have seen an increased interest in the eSAIL solution. The performance as well as the ‘flexibility’ of wind-powered systems are cited as one of the main reasons why numerous shipping players have set their sights on this technology.
However, as the company has underscored, there is one principle driving them all: the fact that wind propulsion systems both enable reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and fuel consumption and ensure compliance with the FuelEU Maritime regulation and the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS).
Within the past months, bound4blue has worked together with many maritime stakeholders, including Norwegian shipping company Odfjell, Singapore-based shipowner Eastern Pacific Shipping (EPS), and French merchant firm Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC).
In February this year, bound4blue outfitted EPS’s 50,000 dwt oil and chemical tanker Pacific Sentinel with three suction sails at the Turkish Besiktas Shipyard. In April, LDC’s juice carrier MV Atlantic Orchard was equipped with what was hailed as “the world’s largest” suction sails on a ship, measuring 26 meters. In March, Odfjell’s Bow Olympus was fitted with four suction sails within just two days.
In addition to completed projects, bound4blue has received commissions from Denmark’s Maersk Tankers, Spanish shipowner Marflet Marine, and Norwegian shipowner Klaveness Combination Carriers ASA (KCC).
To remind, in November 2024, Maersk Tankers signed a contract with bound4blue for the installation of twenty 26-meter eSAILs across five separate MR tankers. KCC tapped the Spanish firm to equip its CABU III newbuild with suction sails in October of that same year. Merflet Marine decided to have a quartet of eSAILs installed on its oil and chemical tanker Santiago in May 2024.