Mitsui O.S.K. Lines’ (MOL) Shofu Maru, the world’s first coal carrier equipped with the Wind Challenger hard sail wind propulsion system, was judged ‘Ship of the Year 2022’ at the the Japan Society of Naval Architects and Ocean Engineers’ (JASNAOE) annual awards ceremony, reads an MOL release.
Ship of the Year 2022
In addition, Japan’s first LNG-fuelled ferry, the Sunflower Kurenai, which is owned by MOL and operated by its group company Ferry Sunflower, won the Large Passenger Ship Sector Award.
In a statement issued today (25 May), MOL said that the Shofu Maru ‘earned high marks for its significant reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by directly using wind power as a propulsion force, and for the development and implementation of ancillary equipment such as a fully automated control system that maintains the sail in an optimal state according to ocean weather conditions and the weather routing system that suggests the best route for the vessel’.
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Source: MOL
