EU Success at the Waterborne Awards 2023!

The Waterborne Awards 2023 recognised four outstanding European projects which demonstrated significant impact and innovation. The Environmental impact and climate change award was awarded to the SeaTech consortium (https://seatech2020.eu/). The EU funded SeaTech consortium, is developing two symbiotic ship engine and propulsion innovations, which, when combined, will lead to a great increase of fuel efficiency and radical emission reductions.

The University of Southampton, a key consortium partner led by Dr Nicholas Townsend (PI) and Dr James Bowker . They have been investigating the hydrodynamic performance of the bow foil technology, including experimental validation in the Boldrewood Towing Tank .

The principle of the bow foil, similar to that of a whale tail, generates a net thrust reducing the delivered power required to maintain a given speed in waves. This reduces the pitch and heave motion, reducing the added resistance in waves.

The work has led to several publications to date including:

Evaluation of bow foils on ship delivered power in waves using model tests

A probabilistic method to evaluate bow foils for realistic seas and shipping routes