r/solarpunk • u/Maritimewarp • 6h ago
Technology The live location of every wind-powered cargo ship in the world. How far are you from one? :)
Hi guys, I wanted to share an awesome free website I've come across, which I have absolutely no relation to or role in, it's just very Solarpunk i think.
Since it launched in June, 21 more ships have joined the map, all fitted with wind power in 2026.
That’s 117 vessels in service and 6 million deadweight tonnes (DWT) under sail.
Here's an explainer post by the sites' creator on Linkedin if you're interested.
Note: most of these ships still use fossil fuel, they just burn less by harnessing wind as well. Some are even tankers transporting oil! So I'm not saying it's a perfect or finished solution by any means. But unless this tiny segment of the huge 60,000+ vessel global industry that's actually doing something to cuts its emissions sees some public interest, some public support, this can't grow into anything bigger.
What I would love to see happen is that out of Solarpunk and adjacent streams of environmentalism we build a kind of fan culture emerges around wind ships. I.e. people are tracking them, having their favourite ship, wanting their own valuable products from overseas (anything that actually can't be produced locally) to reach them via wind ship, and where available taking rides on them as passengers for slower overseas travel.
We used to see sails on the horizon, arriving from foreign lands, and feel excitement, something deep and profound. Ships had names, histories, famous captains, and gods or goddesses on their prows.
Sailing ships vanished from our society's collective consciousness over the last century as giant fossil fuel powered container ports destroyed the economics of sailing ships calling into the heart of port cities around the world. Now the vast surface of the earth has been rendered meaningless, instant, consumed in a click and flushed away, millennia-old trade routes made meaningless.
There's no reason why anything shipped from abroad just HAS TO come at rapid speed, on a 100% fossil fueled container ship. We humans are simply not that important in the grand scheme of life on earth. We can and must live on less stuff, and the remaining essential items or valueable goods we still want from overseas can take longer to get to us, and arrive on completely wind-powered ships. (note: most modern wind power on ships is not "sails" - that's a subset)