BlueWeek 2016:


winds of change and an


ocean of opportunities Making smart use of the environment to develop sustainable activities at sea


Following the success of Blue Week 2015 that was hosted by Deltares in Delft, MARIN’s headquarters


in Wageningen welcomed the conference back


this year. Here are some of the many highlights.


I


nitiated five years ago by MARIN, Blue Week is hosted each two years at a participant’s location. With the event


back where it all began, some 120 people joined the many different seminars and workshops, and pitched their proposals for new Joint Industry Projects.


For several years now, projects have focused on the use of wind for assistance or as the main propulsion method. This year the ‘Natural Propulsion Seminar’ dealt with the use of the environmental forces for shipping.


‘ Thank you very much for a very interesting participation at BlueWeek and for the invitation to speak. This is definitely an event I’d like to re-visit next year.’


Guilhem Gaillarde g.gaillarde@marin.nl


14 report Magnus Rahm, Hexicon AB


Because of the domination of wind as a source of power in the current projects, the seminar was co-organised with the Inter- national Wind Ship Association. And Gavin Allwright, Secretary of the IWSA, was chairing the seminar.


Presentations covered technology progress, current projects and regulation. There were several interesting initiatives coming from Spain, the United States, England, France and the Netherlands and these helped provide a good overview of possible niche markets where wind could be efficiently used. Initiatives included ‘micro shipping’ in developing countries, shortsea shipping in Europe and new generation cruise vessels.


On the supplier side, systems to extract wind energy are progressing much further towards large-scale, reliable products that shipping could benefit from. Similar to ESD (energy saving devices) that have flourished in the last years to save energy by improving propulsion efficiency, we talk today about EPD (Energy Producing Devices) making smart use of environmental forces. Finally,


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