• grue@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    If you could eliminate 80% of fuel costs you could make smaller vessels much more cost effective

    Ships don’t work that way. There are a couple of reasons other than fuel economy why they keep building them as big as they can:

    • Hull speed is proportional to waterline length. In other words, bigger ships can go faster.

    • Bigger ships have better economies of scale for the crew.

    Also, winds aren’t reliable enough for any ship to sail 95% of the time, unless you count being becalmed as “sailing.”