Odfjell to use digital twins for weather routing on chemical tankers
Tanker company Odfjell has begun the deployment of a new weather routing system from climate tech startup Syroco on two of its vessels, the Bow Olympus and Bow Optima, according to the company's release.
The two vessels are part of Odfjell’s Hudong-class chemical tanker series, flying the Norwegian flag. Both built in 2019, the 183 metre vessels are each equipped with 33 stainless steel tanks and operate primarily on trans-Pacific routes.
In early 2025, the Bow Olympus will be fitted with four eSAILs, bound4blue’s suction sails, making her the first tanker vessel in the world to use this wind assistance technology. As an add-on to optimise the sails’ effects, Odfjell will deploy Syroco’s digital weather calculation tool.
Leveraging weather and sea data, Syroco creates a digital twin of the vessel, driven by data, machine learning and naval architecture principles, to calculate optimised routing. The proposed route, updated as often as necessary, takes into account operating constraints including arrival time, seakeeping, safety of navigation, and cargo-specific operational parameters.
With specific models for the eSAIL included in the digital twin, the software will account for the specific energy needs and propulsive power created by the wind devices when computing an optimised route. In addition, the application will also measure the specific savings delivered by the sails to help assess the return on investment from the installation.
