Might we be entering a new golden age of sail? More than a century after steam power replaced sail on the world’s major trade routes, wind powered technology is at the vanguard of efforts to cut fuel consumption and reduce emissions.

One example is the 80,962dwt bulk carrier Pyxis Ocean (above), which was built in 2017 and recently retrofitted with two 123ft (37.5m) high WindWing sails designed by UK firm BAR technologies.

The Pyxis Ocean is on charter to America’s Cargill Ocean Transport, whose president Jan Dieleman commented “Five, six years ago, if you would ask people in shipping about decarbonisng, they would say ‘well, it’s going to be very difficult, I don’t see this happening any time soon’. Five years later, I think the narrative has changed completely and everybody is really convinced that they need to do their part – everybody is just struggling a little on how we’re going to do this. That’s why we’ve taken the role as one of the larger players to underwrite some of the risk, and try things, and take the industry forward”.