You might have seen them, figures cutting across waves, taking chunks out of the ocean at speed, always chasing after an incredible and seemingly elusive sail in the sky. Kite Surfing is becoming an increasingly fixed sport on the Australian beachscape. But a little further out to sea you might soon find something even more impressive.

Some innovative shipping companies are looking at sails in a whole different way. Hamburg-based SkySails is producing a system of propulsion for commercial marine shipping that combines a conventional engine with giant, computer-manoeuvred kites. Marine shipping is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, outpolluting aviation as well as the combined exhaust of all the world’s cars, trucks and buses.

Kite systems promise to save between 10 and 35 per cent in fuel costs and thus emissions. With kites ranging from 160 to 5,000 square meters, systems can cost a few million to install, but as the literature states, fuel savings will redeem this initial outlay in three to five years.