For more than a century, commercial shipping steadily moved away from sails. Now they are coming back. Across the global fleet, shipowners are installing towering rotor sails, rigid wings and suction-based systems on everything from bulk carriers and tankers to containerships.

LNG carriers could be next. The idea is not to turn modern cargo ships back into sailing vessels. Instead, these systems are designed to work alongside conventional engines, using the wind to reduce fuel consumption whenever conditions allow.

What was once a niche experiment is beginning to look more like a real segment of commercial shipping. The International Windship Association says more than 100 large merchant ships are now equipped with modern wind propulsion systems, representing more than 5 million deadweight tons of carrying capacity. That is still a tiny share of the world fleet, but the ships are getting bigger, the owners more familiar and the projects more ambitious.

And 2026 has brought several signs that wind-assisted propulsion is moving beyond the demonstration stage. One of the biggest came this month from Maersk. The company plans to install a 35-meter rotor sail on one of its 8,700-TEU containerships, with testing expected to begin in 2027 on regular Atlantic services.

The project is expected to mark the first rotor sail installation on a containership. Rotor sails look more like giant vertical cylinders than traditional sails. They spin as wind passes around them, creating aerodynamic lift through the Magnus effect and generating thrust that reduces the load on the ship’s engines.

The concept is more than a century old, but modern controls and materials are making it practical on ships of a scale that would once have been difficult to imagine. Vale’s 400,000-dwt Sohar Max, one of the largest ore carriers in the world, is already fitted with five 35-meter rotor sails. The system was expected to cut fuel consumption by as much as 6%.

Vale is also planning to use rotor sails on future ethanol-powered very large ore carriers. Anemoi Marine Technologies completed the installation of five Rotor Sails onboard the 400,000 dwt Very Large Ore Carrier (VLOC), Sohar Max, making it the largest vessel to receive wind propulsion technology to date. Oil tankers are next.

Two VLCCs being built for Japan’s Idemitsu Tanker are scheduled to receive Norsepower rotor sails when they enter service in 2028, bringing wind-assisted propulsion to some of the largest ships afloat. LNG shipping may not be far behind. Korean Register, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, BAR Technologies and the Liberian Registry recently announced plans to study a 174,000-cubic-meter LNG carrier fitted with BAR Technologies’ Wind Wings.

The design moves the ship’s accommodation block forward, creating space for large rigid sails on deck. The project will examine the technical, safety and regulatory challenges of applying the system to LNG carriers. That is significant because LNG carriers are among the most sophisticated and tightly scheduled ships in commercial service.

If wind propulsion can work there, it would further strengthen the case that the technology is moving into the mainstream. Not every project is designed simply to assist an engine. France’s Neoliner Origin, delivered in 2025, uses two 76-meter carbon-fiber masts carrying about 3,000 square meters of sail area, with wind intended to provide the ship’s primary propulsion across the Atlantic.

The 136-meter ro-ro vessel can carry cars, containers and other cargo between Europe and North America. Neoliner Origin departs the RMK Shipyard in Turkey for sea trials. Airbus is taking a similar approach with a new generation of ro-ro ships designed to carry aircraft components across the Atlantic using a combination of wind propulsion, alternative fuels and optimized routing.