Oceanwings® is a fully automated two-element wingsail developed by VPLP Design. Aboard the cargo vessel Canopée it has published fuel savings of 25–50% on transatlantic routes across two years of Atlantic service, with 99.6% availability. Wind Voyage builds its 80–120m explorer yachts around three to four of these wings, targeting 40–60% fuel reduction under wind.
Every builder in the superyacht market now gestures at sustainability. Almost none can point to an operating vessel and published numbers. This page is the technical case, using the public record.
Two elements, like an aircraft wing. A main element and a flap, with camber adjusted continuously to the apparent wind — generating thrust efficiently on most points of sail, not just downwind.
360-degree rotation. The whole wing weathervanes to any wind angle, and feathers to neutral when de-powered.
Automatic reefing. Wing area reduces automatically as wind strength rises; the system protects itself without crew intervention.
Bridge-managed, not crew-handled. No canvas, no rigging watch. The control system trims continuously; the bridge team supervises.
Canopée — built to carry Ariane 6 rocket components across the Atlantic on a fixed schedule — is the reference vessel for the entire technology. Her published operational results across two years: fuel savings of 25–50% per transatlantic voyage; average savings on the order of 1.3 tonnes of fuel per wing per day across all conditions, with recent crossings above 2.2 tonnes per wing per day — roughly two megawatts of equivalent engine power across her four wings; and 99.6% wing availability.
Those numbers were earned on commercial schedule-keeping duty, where the ship cannot wait for weather. An explorer yacht, which routes with the wind rather than against the calendar, starts from a better position than the vessel that proved the system.
Wind Voyage's range — the 90, the 110 flagship, and the Yacht Support shadow vessel — is engineered by the same VPLP practice that co-developed Oceanwings®. Three to four wings depending on the hull, a diesel-electric hybrid plant, and two systems the cargo ship does not carry: hydrogeneration, where the freewheeling propellers drive the motors in reverse under sail and cover the full hotel load above eight knots, and photovoltaic surfaces feeding the battery bank. The design target across expedition profiles is a 40–60% reduction in fuel burned — and under wind alone, zero cavitation noise, which matters in the ice, around wildlife, and to everyone sleeping aboard.
On Canopée's published record: roughly 1.3 tonnes per wing per day on average, above 2.2 tonnes per wing per day on recent transatlantic crossings. Voyage-level savings ranged 25–50% depending on route and season.
VPLP Design, the French naval architecture practice with four decades of performance-sailing pedigree, from America's Cup programmes to the cargo vessel Canopée. VPLP is Wind Voyage's design partner on the entire range.
Two years of Atlantic commercial service at 99.6% availability is the published record. And every Wind Voyage hull carries a full diesel-electric plant sized for 8,000 nautical miles without the wings.
In principle yes, and commercial operators are pursuing retrofits. In practice the gains come from designing the hull, rig positions, stability, and hybrid plant together from the first line — which is why Wind Voyage builds are clean-sheet designs.
Under wind alone there is no engine, no generator, and no propeller cavitation. For expedition itineraries — whale grounds, anchorages, the ice — a silent ship is a different experience of the sea.
Three to four Oceanwings®, hydrogeneration, photovoltaics, and a diesel-electric hybrid plant — engineered together from the first line by VPLP.