This year’s NorShipping in Oslo (June, 9th – 12th) marked a twofold premiere for SkySails: The innovative towing kite propulsion was showcased to an enthusiastic audience of industry professionals and visitors at Lillestrøm exhibition halls for the first time. At the same time, the employees of the newly founded joint venture Zeppelin SkySails Sales & Service gave their official debut presenting the SkySails-System at an international trade fair.
“In view of the currently cautious atmosphere in the market due to the economic crisis, we are very satisfied with the interest in the SkySails-System and the response generated by our participation at NorShipping. Despite the crisis, “Green Shipping” was the predominant topic of the trade fair. The maritime industry is preparing for future CO2 emission-based levies. Consequently, innovative technologies and sustainable solutions like SkySails are becoming more and more important”, concludes Stephan Wrage, the founder and Managing Director of SkySails.
The conference program also focused on the issue of “Shipping and the Environment” and culminated in the widely noticed award ceremony for the first “Clean Shipping Awards”. The SkySails technology scored in the category “Clean Innovation”: The Swedish shipping company Stena Bulk was honored with an award for its innovative tanker concept “E-MAXair” on which the SkySails-System shall be employed in combination with diverse other environmentally sound technologies.
And also the impressive numbers released by exhibition management speak for themselves: NorShipping 2009 broke all previous records by hosting more than 15,500 industry professionals from across the world and over 1,100 exhibitors from 52 nations, confirming impressively its status as one of the leading international trade fairs of the maritime industry in Northern Europe.
Zeppelin SkySails Team Leader Sales Mr. Fabian Jürs at NorShipping 2009
