First, the maritime shipping industry has become so time-sensitive that, for example, they refuse to slow down to even 10 knots (basically, a knot is a mile per hour) when inside San Francisco Bay, an area with many marine hazards, many large ships, many ferries, and many more recreational boats,and where these huge ships traveling at 15-20 knots create a great danger to everything around.  One of the two reasons given for their refusal to slow down, and the only one that's credible, is that the companies don't want to lose the money they'd make when they save a few minutes by traveling faster than 10 knots inside the Bay.  As someone who has sailed almost 10,000 miles offshore, I can tell you that there are often times when there is no wind at all, and many more when there is little wind.  So, when the wind is not blowing strongly enough, the kites will be ignored and the ships will motor as usual.  They certainly will not wait for the wind to pick up before proceeding.

Second, the kites will only be useful when the wind is blowing a certain direction in relation to that which the ship is traveling, specifically when there is a tailwind.  Because moving creates "apparent" headwind, the wind is more often coming at you than at your side or rear (I'm using landlubber language for clarity) when traveling by vessel.  Therefore, the use of the kites will be very limited to situations where there is a strong tail wind.

The main result of this project will be to save money for steamship companies, not to protect the environment.  Publications like Grist should not aid this greenwashing by giving garbage like this added publicity.

Wind or no wind, they will use it when it saves fuel and they wouldn't do it at all if it didn't save them fuel above the cost of the sail.  So any fuel saved is a good thing.  The bigger problem is as you said, the shipping itself which is getting out of hand. My little bit is to avoid goods that come from the wrong places and to favor those goods that are more local even if I pay a little bit more.

Your basic premise is wrong.  Humans WILL stop shipping long distances because if we don't, there won't be a planet left to live on.  International shipping is one of the many human activities that are not ecologically sustainable for all the reasons I laid out and because of all the harmful non-native species that it brings into ecosystems.

My problem is not with the company that designed and manufactures the sails, it is with environmental media like Grist for participating in greenwashing.  Promoting these sails as something good is like promoting something that would cause slightly less suffering at a concentration camp.  The industry is very environmentally destructive in many ways, and that's what needs to be said here.

As to your libertarian position on regulation, nothing could be farther from the truth.  Without regulations on things like air & water pollution and destruction of habitat, the environment would be in much worse condition.  If it's not eliminated, the steamship industry should at least be highly regulated, which would reduce some of the worst environmental harms it causes.

Finally, your claim that "shipping companies are not going to go away just to save the environment" either means you don't want them to go away or is a self-fulfilling prophecy.  When people say something is not going to happen, they usually mean they don't want it to.  If that's not what you meant, you shouldn't take the defeatist attitude that it won't happen, because a defeatist attitude always ends in defeat.

Still, this is a good start.

Next phase.  Passenger carrying kite sail hydrofoil ships with wind turbines in ducted fans built into the kite sails.  The electric power used to drive electric thrusters and charge batteries.

The installation  on freighters would go better with wind turbines in the kites too.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

No, this is:

With nuclear ships, fuel expenditures are minor, both in terms of weight and cost. At current nuclear fuel prices an SHP hour produced by fissioning slightly enriched uranium fuel costs less than one sixth as much as an SHP hour produced by burning residual oil. The advantage is even more dramatic when compared to distillate fuels. There is virtually no change in weight on a nuclear powered ship because of fuel consumption.

There are obvious advantages to increased speed if fuel consumption is less constraining. More cargo can be moved with the same number of ships. Cargo will spend less time at sea and more time where it is needed. Shippers will pay higher rates for certain types of cargo since they will save on financial carrying costs. Since a faster ship requires the same crew size as a slow one, productivity can increase be improved without painful layoffs.

Nuclear ships can carry everything dangerous from nuclear power use on land and dump it safely at sea.  Finally a solution to the waste problem.  nuclear power is the future!!

Power too cheap to meter.  Water too radioactive to drink.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

What you are referring to is "hull speed," which is how fast a deep keel displacement vessel can move over the water.  The theory is that a vessel cannot move faster than the wave it creates, though there are exceptions, such as surfing down waves while sailing downwind.

The formula is the square root of the length at the waterline (LWL) times 1.34.  I don't know the average length of freighters, but 900 feet LWL is a good estimate.  At that size, the ship could travel at slightly over 40 knots before its hull speed began restricting its speed.  As ships don't travel anywhere near that fast (20-25 kts is their usual offshore speed), these kites COULD be used to increase speed instead of saving fuel.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/12/113159/502

but I maintain that it's a fine idea, that will indeed save fuel and money, if you take one kite mfr at his word:

"By using the SkySails-System, a ship's fuel costs can be reduced by 10- 35% on annual average, depending on wind conditions. Under optimal wind conditions, fuel consumption can temporarily be reduced by up to 50%. Even on a small, 87 metre cargo ship, savings of up to 280,000 euros can be made annually."

Even if the sail only comes out for whatever part of each voyage during which its use makes sense, why not?  

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

It should have been done a long time ago. A way to incentivate energy and polution reduction, ports should favor the clean ships by charging them less docking fees and more to the dirty ones.

The best wind is higher up and usually pretty stable compared to lower elevations. It seems like their experiment will be done with a pretty small kite.

To improve hydrodynamic-efficiency, one would actually want to look to multihulls, and bulbous bows.
google.com/search?q=ships+multihull+efficiency+container
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulbous_bow

A bulbous bow [...] modifies how water flows around the hull, reducing drag and increasing in speed, range, and fuel efficiency. Ships with bulbous bows generally have 12 to 15 percent better fuel efficiency than similar vessels without them.