Reply #4: #1: They need a less toy looking graphic. [View All]

It really looks like a bath tub toy with the colors they've chosen. Also, the floats being purely round, would hinder the ships movement in the water, slowing it down and making it waste energy. They either need to be little boat hulls themselves, or there needs to be crane infrastructure to lower them into place once the ship is on station, then raise them again when it's time to go home. And that takes me to #2.

#2: Idea of running out to sea to collect energy in batteries, then return to port to off-load, doesn't seem likely to pan out. However, the idea of using the difference between wave motion and a large ships hull motion to generate power IS interesting, and could be useful in driving the ships own engines. I'm not up on their tech, but it seems likely that many ships today would operate like diesel electric trains, using turbine or piston engines to turn generators, then using that power to spin the electric engines that turn the props. Perhaps such a design could use the energy in waves to supplement or replace the energy from fossil fuel burning engines. (Although I secretly yearn for the end of fossil fuels to cause a rebirth of Clipper ships.)