SOLUTION / PUBLIC SOURCE RECORD
Wavefoil is reducing fuel consumption with retractable bow foils
- Published 18 October 2022; updated 21 September 2026; estimated reading time 2 minutes. Marked available; listed under Maritime.
- Wavefoil’s patent-pending bow-foil module is designed to retract vertically into a ship’s hull and deploy in a combined vertical and rotational motion. This allows installation near the bow, where the company says it can dampen pitch motion and reduce wave-related resistance. Foils are made of strong, flexible fibreglass to tolerate impact loads in heavy seas.
- The company claims fuel-consumption and vessel-motion reductions of up to 15%; for high-speed ships it claims motion reductions up to 30%. It also says the system can reduce hull vibration and support higher speeds using less energy. These are vendor-reported maximums without test conditions in the article.
- The system is described as suitable for many vessel types, particularly 20–200 m vessels operating in wave-rich areas; it can be fitted to newbuilds or retrofitted. The first Wavefoil module was installed on a commercial passenger vessel in September 2019.
- A 2018 Wavefoil estimate put the annual retractable-foil market at up to NOK 3 billion (then roughly USD 328 million); this is a historical company estimate.
- Listed company: WAVEFOIL AS, NMK, Borgundvegen 340, 6009 Ålesund, Norway; wavefoil.com. No named contact appears in the page snapshot.