Sustainable shipping: the future of smart wind propulsion

Simon has been leading the Technical Development at BAR Technologies since co-founding it in 2017. A 1999 graduate in Ship Science from the University of Southampton, he spent over 15 years leading race yacht design for major competitions like the America's Cup, Volvo Ocean Race and Grand Prix Race Yacht. As the former Head of Design and Engineering for Ben Ainslie Racing (BAR), he played a key role in the 2017 America's Cup in Bermuda. Simon is known for his visionary leadership and engineering expertise, significantly contributing to BAR's technical advancements and product development.

Gijs works as an On Board Specialist at MARIN’s Performance at Sea department. With a background in ship hydrodynamics at the Delft University of Technology, he is now involved in evaluating ship performance at full scale by sea trials and monitoring campaigns. Currently, Gijs is focussing on ways to improve our understanding of ship performance through operational tests and data, and by exploring new measurement equipment. What will the future of sea trialling a ship look like? And how do we evaluate the performance of wind propulsion in practice?”

Mikko leads strategy and development for Vaisala’s Maritime and Ports segment. He has established Vaisala’s maritime focus in modern weather awareness solutions, bringing 20 years of global sales and business development experience to build innovative solutions with various partner ecosystems.