In this week’s episode, we welcome Miles Keeney-Ritchie and Satchel Douglas, the founders of ALOFT. This startup champions wind propulsion and was founded in 2021. They aim to retrofit current ships with wind propulsion and optimize operations to significantly reduce shipping supply chain emissions. 

Our guests are creators and well-experienced in the technical field. Satchel is a naval architect and professional engineer. He has built sailing yachts, crewed on oil tankers, and engineered retrofits for numerous commercial ships. He also recently led the integration of the largest battery-electric ferry in the world. 

Miles has built mobile autonomous robots and worked in industrial process automation. He is an expert at integrating technology, with a decade of experience in mechanical design, hardware development, and project management.

Their shared passion for decarbonization and solving challenging problems gave rise to Aloft where they try to make maritime shipping cleaner and more fuel-efficient. Currently, their retrofitted vessels reduce emissions per shipment by 50 percent; however, in the future, they will be emission-free.

Michelin, among a group of 12 European cargo owners, has made a call to bid for a tender to move 1,000 TEUs weekly, from Europe to the US on wind-powered vessels that reduce CO2 emissions by 50%. This is an exciting opportunity for Aloft:  Miles and Satchel will detail their bidding process with us. Tune in to hear about their proposition and future plans for making maritime shipping cleaner using wind propulsion technology.