The Mitsubishi Air Lubrication System (MALS) that lets ships ride on a low-friction 'air carpet': It was already demonstrated to reduce fuel consumption by 13% in its first trials.

I thought ships sink when they encounter aerated water.

This is the equivalent of a layer of sea foam on top of regular water.

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12 years ago, are they actually using this

I bet this needs to be accompanied with some new paint tech in order to protect the bottom of the ship from all those corrosive bubbles🧐

It's just air, at a similar pressure to the surrounding water.

Whenever I see a story like this, I scream at my display: “EVERY SHIP SHOULD BE REQUIRED TO HAVE THIS TECHNOLOGY.”

Similar system is used on icebreakers to reduce friction between the hull and the ice.

A decent stop gap unless it's very maintenance heavy. ..until reactors are put on ships, as they should.

Beyond skin viscous adhesion (hydrogen bonding, Van der Waals, mechanical contact), further work can be done on leading and trailing body pressure zones, including the high surface area, high speed (and thus drag), vorticular props. Increasing the entrained bubble surface also, or reducing the costs of large-scale high pressure air pumps. Honestly, we haven't really improved much since steam engines and light bulbs in a lot of technology sectors.