The Gazechim Composites Group’s Italian company, Resipol, had the honour of seeing the unidirectional carbon* supplied by our partner Hexcel selected for the manufacture of the four masts for the sails of the Canopée. In case you’ve forgotten, this is the first hybrid industrial cargo ship powered by wind.
It was designed for ArianeGroup to transport parts for the Ariane 6 launcher from Bordeaux to the Kourou space base in French Guiana. French company Ayro designed these sails, known as ‘Oceanwings’ because their construction was inspired by aircraft wings, which contain carbon.
No unidirectional carbon had passed the qualification tests until Resipol was included in the last lamination test. Of the five carbons tested, only the one distributed by Resipol significantly exceeded the qualification parameters. As a result of this success, Ayro selected ETA Blade (a customer of our Italian subsidiary) to take part in the project.
* Unidirectional carbon fiber fabric is a type of carbon reinforcement that is non-woven and features all fibers running in a single, parallel
direction