Developers of an industrial-sized kite hope their idea will help cut fuel costs in the fishing industry.

Despite its weight, Germany's largest fishing vessel is being towed by a giant kite that will help cut its fuel consumption by up to a third.

The 15,000 ton “Maartje Theadora” is the first fishing vessel to use the system, in which a 191 square yard blue and white kite, similar to a paraglider, pulls the ship with a 984 foot rope, assisting its main engine.

[Stephan Brabeck, Technical Director, Skysails]:
"Skysail system is working like a wing of an aeroplane, so we fly this kite with relatively high speed, between 80 and 160 miles per hour, so we get very high lift force on the surface of his kite, which is equal to about two-and-a-half thousand square meters of a normal sailing boat."

The SkySail system is expected to cut the trawler’s fuel consumption by about 10 percent in the first phase of the pilot project

[Diederik Parlevliet, Ship Operator]:
"We know that during sailing from A to B, the sail is working, but the challenge for us is to see how it works during trawling, because then the ship is not moving from A to B but it's turning and moving around, there we have to find out how good it is working so it's really a pilot project, but we are confident it can work."

Some cargo ships already use the kite system.

It could be especially well suited for fishing trawlers, which travel slowly during fishing operations.

Over the next two years of development, Parlevliet said fuel savings through the system, which would also cut greenhouse gas emissions, were projected to increase to up to 30 percent.