‘We were treated as crazy’: wind propulsion entrepreneur Cristina Munoz

Cristina Munoz never imagined that she would become an engineer, never dreamed of working in shipping and certainly had never pictured that she would run a business one day.

Today, she is a self-described “engineer at heart” and co-founder of Bound4Blue, a startup that has developed wind-assisted suction sails designed for the clean propulsion of vessels. As chief operating officer, she oversees the company’s commercial direction.

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Growing up in Spain, her dream was simple. All she wanted to do was change the world.

“I wanted to become a doctor when I was a child because what I really knew is that I wanted to generate an impact,” she told TradeWinds.

But everything changed following an unexpected conversation with a teacher, who encouraged her to pursue a career in engineering.

“She really told me how real engineers are involved in saving lives and in making this world a better place,” Munoz recalled. “Basically my motivation was there, I could really do what my mission was, what I really intended to do, through engineering.”

She chose to specialise in aeronautics — “not because I loved aeroplanes or space shuttles, but because of my love of solving problems” — which ultimately led Munoz and two of her classmates to maritime, when they realised the industry was struggling to find ways to reduce the fuel consumption of vessels.

“For us, it was very obvious,” she said. “We had been studying aeroplane wings for a lot of years. It was like, ‘Ok, that’s obvious. Let’s put aeroplane wings on ships to propel them’.”

This initial approach changed as research and development (R&D) work got underway and the team ultimately chose to focus on designing suction sails, the technology that Bound4Blue is commercialising today.

Munoz convinced classmates Jose Miguel Bermudez and David Ferrer to found Bound4Blue with her in 2014. Today, Bermudez is chief executive and Ferrer is chief technical officer.

The company’s first round of fundraising was completed in 2015 but the early days were tough and the organisation struggled to appeal to venture capital funds. (“Basically, we weren’t a sexy business for them,” Munoz said.)

Attracting talent was difficult too because it was hard to recruit the right people to a company that at that time was simply based on an idea — an idea that also faced resistance from the shipping sector itself.

“We went to the industry and we knew that wind propulsion could be part of the solution,” she said. “But we were treated as crazy at that time.”

But from Bound4Blue’s perspective, the crazy ones were some of the people they encountered in shipping.

“We told them, ‘Okay, we want to build a wind propulsion system to solve this problem. How do you see it? What are the characteristics that it should have?’,” Munoz said. “And some of them were saying very strange things like, ‘If the payback is 15 years, it’s okay’. Then others were saying one year. It was like, ‘Okay, we’re getting really weird answers here’.

“Basically, we had to develop first time the technology with their help — but not with that much help, because they weren’t intending to spend that much time and energy on us. So that was also difficult times to see what the hell I have to really develop and implement.”

Interest in Bound4Blue’s design concept received a boost just before the IMO 2020 regulations entered into force, as vessel pollution came under fresh scrutiny and shipping companies scrambled to cut their SO_x emissions.

After that, Bound4Blue began to bloom. Having been a “bullfighter” (her word) in the early days — doing a bit of everything, all of the time — Munoz moved away from the company’s technical activities to focus on the firm’s commercial activities.

Munoz wants to prove that shipping can decarbonise and cut its emissions using wind power.

“It’s unimaginable that we have an infinite and renewable resource that we are not using wisely,” she said. “Of course, we need alternative fuels. I don’t ever say that sails will be the only solution for shipping — it’s part of the solution.”

Munoz hopes that opting for wind propulsion will become standard in the future, but said shipowners will need help. Vendors such as Bound4Blue need to ensure sails are attractive by making them cost-effective. Owners will also need help with securing finance.

“Around 80% of the fleet could benefit from this type of technology,” she said. “Of course, not all 80% of the fleet will implement it in the next five years, but we hope a big bunch of those ships will be installed [with sails] and, in fact, what we’re seeing in the orderbook is that it’s growing exponentially.”

The next challenge for Bound4Blue is to make sure it has the capacity to handle the influx of new orders it anticipates. The company has partnered with a European manufacturer of wind-turbine towers, enabling the supply of around 1,500 sails per year from just one of its manufacturing facilities.

Suction sails have already been ordered by two major customers: French owner Louis Dreyfus Armateurs (LDA) and Marubeni Corp of Japan.

LDA has ordered three 22.5-metre sails, which have been fabricated and will be fitted onboard this year, while Marubeni has ordered four 36-metre sails for a panamax bulker, which will be installed this year or in 2024.

Two 17-metre sails were retrofitted on an Amasus Shipping multipurpose vessel in June.

Munoz said other installations will be announced in the near future for shipowners based in Europe and Asia.

“We’re very happy to see the market really adopting and demanding this type of technology so we’re preparing on that side — installing more units per ship, going to larger sizes of the fleet, different types of ships,” she said.

But given that Munoz’s career has been so driven by her personal values and desire to make a difference, would her younger self be proud?

“Young Cristina, I’m not sure if she would be so, so proud because really she wanted to change all of the world,” she said. “When I grew up, I knew that I had to choose just one of my battles and fight for that battle. Changing the whole world is very difficult.

“I will always use this example. I got the representative from an NGO [non-governmental organisation] telling me that I shouldn’t install my sails on those ships that pollute a lot because blah, blah, blah. Okay, girl, where does the energy you’re using come from? The clothes you’re wearing? Really, we need shipping.

“Of course, I’m not solving all of their problems. I’m not giving 100% of the energy that the ship needs, but we should start. Not starting is not a solution.”

For Munoz today, it is not so much about changing the world as it is about stepping up and getting involved in doing the right thing.

“I never envisioned myself in shipping,” she said. “I thought we could give a solution with our approach and with our knowledge. I didn’t think twice, I just stepped in.”