Guus van der Bles

Guus van der Bles, Director Development of Conoship International BV, graduated in 1986 as a
Master of Science at ‘Delft University of Technology’, as a Naval Architect. He gained more than 30 years of experience in the maritime industry, managing an engineering and maritime consulting office and a steel prefabrication plant in the Netherlands.

In 2005 he joined Conoship International BV, the Innovative Design Office for Short Sea Shipping; first as leading Naval Architect and since 2007 as Director. The drive to ‘Improve Ship design by customized innovation’, is reflected in his important role in R&D projects and innovative designs, focussing on ‘eCONOlogy’: the combined improvement of eCONOmy
(fuel reduction) and eCOlogy (emission reduction), focussing wind and LNG for propulsion.

He worked as Ass. Professor at Delft University of Technology for 1 day/week from 2003 to 2015, were he investigated several methods of Wind Assisted Ship Propulsion. Based on technology developed by Jacques Cousteau he developed the VentiFoil and eConowind-unit. In 2016 eConowind BV was founded by Conoship and HCP to focus on developing and realizing the eConowind-unit: a powerful modular unit as ease to fit on a vessel as a 40 feet container, using the wind to reduce fuel and emissions for ships at sea.