The Flettner fleet is growing slowly but steadily. The LNG powered cruise ferry Viking Grace has become the latest commercial ship and the first passenger vessel to install a modern Flettner rotor sail. The 80-foot-tall rotor is expected to save fuel and to reduce carbon emissions by around 900 tonnes annually on the ship which runs between Turku, Finland and Stockholm, Sweden. The 57,565 GRT ferry, with a passenger capacity of 2,800, was also the first large passenger ferry to be powered by liquified natural gas (LNG) when it was delivered in 2013. The modern Flettner rotor designed, fabricated, and installed by Norsepower, is expected to save around 300 tonnes of LNG per year.  Viking Line is currently building a new ship which will feature two Flettner rotors. 

While the first ship powered by Flettner rotors crossed the Atlantic in 1926, the first modern ship to feature Flettner rotors was the E Ship 1 owned by Enercon. Delivered in 2010, the E Ship 1 has four rotors, each 27 meters tall and 4 meters in diameter, which are powered by a steam turbine off exhaust gas boilers. The ship is used to deliver wind turbine components for Enercon, the fourth largest wind turbine manufacturer in the world.  The rotors are reported to save roughly 25% of overall fuel costs, depending on the route.

In 2015, Finnish shipping line Bore installed a single rotor from Norsepower on the ro/ro M/V Estraden. Following successful test operations, a second rotor was installed a year later. Bore is reporting a 6% savings in fuel and believes that 20% is possible with larger rotors.

This year, Maersk Tankers will be installing two 30m tall by 5m diameter Norsepower rotor sails on a 109,647-deadweight tonne (DWT) Long Range 2 (LR2) product tanker. The twin rotors are expected to reduce average fuel consumption by 7 to 10 percent.

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