Comment Re:It's a start (Score 4, Informative) 128
ehm, have you ever studied ships?
Large ships already have extremely efficient two stroke diesel engines (even over 50% which is extremely high if you consider the carnot max) They also have many devices to recover waste heat.
Propeller designs are already very sophisticated, difficult to improve there.
weight: the weight of the ship is very low relative to the amount of cargo it carries (compared to e.g. a truck). Also, the ship sails at relatively low speeds and mostly in a straight line so acceleration/deceleration losses that increase with mass are not really a factor.
All in all cargo ships are already the most efficient mode of transport on a fuel/cargo weight-distance ratio basis.