#sail cargo

[lucybellwood]

Sharing another longer comic I made for The Nib back in 2016, since they'll be shutting up shop at the end of this year. This piece was such a great excuse to dig deep into the world of sail-powered cargo! I particularly loved talking to the team behind Ceiba, who are now years into their build and documenting the entire shipbuilding process along the way.

(Dig this? There's always room for more passengers aboard the good ship Patreon.)

[solarpunkbusiness]

Freight sailing as high-tech solarpunk

Urgently sought: Alternative to conventional goods transportation by sea. Container ships, general cargo ships and tankers are responsible for almost three percent of global CO2 emissions. A look back could lead to a step forward from the climate Saul to the climate Paul: Why not ship goods under sail again?

The current cargo sailing movement uses old ships(Avontuur, Tres Hombres), builds new ones according to old plans(Ceiba) or plans new ones according to new plans(Veer Voyage).

Within this movement, the French organization Transoceanic Wind Transport/TOWT is one of the best organized players. As a brokerage agency, it arranges sea transportation with sailing ships that it does not own itself – such as the Avontuur or the Tres Hombres. After more than ten years of experience with old ships, TOWT has come to a drastic conclusion: Freight sailing needs to get out of its romantic niche.

If cargo sailing is to establish itself as a robust leg of maritime transportation, it must not remain confined to antique ships such as the Avontuur or the Tres Hombres. There are also no more trucks on the road whose engines are started with a crank. Transporting goods under sail is a high-tech task.

TOWT is tackling this task by building two of its own cargo sailing vessels with aluminum hulls and carbon masts. Two years ago, they placed the order with the French shipyard Piriou. The identical ships are being built at the Piriou shipyards in Romania and Vietnam. 

Grain de Sail, also a French company, is implementing a very similar project. Their cargo ship Grain de Sail II is a little smaller at just over 50 meters in length, but is very close to the two TOWT ships.

[caterjunes]

The sailing vessel De Gallant and its crew suffered a serious incident on May 21, 2024

[from May 23, 2024] The Blue Schooner Company has received official word that the search and rescue operation for the two sailors still missing following the sinking of the sailing cargo De Gallant on Tuesday May 21 has been ended.

They had been actively sought by the U.S. Coast Guard, in charge of operations in the area, since Tuesday May 21, after the six other people on board had been located and winched off by helicopter in the early morning (local time).

Despite our insistence on continuing the search, the scale of the resources deployed, the excellence of the U.S. Coast Guard and the weather conditions in which it was conducted force us to consider the worst-case outcome.

It’s an upheaval for the company, the maritime community and the sail cargo community in particular, who are losing sailors and, above all, exceptional human beings.

For the sake of the families, we are unable to provide any further information on missing persons at this time.

Our thoughts and attention go out to their families and loved ones.

They are supported and monitored by a dedicated psychological support team, and we have been at their side since the start of operations.

This incident, which resulted in the loss of a well-proven vessel manned by experienced professional sailors, is a reminder of the dangers of navigation and the seafaring profession.

The sequence leading up to the sinking of the sailing cargo in the southern Bahamas remains to be clarified with the repatriated crew – including the captain, the relevant authorities and meteorological and technical analyses.

Preliminary information indicates an unexpected, extremely sudden and violent meteorological phenomenon while the ship was underway in light conditions. This would have led to its capsizing and subsequent loss at a depth of over 2,000 meters.

The six people rescued by helicopter on Tuesday and taken in by French diplomatic services were repatriated today. They received dedicated psychological care and were reunited with their loved ones.

The Blue Schooner Company would like to thank everyone for their support, and in particular the solidarity shown by the entire sailing community. Your presence is important to us, and will be all the more precious in the days and weeks to come.

[a-solitary-sea-rover-backup]

The modern sail-cargo ship Grain de Sail II is at South Street Seaport this week! (Although they leave tonight.)

[peggymerkur]

Podcast Fair Winds Collective

Thrilled to announce the podcast of Fair Winds Collective! Join us in supporting a sustainable future and living the dream.

[tiofrean]

"Have you seen the captain?" "He's with Mr Silver, checking the cargo."

I had an idea. That's the idea. Enjoy the idea!

[scannersombre]

Im gonna b honest in the question of why was it so bad/how could they have prevented the events of the game it was a situation where enough shit just snowballed. The first step in the shitstorm though... was the corporation not. Putting locks. On the sleeping quarters.

Where's the brig? Did they brief anyone on if a crewmember did something criminal? Why wasn't there a constant emergency comms open? Why wasn't the autopilot shutoff key secured.

The underlying evil in the game is corporate negligence.

[ltwilliammowett]

Tonnage

Today tonnage refers to a ship's displacement in the water or the gross pounds of cargo it is capable of carrying. In the days of sail this was not so, especially since the 15th century. Tonnage was spelled "tunnage" and referred to the number of "tuns" a ship could carry.

A "tun" was a barrel normally used for transporting wine and tunnage specified the number of barrels that would fit into the ship's hold.

[cognitivejustice]

Solapunk experiments towards zero-emission shipping

The Apollonia is the first sail-powered vessel in decades to run cargo along the US coast, and while the ship and its technology are old, its goal is new and ambitious: to demonstrate effective ways to decarbonize the maritime transport industry by 2050. 

The sailboat is part of an international movement that’s been gathering steam and now includes a half-dozen ships from North America and Europe with more on the way. “We have relied on wind propulsion for thousands of years,” Christiaan De Beukelaer, a professor of cultural policy at the University of Melbourne, said. De Beukelaer spent five months aboard a cargo schooner in 2020. “The wind is there, so we can use it.”

“Sometimes you just have to do it so people can see it's possible,” Vogel said. “Then things begin to fill in and form up behind that reality.”

As international resolve to combat the climate crisis has grown, particular attention has focused on the shipping industry, which generates 3% of global carbon emissions. Unlike trucking and rail, which have always relied on fossil fuels, shipping for most of its history has been carbon-neutral, with goods carried across the sea by wind and muscle power since the Bronze Age. The globe-spanning mercantile empires of the colonial era were built on sail power. But the know-how they perfected has largely vanished, with the last of the great sailing ships broken up during the Depression. Since then, the majority of the world’s merchant fleet has run on bunker fuel, a foul sludge that emerges as the dregs of petroleum refining.

 Over the next five months, until the sailing season ends in October, the Apollonia will sail back and forth between the city and its home base, in Hudson, carrying artisanal foods and raw materials for customers who care deeply about product authenticity and their role in the health of the environment. Some of its cargo will be transferred to a Grain de Sail ship and sent across the Atlantic.

Even within the small crew of the Apollonia, there’s disagreement on purely economic grounds whether their ambitions are realistic. “I’m a sailor, not a businessman,” Merrett said. “We don’t make a profit.” The goal, he said, is to make people think about climate change and what they can do to fight it. “We’re very mission-driven.”

Brad Vogel, Apollonia’s supercargo — an old industry term for the person in charge of a ship’s cargo — is more financially optimistic. “It’s a mission-driven business, but it is absolutely a business,” he said. “The whole point here is to try to get to profitability so that we can show that this is something that's viable, so that others will then seek to get into it as well.” (He declined to provide revenue or profit figures to Sherwood News.)

What both agree on is that just by showing the feasibility of net-zero shipping, they’re paving the way toward the world they want to live in.

[windturbinepunk]

Pioneering wind-powered cargo ship sets sail - BBC News

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

in other news,,

[corpsoir]

sure drawing abbacchio in different outfits is fun but every time i draw him in something that isn't flowy and puffy it feels WRONG. give that man WIDE trousers that go SCHSHWHSWWSHSSHCSHSHSHWW when he walks. you can always hear when abbacchio approaches because first of all he stomps and second of all his clothes are loud and there's rattling from his stupid belt and metal tipped dumb coat or whatever. guy who is so loud when he moves

[peggymerkur]

Podcast Sailing Ship Vega - Passion and challanges in the sailing world

Berth in the Netherlands, Amsterdam, Kaap de Groene Hoop and beforehand in Harlingen. The story of Vega in a commercial sailing business world. Chief mate Nadja, Captain Felix and ship's cook Owen on board the Vega. Business, sailing and cooking on board.

[dandelionjack]

walking into the sea’s gentle waves is looking real appealing right now i must admit

[elven-lilac]

My maritime shipping obsession has lead me to the conclusion that boats are really cool

[ltwilliammowett]

Brigantine Tres Hombres