Sailing ships make a come back

Twister_Ken said:
Just a tad more likely, but I wouldn't buy shares just yet.

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I dont think it will ever a be a serious money making business but with a larger vessel you could carry more cargo and charge for berths as trainiee crew and could probably make enough to make a small profit or at least cover costs.
 
On a similar note, the irish navy are looking into the possibility of putting sails on their ships to reduce the cost of fuel. If it proves possible it should be interesting.
 
Sail-assisted cargo ship

Possibly more hopeful is adding a computer-controlled kite to a regular cargo ship (a current example being MV Beluga Skysails). This has great potential - it can save large amounts of fuel especially on trade wind routes.
 
A lovely idea, and like canals for inland 'slow cargo' it must surely have a place in the market, increasingly so as fuel prices rise.

I met a chap with a sailing boat / ship very like Irene in Falmouth in about 1990/1, he was making a living carrying small cargo between Cornwall & Brittany.
 
I remember reading fairly recently that there were plans to build a seriously large steel cargo boat with wing sails rather like the Oracle Americas Cup boat. Should be able to do a decent speed and can all be computer controlled.
 
maby said:
I remember reading fairly recently that there were plans to build a seriously large steel cargo boat with wing sails rather like the Oracle Americas Cup boat. Should be able to do a decent speed and can all be computer controlled.
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I agree any sort of wind assistance on large commercial ships needs to be high tech and computer controlled. But there is a certain romance in using traditional sailing vessels for the purposes that sailing ships were originally built.
 
I've often wondered if a yacht designed around a cargo hold that a 40' container fitted snugly in to wouldn't make a viable proposition.

Ketch or staysail schooner rigged perhaps with a little over 40' between the masts. Plonk in a container and you have an ideal small vessel that can get up some rivers, service smaller islands and carry goods not too time sensitive in to smaller ports.

Possibly a hull with space for several smaller containers might be workable.
 
Doubtless the picturesque old vessels were modern and workmanlike when new. Computer-aided sails mayn't be as pretty, but if they're workmanlike and practical, they might be as familiar in a few years as tall ships were a century ago.

Funny how the progress of technology first stamps out traditional practices, then finds some use or efficiency in them. :)
 
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Nice idea, Nimbus. I guess the trouble is, the economics of vast ports like Felixtowe, and the ubiquitous 18-wheelers on every street, make even non-urgent cargo cheaper to deliver by conventional means.

I mean, how many containers do they fit aboard the big Maersk ships? Idling up to Kingsbridge under topsails is a delectable idea, but how would one offload the container on arrival? Nice thought, but it'd have to be more for fun than profit.

How do you set up your avatar? I always wanted Brian Griffin...

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dancrane said:
Nice idea, Nimbus. I guess the trouble is, the economics of vast ports like Felixtowe, and the ubiquitous 18-wheelers on every street, make even non-urgent cargo cheaper to deliver by conventional means.

I mean, how many containers do they fit aboard the big Maersk ships? Idling up to Kingsbridge under topsails is a delectable idea, but how would one offload the container on arrival? Nice thought, but it'd have to be more for fun than profit.

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The current largest container ships hold around 14,000 20 footers. And bigger ones are on their way.

But its not just the fuel that is wrong with these ships although 300 tonnes a day is ridiculous. Its the way they are run, registered in third world countries, to avoid tax and safety regulations. With crew from wherever is cheapest and will work for the least money, in the poorest conditions.

The appeal of this sort of project is not just environmental but ethical.

I think that it could be good for niche projects such as wine, coco, olive oil, coffee, etc. Where you could develop a brand based on fair trade and environmentally friendly shipping as well as products.
 
Wadget, I'm the last person to say it's not worth thinking about. I approve of all attempts to do things in green, ethical ways. Plus I'm nuts about all the intensely evocative written and photographic records of sail-powered merchantmen.

But in purely economic terms, the money spent on shipping small numbers of containers or small quantities of cargo by wholesome and ethical means, might be better spent furthering the causes involved, in other ways.

I wondered months back if a big, lean-hulled catamaran with deckspace equivalent to a football pitch, might be covered with photo-voltaic solar cells, so the vessel could endlessly collect and compact the millions of tons of plastic jetsam, floating in the North Pacific Gyre.

No-one responded, so I guess it was a fit of impractical imagination on my part. But I suspect it could work. Just as sail can (and did) power millions of tonnes of cargo to its destination, in the past.
 
Well yes. obviously the real answer is for everyone to manufacture things rather than relying on imports from china.
 
And that does sound a very good idea, get the plastic out of the sea and recycle it. Not sure who would fund it though.
 
Exactly...it always, always comes down to money. Very sad.

Maybe the Californian highways authority could research a way to resurface their many roads with minced-up waste plastic? They could fund a few of my three-acre solar catamarans, send them out from San Francisco Bay, and wave the Green flag in Washington.

Or those clever cookies in Japan could do it. Or both! Yes, a highly publicised, Olympic-year superpower race for oceanic clean-up, at minimal cost to the earth. I like it. :) And I'll only ask 1% of the gross, for my idea. :D
 
Seajet said:
A lovely idea, and like canals for inland 'slow cargo' it must surely have a place in the market, increasingly so as fuel prices rise..
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Well, speaking as a former working narrowboat skipper and having tried every wheeze I could think of to generate paying cargoes ...

Twister_Ken said:
Just maybe, but the man hours per ton of cargo per mile equation is always going to have you struggling with economic reality.
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... that is pretty much the long and the short of it. It just doesn't pay I'm afraid

Yep there are a handful of people ostensibly making a living from canal carrying but in reality they are making a living trading a commodity or commodities such as solid fuel, diesel etc.
 
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