Sailing ships make a come back

[rotrax]

Well, speaking as a former working narrowboat skipper and having tried every wheeze I could think of to generate paying cargoes ...



... 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.

In 1973 we travelled down the Grand Union from Long Buckby to Little Venice and back again. On the trip down we travelled just in front of Threefellows Canal Carriers-IIRC-who were taking goods in a pair to somewhere near Park Royal. They had a girl lockwheeling on a bicycle. She asked our owner to let them by. He said no problem-we will give way if you are in sight and the lock is set, but as all the locks are against us anyway and you are not catching up we will go on as it is. She agreed with this and helped us at the locks. They never caught up, but passed while we were having a pint near Watford. I seemed a hard way to make a living. We regularly took out the Willow Wren camping boats for a week in those days. Cheap and cheerfull but great fun.

 

[Twister_Ken]

In 1973 we travelled down the Grand Union from Long Buckby to Little Venice and back again. On the trip down we travelled just in front of Threefellows Canal Carriers-IIRC-who were taking goods in a pair to somewhere near Park Royal. They had a girl lockwheeling on a bicycle. She asked our owner to let them by. He said no problem-we will give way if you are in sight and the lock is set, but as all the locks are against us anyway and you are not catching up we will go on as it is. She agreed with this and helped us at the locks. They never caught up, but passed while we were having a pint near Watford. I seemed a hard way to make a living. We regularly took out the Willow Wren camping boats for a week in those days. Cheap and cheerfull but great fun.

Could that have been the Rose's Lime Juice cordial delivery? I think it was the last truly commercial working on the Grand Onion.

 

[rotrax]

Could that have been the Rose's Lime Juice cordial delivery? I think it was the last truly commercial working on the Grand Onion.

Very possibly. I dont think we asked. IIRC the pair was very nicely turned out and was in blue and yellow livery.

 

[Bajansailor]

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.

Trouble is, it all comes down to economies of scale - we all have an insatiable demand for vast quantities of cheap goods, and there is no more effective (or greener, currently) method than burning 300 or so tonnes of heavy fuel oil to transport those 12,000 x 20' TEUs another 3 - 400 miles closer to their destination.

I would disagree with "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" - and I am sure that Minn (who manages a fleet of container ships) would also.

Emma Maersk is / was (one of) the largest container ships in the world - but far from being under a flag of convenience she is registered in Denmark, and has to comply with very strict rules, including those issued by the classification society who would have supervised her construction. http://www.emma-maersk.info/
And I think that the crews, even those from the Far East, all have pretty good working conditions really (although many do have to sign up for 6 or even 9 month shifts at sea, with hardly an opportunity to go ashore).

Re niche cargoes, the lovely engineless (yes, really!) brigantine 'Tres Hombres' seems to have found her own niche here - she arrived in Barbados recently after having crossed the Atlantic with 35 tonnes of cargo from Europe for various islands out here.

More about Tres Hombres here - http://www.svtreshombres.com/

And here - http://atlantisconstruction.homestead.com/Brigantine_Tres_Hombres.html

Here is her parent company - they have impressive proposals for sailing cargo vessels having square sails similar to those on the Maltese Falcon :
http://www.fairtransport.eu/

And here is her latest position update (currently in Bonaire) - http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shipposition.phtml?call=9LD2206

Another vessel that was designed and built for a niche market was the Atlantic Clipper, who used to carry cargo around the Caribbean in the 80's (she was originally designed by David Thomas to carry cargoes transatlantic) but it looks like they could not make it pay, as she now transports cargoes of tourists around the Whitsunday Islands - http://www.atlanticclipper.com.au/

Here are some photos of her when she was trading between Plymouth and the West Indies:

And finally, here is a sketch of a 1200 tonnes dwt sailing cargo vessel I did a proposal design for in my final year at uni 26 years ago - however we found that the fuel savings (by using sails to help the motor) would only be around 15%, and this would have just about paid for the maintenance / wear and tear on the sails and their systems...... however I also proposed accomodation for 12 passengers, and I think that this could have been a money spinner.

 

[Babylon]

Re niche cargoes, the lovely engineless (yes, really!) brigantine 'Tres Hombres' seems to have found her own niche here - she arrived in Barbados recently after having crossed the Atlantic with 35 tonnes of cargo from Europe for various islands out here.

More about Tres Hombres here - http://www.svtreshombres.com/

I take my cap off to these crazy idealists: they're evolving, albeit on a small scale at first, a model that - like renewables on land - could become part of the broader mix.

Here is her parent company - they have impressive proposals for sailing cargo vessels having square sails similar to those on the Maltese Falcon:

http://www.fairtransport.eu/

Fantastic! The 'Maltese' rig is the answer, the problems with a traditional stayed rig being that it hampers un/loading and requires a lot more manual labour to handle.

And finally, here is a sketch of a 1200 tonnes dwt sailing cargo vessel I did a proposal design for in my final year at uni 26 years ago - however we found that the fuel savings (by using sails to help the motor) would only be around 15%, and this would have just about paid for the maintenance / wear and tear on the sails and their systems...... however I also proposed accomodation for 12 passengers, and I think that this could have been a money spinner.

Nice one, Bajan! Lower the block of flats aft a bit, and pop a Maltese rig on her instead and you have a lovely and viable design.

Sometimes it just takes a while for a technological solution to become available to make an age-old idea viable. (Leonardo da Vinci's sketch for a helicopter just needed to wait a few hundred years for the development of appropriate air-frame materials and the invention of the internal-combustion engine.)

I wonder whether, given the relative increased cost of fossil fuels, your savings might not be considerably better than the original, marginal 15%. Add a few passenger berths and you're cooking with renewables!

 

[toad_oftoadhall]

Really interesting thread, thanks everyone.

Sail may be uneconomic for cargo, but I reckon fishing boats which need large crews anyway could possibly perhaps maybe get some benefit from sail assist.

The late great Phil Bolger was interested in this whole topic. (More interested than he was prepared to admit, I think!) I think he wrote a book called "The Future of Working Sail" although google shows no evidence of it existing. I'll try to get a copy if I can.

 

[Twister_Ken]

I wonder whether, given the relative increased cost of fossil fuels, your savings might not be considerably better than the original, marginal 15%. Add a few passenger berths and you're cooking with renewables!

B9 Shipping is actually proposing that - power courtesy of biogas, the posh name for sewer gas - although in B9's case they plan to use biogas from land, not onboard!

"Get the crew eating more beans, Number One, the wind's falling light."

 

[Greenheart]

Wind's free

Great photos, above. And inspiring designs. I thought I was the only person with such ideas these days.

I wonder where exactly the limits of cost-efficiency lie; I can't help thinking that the rather marginal 15% benefit would be amazingly increased if the hull was very much more easily driven by the sails. My question would be, how big does a sailing catamaran have to be, to bear the burden of 100 tonnes of cargo?

I'm thinking, hulls perhaps ten times longer than their beam, which could be great enough for cars/containers/pallets rather than the immense dense mass of scrap metal or liquid cargos.

Assuming tradewinds won't see the vessel's upwind ability tested, a 180' cat in steel ought to slide downwind at 15 - 20 knots without burning much diesel. And a cat won't need ballasting or such deep keels as a monohull.

Cost of construction would only be...ah. Massive. Even if one could commission two identical hulls at a discount, what would the cost of several acres of sail be?

But I'm not certain it wouldn't work out. Those Chinese junks that reputedly ran cargos under multicolour sails made from myriad scraps of linen...whatever wasn't perfect about their form and design, they still sailed, and cheaply.

 

[Frankie-H]

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.

Does this include their submarines

 

[Frankie-H]

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.

Why bother with the container? Go back to an open hold with hatch boards and tarps. Then you do not even need to find a crane that can handle your 20 or 30 tons, on your small islands or ports.

 

[Bajansailor]

@ Babylon - re my sketch above, if I lower the block of flats at the back, then I would have to move some accom elsewhere - oh well, I can perhaps stash the ratings in the focsle like the old clipper ships did......

@ Dan - re a steel sailing cat, I drew up plans about 10 years ago for a marine construction company here who wanted to build a steel power cat that could carry 100 mt of cargo (including the ability to load a 45 tonne crane for pile driving and marina construction) - she was 140' long, and 30' overall beam (40' would have been better, but 30' was their limit, re working in congested wee harbours). They built the bow section, and then the price of steel went through the roof........ maybe one day she will be finished. 20 knots (or even 12) would be a pipedream though, even under power let alone sail. A service speed of 8 - 10 knots would be more realistic.

Here is another interesting article about wind power - https://responsibility.credit-suiss...fm?fuseaction=OpenArticle&aoid=242852&lang=EN

And the three Dutch lads of Tres Hombres have an interesting Facebook page here - http://www.facebook.com/FAIRTRANSPORT

 

[wadget]

I would disagree with "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" - and I am sure that Minn (who manages a fleet of container ships) would also.

Emma Maersk is / was (one of) the largest container ships in the world - but far from being under a flag of convenience she is registered in Denmark, and has to comply with very strict rules, including those issued by the classification society who would have supervised her construction. http://www.emma-maersk.info/
And I think that the crews, even those from the Far East, all have pretty good working conditions really (although many do have to sign up for 6 or even 9 month shifts at sea, with hardly an opportunity to go ashore).

Believe me I've worked on the things. Maersk are probably the best company, but other companies are truly awful.

But thanks for the other info some very interesting looking vessels I hadn't seen before.

 

[nimbusgb]

Why bother with the container? Go back to an open hold with hatch boards and tarps. Then you do not even need to find a crane that can handle your 20 or 30 tons, on your small islands or ports.

You are right. With the current cost of fuel the benefit curve must surely be getting back to the viable range.

Add in a bit of 'green guilt, organic, fairtrade' advertising and we're quids in!

Hang on a mo .......

Instead of giving all the layoubout asbo kids free sailing holidays on plastic boats let's press gang the lot of them into crewing the equivalent of modern clipper trading ships! We'd solve anti social behaviour, oil dependence and the unemployment problems all at once!

I like it!

 

[Bajansailor]

Hang on a mo .......

Instead of giving all the layoubout asbo kids free sailing holidays on plastic boats let's press gang the lot of them into crewing the equivalent of modern clipper trading ships! We'd solve anti social behaviour, oil dependence and the unemployment problems all at once!

I like it!

That is far too sensible, reasonable and logical a suggestion to make when a government is concerned - you will never become an (un) crooked politician at this rate if you come up with ideas like this......

PS - apologies to Wadget - am sure there are many truly awful / substandard ships (I have seen a few) in the container trade, but I was just thinking of established lines like Maersk.

 

[wadget]

PS - apologies to Wadget - am sure there are many truly awful / substandard ships (I have seen a few) in the container trade, but I was just thinking of established lines like Maersk.

Maersk are the biggest and the best which is why they are so well known. Thats why everyone in the industry wants to work for them. I was joining a ship in the far east once, the agent (who works for the company) spent the entire journey to the ship telling me that I should quit and get a job with maersk.

 

[Greenheart]

Forget Maersk, this is about sailing!

Whether we're very serious, only mildly interested or just having a light laugh at these ideas, I reckon there's bound to be a niche, narrow or not so narrow, for the right designs to assume and benefit from wind power, in a business where escalating fuel costs slice profits.

I suggested a catamaran earlier, because even rather tubby cruising cats attain good speeds in a fresh breeze, and the longer and leaner each hull is, the less its displacement seems to hinder it. I think I read that about 16:1 is ideal - though not very practical.

But I reckon only a sensitive eye for sailing characteristics and hull lines will make the idea workable; all very well saying one must have a hold-space of certain minimum proportions, but if that shape or capacity compromises the sailing lines, the vessel will be a slug, obliged to run most of her voyages under power.

If driving the hull can be made both virtually free and fairly rapid, and if the vessel's scale allows enough coconuts/coffee/Bickerton folding bicycles aboard to cover passage expenses, surely we get near to something that can operate longterm on minimum maintenance, and which won't be outrageously inefficient to run half-empty, as jet planes and anything oil-powered is.

Not necessarily a catamaran - but I was envisaging the immovable bulk of even small conventional freighters - and how inefficient they're likely to prove, in light winds, or less than fully laden.

 

[penfold]

I doubt that life in 'the Borg' is all sweetness and light; it's just another shipping co. run by managers. A little larger and more visible than the competition(CMA CGM, MSC, etc), the same ridiculous loading schedules and the same IMO-approved chronic fatigue. There was a huge stushie last year when shortly after the victual budget got slashed the Maersk heidbummers publically gave themselves a big bonus and exhorted the mariners to help the company save money while improving morale, and all that while the company posted record profits. I've never worked for Maersk but I know people who do and as far as they tell it, it's just another employer, albeit with slightly better T&Cs than some of the competition.

As for sailing ships; if it appears it will be computer controlled, state of the art wing sails or something like that. Floppy canvas is very romantic, but the labour needed to pull all the bits of string is expensive and fixed masts get in the way of cranes.