TOWT TRANSOCEANIC WIND TRANSPORT
Image courtesy of TOWT. Herskovits & Tobie. Photograph: Michel Bizien
Turning back the clock Commercial sailing vessels make a come-back
I
t seems a lifetime ago when schooners sailed Caribbean waters at the mercy of the winds, when loose cargo was loaded manually by stevedores and when seafarers really did need to know the ropes. Now a French company wants shipping to turn back the clock to this bygone age with a bold vision of reintroducing commercial sailing vessels to the transatlantic liner
trades as well as regular calls at ports in the Caribbean. The planned new service forms part of a wider green-tinged maritime counter culture that appears to be gaining traction in sharp contrast to the economies of scale that have driven liner shipping in recent decades. So instead of rows of neatly stacked boxes this new service will be delighted to see cargo decks piled high
with wooden barrels, cases of rum and loose gunny sacks.
RETURNING A PROFIT All this may be laudable especially a time when the wider shipping industry is, in any case, actively reducing its carbon emissions, but how does a company turn a profit from a slow-ish, entirely wind-reliant liner service and with a strictly limited cargo
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