Top Sail Transport Investment Opportunities

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Eight Sail Transport Investment Projects, Spring 2016

Publisher's note: this document has been published since March 2016 on the www.SAILMED.org website
Our office receives numerous inquiries relating to possibilities for cargo-sailing opportunities. These inquiries range from crewing, starting a new project, and investing in existing projects. This document serves to summarize projects that welcome support through dissemination. No doubt this list, now of eight, will continue to grow. The cumulative effect of the trend will be to decrease today’s massive, questionable dependence on dirty petroleum fuels for shipping, and improve nations’ and regions’ socioeconomic resilience.

Medusa Plus, under construction
Medusa Plus, under construction

(1) SAIL MED, for the Aegean and beyond. A 13-meter traditional square rigger with topsail is ready for completion. This “sakoleva” Medusa Plus will handle 9 tons of cargo. Routes for optimal winds, and sources of island products for trading, are already identified. The only auxiliary will be the four oars. The construction was planned in accordance with the seamanship fashion of the 19th century in the Hellenic archipelagos. Native Greek timber is used. Email: info@sailmed.org or hellenarc@gmail.com

(2) In California there are two replica projects sought by the Sail Transport Network. One is the Alma II, a flat-bottomed scow 80-foot cargo schooner once so common on the San Francisco Bay that it was the equivalent of today’s truck (lorry). Email: bill@sailtransportnetwork.org

(3) The other California replica project being organized by STN is the Galilee II, of the tall-ship cargo vessel that set a record of 19 days SF-Tahiti over a century ago. Email: bill@sailtransportnetwork.org

The Avontuur, 15 December, 2015, photo by Jan Lundberg
The Avontuur, 15 December, 2015, photo by Jan Lundberg

(4) Timbercoast’s Avontuur, featured on the SailTransportNetwork.org website at http://www.sailtransportnetwork.org/node/958 . This project needs financial investment for completion soon, to stay on schedule. Here is the email address for Timbercoast: contact@timbercoast.com.

The Ecoliner design by Dykstra Naval Architects and SAIL. Used by permission.
The Ecoliner design by Dykstra Naval Architects and SAIL. Used by permission.

(5) The Ecoliner, a state-of-the-art large hybrid cargo sailing ship, designed by Dykstra Naval Architects, and thoroughly optimized for business factors, regulatory advantage, and sailing/weather conditions. The four-year EU-funded research by SAIL is done, with much information available at www.nsrsail.eu or at www.sailmed.org/healthy-seas. Fortunately, the consortium has been extended outside the completed grant-process to follow up on investment. The price tag for an Ecoliner is approximately 23 million euros. The chief organizer and former Lead Partner of the SAIL consortium, Robbert van Hasselt, has been heading up the search for freight owners. Here is his email address: r.v.hasselt@idmm.nl.

(6) Fairtransport of the Netherlands plans to build a clipper ship. They already have in operation the brigantine Tres Hombres, now returning from its 7th transatlantic voyage, on its way back to Den Helder with goods from the Caribbean via the Azores. It may have a share available for purchase. They also have the Nordlys, a ketch dedicated to European coastal trade (picture shown, Peter Hunt Photography), and a share may be available for purchase. Cost is 1,000 euro a share.
We don’t know much about the clipper ship yet. Here is an email address for Fair Transport: office@fairtransport.nl


(7) Transoceanic Wind Transport (TOWT, based in Brest) is a very active charterer and agent in modern sail transport of cargo. TOWT owns no ship, busily moves products from port to port, principally to and from northern France. Similarly, New Dawn Traders of the UK utilizes Fairtransport. In France TOWT supplies health-food markets inland with sail-transported ale, for example from England. One ship utilized lately is the 32-mètre Biche. Another is the lug rig Grayhound, known for wine and beer transport, shown here. Online TOWT shoppers can obtain such products as Tres Hombres chocolate and tea.

(8) B9 Shipping (subsidiary of B9 Energy, based in Northern Ireland) is accelerating, through collaboration, the development of 100% renewably powered commercially and technically viable sailing hybrid cargo ships. They are ready for customized construction for specific applications, such as dry biomass, bulk chemicals, and passengers, and are future-proofed for a 30-year lifespan. Because the length and number of masts for a prospective ship can vary, and freight owners must step up to effect long-term arrangements, there is no one price tag in circulation at this time for a B9 ship.

Document prepared for SAIL MED and Sail Transport Network, their members, and the public on March 18, 2016

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