Are traditional sail boats the future of trade?

By Sheena McKenzie, CNN

Updated 1818 GMT (0218 HKT) October 12, 2012

Photos: Return to golden age of sail

Story highlights

 European merchant ships of the 19th Century were a lifeline to world's exotic goods
  "Golden Age of Sai" makes a comeback with modern-day wind powered cargo ships

 Sailing ship Tres Hombres leaves from Netherlands to Caribbean on eight-month voyage

 Part of 21st Century bid for environmentally sustainable travel

With their billowing sails, towering masts and long wooden hulls, 19th century clipper ships were
staggering feats of design -- and Europe's lifeline to the world's most exotic goods.

Laden with spices, teas and chocolates from across the globe, the use of these wind-powered sailing
vessels reached its peak during the late 1800's, a period often referred to as the "Golden Age of
Sail."

Abandoned in the advent of steamboats, the centuries-old transport is now enjoying a revival among
cargo traders, with a new breed of merchant ships returning to wind power in an effort to promote
environmentally sustainable trade.

This week, the 32-meter brigantine Tres Hombres set sail from the Netherlands to the Caribbean in
an eight-month voyage transporting ale, wine, rum and chocolate -- much the same way as
merchant ships would have done 150 years ago.

Cargo ship Tres Hombres.

Named in honor of the three friends who founded the ambitious scheme, the 35-ton carbon-neutral
vessel has no motor and relies on solar-powered fridges to keep its cargo cool.

"A lot of shipping companies are going bankrupt because fuel is so expensive," said one of the ship's
founders and co-captain, Arjen van der Veen.

"The model we have now of shipping is unsustainable -- both for business and the environment. We
chose a traditional rig because it's a beautiful design and we wanted to show people sailing can still
be effective."

Read: The enduring allure of tall ships

From its base in Den Helder in the Netherlands, Tres Hombres will head to Brixham in England where
it will pick up 100,000 bottles of ale, delivering them to Douarnenez in France.

From there it will sail to ports across Europe and the Caribbean, transporting 500 liters of
wine, 50,000 chocolate bars, 4,000 bottles of rum and 5-tons of cocoa beans in a round trip.
Designing super yachts05:50

Photos: The magic of tall ships

All the cargo is organic, making it eco-friendly from the moment it is produced to the moment it
lands on the supermarket shelf, Van der Veen explained.

"The whole chain of production is sustainable," he said.

"For companies, it makes their goods unique. It's a little more expensive but people are willing to
pay because it has no carbon footprint."

Read: $16m solar boat sails into record books

The Sail Transport Network (STN), a green travel campaign group, is now looking to create a
sustainable transport certificate, much like the "Fair Trade" and "Organic" stamps found on other
foods.

STN founder Jan Lundberg predicts that wind-powered cargo ships will soon be the norm as the
world's fossil fuel supplies continue to diminish.

"The accelerating rate of change in the economy and finance, the peak oil factor and the climate
crisis are all tipping factors. If more people sense this soon, you could see a jump in sail transport
investment," he said.

"Many smaller older cargo vessels are idle today and are also being recycled -- these are realistic
candidates for conversion to sail."

Recent figures show there is much at stake when it comes to sustainable transport on the high-seas.
Around 90% of world trade is currently carried by the shipping industry, according to
the International Maritime Organization.
The industry contributes 4% of global carbon emissions, United Nations figures show. Indeed, it says
that if shipping were a country, it would be the sixth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the
world.

But it could be that the winds of change are on the horizon. From January next year, new
International Maritime Organization regulations will require shipping companies to cut emissions by
20% over the next seven years and a further 50% by 2050.

"By 2025 all new ships have to be 20% more efficient, so shipyards will also be compelled to produce
more fuel-efficient vessels," Simon Bennett of the International Chamber of Shippingsaid.

"What's also important is that fuel costs have risen 400% since 2000 -- the operating costs are huge.
In any case, every shipping company wants to reduce its emissions."

Read: The luxury superyacht that doubles as a science lab

With these environmental concerns in mind, Van der Veen and his fellow Dutch captains Andreas
Lackner and Jorne Langelaan set about building the Tres Hombres in 2007, using the hull of a former
passenger ferry in the Aran Islands off the coast of Ireland.

Completed in 2009, this is Tres Hombre's fourth trade trip after previous voyages across western
Europe, the Caribbean and even delivering relief aid to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.

The trio are certainly not alone in their quest to find green alternatives to the gas-guzzling cargo
vessels of the 21st century.

British wind power company B9 recently tested a model of its planned 100-meter, 3,000-ton carbon-
neutral freighter.

The ship would use 60% wind power, relying on three computer-operated masts rising 55-meters --
as tall as a 14-storey building.

This would be supplemented by a bio-gas engine converting food waste into methane; the food
waste being anything from restaurant slops to out-of-date sandwiches.

B9 co-director Diane Gilpin said the design would best suit smaller vessels, and they are now looking
for between $30 million and $45 million in funding to get it off the ground.

"In the last 100 years we've been absolutely besotted with what oil can do for us," she said.

"Now we're running out of fuel and we have to be a little bit cleverer about how we deploy our
ships."

She admits it will be a challenge changing the traditionally conservative shipping industry, but
added: "If we're looking at a new, green, industrial revolution, those early movers will benefit from
being there at the outset."

As Van der Veen said when the Tres Hombres crew first floated the idea of a engine-less cargo ship:
"Everybody thought it was crazy but we've proved them wrong.

"It's so satisfying -- it's part of our goal to make a transport revolution."

https://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/12/tech/sailing-green-merchant-ship/index.html
"We wanted to keep the energy that the producers had already put in the wine, and not break the
chain. And, I'm telling you... this wine just tasted amazing."

On a warm summer's day in August, Danish wine merchant Sune Rosforth took delivery of 8,000
bottles of wine that had arrived from France.

From the offices of financial institutions flanking the quay, workers looked out at something that had
not been seen in central Copenhagen for many years.

The ship that had brought the wine from the Breton port of Brest was a 32m-long brigantine, a twin-
masted sailing ship, called the Tres Hombres.

Mr Rosforth's company, Rosforth and Rosforth, supplies restaurants in Denmark with organic and
biodynamic wines.

Moving wine in a more eco-friendly fashion was something he had been talking about for some time
with an Anjou wine producer who was also a skipper, but the plan had originally been to use canal
barges.

Image captionShipshape: The Tres Hombres has a cargo capacity of 35 tonnes, and accommodates
five crew and 10 passengers

"One day he called us to tell us that there was an opportunity to get the wine finally shipped by a
boat, but it was going to be a sailing vessel," he says. "So we said, 'Fantastic, let's go!'"

Sailing ahead

In 2008 a company called Compagnie de Transport Maritime à la Voile (CTMV) announced plans to
ship French wine by sailing boat. Several shipments took place but the company folded in 2010.

But this hasn't stopped other companies trying their luck.

The Tres Hombres set sail in 2009 from Amsterdam and has been shipping cargo ever since. It also
gives land-lubbers the chance to sign on as part of the crew for a fee.

The wine shipment was planned with their business partners, the sailing freight transport company
TransOceanic Wind Transport (TOWT). The company works with a small fleet of sailing ships, and
provides buyers with a means of tracking the journey the goods take.

Image captionTOWT's Guillaume Le Grand sees

rising oil prices pushing up the cost of traditional cargo options

"It's not some sort of adventurous poetic revival of 19th century technology, on the contrary it's
something that is definitely addressing energy transition at sea," says TOWT founder Guillaume Le
Grand.

The maritime industry is estimated to produce 3%-5% of global carbon dioxide emissions - making
sailing very attractive to the organic and eco-friendly sector.

But as the price of oil rises, so does the cost of traditional cargo options.

This has led to research into alternative fuels such as liquefied natural gas (LNG), and a slowdown in
the speed at which cargo freighters move at - a practice known as slow steaming.

For Mr Le Grand this all adds up to opportunity.

"Until 10-12 years ago, most of the ships were crossing oceans at about 20 knots average speed.
Now they're going down below 15 knots," he says.

We are using solutions of the 19th century to speak to people of the 21st centuryGuillaume Le
Grand, TOWT

"[The Tres Hombres] crosses the ocean at 8 to 10 knots. It's not something that's ridiculous in terms
of speed."

There are other challenges. Arrival times are unpredictable, capacity is limited, and at the moment
sail shipping is relatively expensive.

"We are using solutions of the 19th century to speak to people of the 21st century," says Mr Le
Grand.

"Tres Hombres is a statement. They know very well it's a 32-metre brigantine, which is small, but
they are paving the way for shipping cargo by sailing ships."

The only way to become competitive, he says, will be to build a large fleet of large cargo ships.

The team behind the Tres Hombres are looking at doing just that, with plans for a modern sail-
powered cargo ship called the Ecoliner.
Get on board

They are not the only ones.

B9 Shipping's Diane Gilpin has been working on plans for a sail-powered cargo ship since 1994.

Image captionThe Maltese Falcon superyacht is

fitted with computer-controlled carbon-fibre sails

She was inspired by The Atlantic Clipper, a sail-assisted cargo ship that sailed between the UK and
the Caribbean in the 1980s.

"What I think we need to be looking at is the significant impact on global greenhouse gas emissions.
A recent study showed that if [the global shipping fleet] was a country, it would be the sixth-largest
emitter in the world," she says.

The world needs to develop a technology that is capable of moving commodities in significant
quantities in order to address this challenge, she says.

The answer that B9 is proposing is a coastal cargo ship that combines massive carbon-fibre DynaRig
sails - such as those used on the superyacht, the Maltese Falcon - with an engine that runs on bio-
gas made from food waste using a process called anaerobic digestion.

The liquid bio-methane produced by this process can be used in an existing LNG engine.

"Effectively, we are combining technology that already exists in a way that will enable us to build a
100%-renewably-powered cargo vessel immediately," she says.

The company hopes the vessel will sail 60% of the time.

Using bio-gas means they can more accurately predict operational costs, says Diane Gilpin. This has
also meant working closely with the British Met Office on sophisticated weather routing products.
A scale model of the vessel was tested over the summer at Southampton University. The results are
being used to predict performance and to optimise routes.

Richard Pemberton, a research engineer at the university who took part in the testing, says he feels
the project has potential.

Image captionThe B9, including its sails, will be fully controlled from the bridge, but is "no silver
bullet" says Diane Gilpin

"[With] the right cargo on the right route, then sail power becomes viable, particularly if fuel costs
just get higher and higher," he says.

Mr Pemberton doesn't see hybrid sailing ships taking over quite yet however.

"Some of the cargo will still be shipped with normal fossil fuels," he says.

Let's sail away

As well as numerous small-scale projects, commercial attempts to harness wind power are on the
increase.

A German company called SkySails is already marketing a system that uses a giant kite to help tow
commercial shipping, cutting fuel consumption.

In Japan the Wind Challenger project, backed by the University of Tokyo, is also looking at fitting
sails to cargo ships.

Nick Brown, of shipping experts Lloyd's Register, says the society is seeing a lot of interest in wind
technology.

"I think it comes down to a commercial decision, on a combination of investment cost and the
implications for probably longer sailing times," he says.

According to Mr Brown, when it comes to "cleaner" forms of propulsion, choice is limited.

"If there are no ships, there is no world trade. Half the world freezes, the other half starves.

Image captionLet's go fly a kite: The MS Beluga Skysails was the first ship fitted with the computer-
operated SkySail technology

"The big risk is the view on carbon emissions, because LNG is hugely beneficial - much, much cleaner
than alternative fossil fuel options available at the moment - but [it is still] a fossil fuel," he says.

"And obviously nuclear power has been used successfully in applications by navies for more than 40
years, but there's a big political and societal block to it being adopted more widely. So, the focus is
much more on renewables. And wind is potentially really exciting."

For now, using sail technology in commercial shipping remains something of a niche. But rising oil
prices, and the resulting slower speeds at which international freight moves, could all push its
economic viability.

"The shipping industry isn't an emotional industry whatsoever, it is purely commercial," says
Southampton University's Richard Pemberton.

"If someone could make money out of [sail technology] and get a good return, then they'll back it. It
is that simple. And the big shipping companies are very interested in it, so they must see some
potential in it making money."