Is the New Age of Sail Coming to Atlantica?

A “Fundy Trader” – The Original Sustainable “Short Sea Shipping”
(NS Government Archive Photo)

It’s been just a few short weeks since fuel prices have really started to rise as we exceed the magical $100 per barrel. And the concensus is that its not driven by demand, but by speculation … another word for greed. But the impact is real. This link leads to an article about rising fuel prices closing down fisheries in BC.

How does this play to the grand plans for “short sea shipping” with ships driven by petroleum fuels and massive east-west corridors with train-like vehicles that will bring the products of the world to feed our insatiable appetites? Will we have the dollars to feed the boats, ships, and vehicles that will deliver the products? At this point, it seems less and less likely.

I’m just old enough to have seen some of the last sailing vessels in the Bay of Fundy; mostly rotting on the shore. It has only been about a hundred years since the Bay in my area was filled with “pinkies” small, sturdy utility vessels used by fishermen and their families and the larger “fundy trader” that plied the coast between Atlantic Canada and New England. Larger vessels served the Caribbean trade and beyond. It was a dynamic and rich culture that collapsed when the steam engine and internal combustion engine entered the scene and the economic mix changed and fell under the sway of Upper Canada.

Well, perhaps the realities of global greed and manipulation will indeed change the future, creating a society that is unable to afford even the basics and has, in fact, largely lost its ability and the knowledge required to use its own resources for survival. With the oil “tipping point” looming in the near future, perhaps it is time to really get serious about looking at sail as the transportation system for the future? As we explore the virtues of the “new” thrust for “short sea shipping”, I think we may really be entering the “new age of sail”, the original sustainable shipping system that has served mankind for centuries.

That’s the way I see it tonight.

Art

Maltese Falcon – real luxury under sail.

Imagine this in the Bay of Fundy!

Sky Ships for Atlantica?

Imagine, sailing ships and skyships plying the waters of the Bay of Fundy and Gulf of Maine, moving goods back and forth along traditional trade routes that are centuries old. Imagine also that we design these ships to reduce impacts on the right whales and other species that we share these waters with.

Is this an opportunity to rebuild an energy efficient shipping industry based on wind power and environmentally sound technologies? Take the story below for example. Does this simple sail really reduce fuel consumption up to 50% under the right conditions. If that is the case, then why are we not moving to redesign our fleets around these new/old concepts. Take a look at the dirigible story below as another example. But look at the dates. This was all during the last crisis. Why not start redesigning from scratch, It’s not like sailing ships and sky-ships are something new. Has anyone started to move forward in a progressive way to bring the best designer brains together to solve these problems and allow us to coexist in this shrinking world? Maybe the Atlantica concept can get some lateral motion and truly address ALL of our needs not just the same old profit-driven bunch masking themselves under a great brand name!

Beluga Group equiped a shipping freighter with a sail, specifically a SkySail, a parachute-shaped sail that is the size of a football field. The Ship, MS Beluga SkySails, departed on its first trans-Atlantic voyage earlier in the week. According to Beluga and SkySail, a ship‘s fuel costs can be reduced by 10- 35% on annual average, depending on wind conditions. Under optimal wind conditions, fuel consumption can temporarily be reduced by up to 50%. More at: http://sail-brooklyn.blogspot.com

From: Time
High fuel costs are also spurring the return of lighter-than-air dirigibles. The British firm Airship Industries is developing a 600-ft. freight-carrying airship. Unlike the ill-fated zeppelin Hindenburg, whose 1937 explosion at Lakehurst, N.J., doomed airship travel, the new dirigibles will be filled with inert, nonflammable helium rather than potentially dangerous hydrogen. Britain’s Redcoat Cargo Airlines will take delivery of four of the $9.5 million skyships beginning in 1984. The airline claims that they will cost slightly less to operate than a jumbo jet and have 56% more cargo space. The airships, which will be powered by four 1,150 h.p. turboprop engines, will cruise at about 3,000 ft. They will have a top speed of 86 m.p.h. and be able to cross the Atlantic in 2½ days. As the price of energy keeps soaring, transport ships and dirigibles assisted by free air may be gliding gracefully back into popularity.

That’s how I see it today!

Art

Short Sea Shipping! Did I doze Off or What?

No wonder we are constantly in trouble. It seems to me that every ten years there’s a fresh bunch of “new-borns” entering the market place. Unfortunately, in spite of their MBA’s they apparently have no historical knowledge about the place on which they decide to bestow the benefits of their superior intellectual prowess. “Eureka! I have it! “Short Sea Shipping” for Gods sake – it’s neither new, nor novel. Small coastal freighters have been plying back and forth since the days of sail. As a matter of fact, my uncles were somewhat famous (or infamous) for the runs they made between Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon and the Maine coast not that many years ago. All of my seafaring relatives from Grand Manan ran coastal freighters under both sail and power up and down the coast, into the Caribbean, and further afield on the mammoth sailing ships that that were built along our coast to move our white pine, fish, gypsum, and other products around the world.

Coastal freighters are still at work coming quietly into Boston, Portland, Halifax, Saint John, Saint Johns, and smaller Ports like Eastport and Bayside on the Maine-New Brunswick border. If the demand is there … and it will be with rising congestion and shipping costs, then the fleet of coastal freighters will grow. Some, I think, will be considering a return to sail. It was these vessels that built our society. Perhaps they will rescue it in the end.

Of course we tore down the wharves and most of the coastal infrastructure that supported coastal trade and now we need it. Didn’t we do the same with the railroad? Beware the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed young folks who are smarter than everyone else. There is too much at stake this time to let them play with our world.

Read some history kiddies and just do good business that respects all of the others that are currently using our ocean resources.

That’s my opinion tonight.

Art

Photo:

“Bay of Fundy trader Mildred G. Myers passing George’s Island, Halifax Harbour” Nova Scotia Archive