St. Marys, Ga. | The two-masted schooner, called the, used to be a
tour craft.

Now a company is refitting it in St. Marys to import organically grown
coffee from Central America in an environmentally friendly manner.


Heh- so they are going to use all organic materials in the schooner?
Cotton sails, etc etc? It will be a very very expensive hobby to keep
her sailing at all, and buying/shipping those "all natural materials"
will use more fossil fuel than using dacron & fiberglass.


The company - Blue & Green Packet Co. - also wants to import other
goods, including textiles, chocolate, nuts, beans, rice and tea.

The ship won't have the capability to carry nearly as much cargo as
modern vessels but can haul up to 70 tons. The average voyage will be
about three weeks but using the ship's sails will greatly reduce the
importing costs.

"The point is to prove it can be done," said John Siman, one of the
company's owners. "We can still trade commodities via sail."

He said there's a growing demand for products that are organically
produced and are imported in a way that has as little negative impact
to the environment as possible.


In other words, he expects to charge a lot more for his "organically
imported" coffee.


Rising shipping costs for imported goods should mean importing by sail
will be a profitable venture, said Paul Flowers, another company
owner.

"The price of oil will continue to go up," he said. "At the same time,
container-ship shipping becomes more and more unaffordable. It's a
huge cost difference."


But notice he doesn't mention any numbers.

The schooner will be renamed Emancipator after renovations are
completed in about a year.



"Edgar" wrote:
They will still have to pay a crew modern wages and conditions so are
unlikely to make any profit unless they always get a fair wind

Yep

Plus they will spend a lot more time being refitted and paying the
amortization on the cost of the vessel & her equipment, on the profits
what few voyages she can complete within the given time period.

If shipping under sail could pay, then the big companies would do it.
They would work out much more efficient & less labor intensive ways to
propel the boat. I happen to like the kite sail idea myself, but have
not heard of any ships using it on voyages.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King