Hi! What About Shipping by Sailboat?

[dancarrigan]

Hi:
I'm new and how y'all doin? It's a pleasure to be here!
O.k. I've been mulling over an idea for years now and with a bit of surfing the web I'm pleased to see that someone has already gotten it going - the Sailboat Transportation Network. A savvy dude is shipping stuff near Portland OR by bike(cart) and then sloop. I was transporting my food and dog and guitar by sailing dorey a few years ago in Bellingham WA, basically commuting by boat, bike and foot. Last summer I was harvesting kelp on the bay!
Is this an idea who's time has come? I am currently in central California near the coast and although avocados grow here in abundance the ones sold in the stores are from Chile. Um, hello?
Anyway this should certainly be a no-brainer, especially pre-peak-oil. What I'm thinking is a zero carbon or even negative carbon operation on a small scale.
If you top it off with an altitude advantage - the coast is generally all downhill from here so gravity is literally behind you on rails to trails pathways. Why not ship by sail and bike (and cart)? A bit of planning and hey you have a green job and maybe others will get in on it and things will make a bit more sense. Or maybe just a way to offset liveaboard cruising.
Does anyone have any opinions/ideas on this? Seems like the more "competition" the better, since if it becomes widespread it will work even better.
Thanks for reading this and I'll get my profile here on cruisersforum together soon.
Until then there's myspace for details on my stuff...
Cheers and ahoy maties!
dan
www.myspace.com/dancarrigan

[cdennyb]

you're kidding... right? You think a kid and a sailboat that can't make a delivery date + or - 1 week will be able to compete with the trucking companies and railroads and airplanes?
I commend you for trying to think "green" but the reality is that you don't have enough "green" to buy one of those avacados with a handfull of benjaimins that are getting shipped by your "sailboat". Maybe after the end of the world war III and all civilization is reduced to rubble, but not today mate.
Sorry to be the bearer of badd news. Oh, and your "myspace" page has an issue too I think., since I couldnt access any info on their. Maybe just a glitch on my end, but maybe you could check it out just to be sure.

[ad_astra]

I wouldn't rule it out, as I have read a few articles about businesses that sell carbon-free produce that is moved via sailboat. The idea is not to compete with trucks/rails/ships, but to offer an alternative to conscientious consumers. Kinda the same principle as organic food: more expensive, but it has intangible benefits.

However, I would caution that boat ownership ain't cheap (as I have recently discovered). I sincerely doubt that one could make a living solely off of carbon-free shipping. Adding to the difficulty is the fact most sailboats use an auxiliary fossil fuel powered engine for docking....

[dancarrigan]

Cool. I guess we'll see what happens then...
"the smaller the boat, the more you sail..."

[hpeer]

If you are interested in a kindred spirit you should jump over to PeakOil.com and look for posts by Seagypsy.

Then also look to Sea-steading by some guy named Jerome FitzGerald and the "oar club."

[s/v Beth]

A number of people are working along similar lines. I have toyed with a startup company that builds bikes that are electric hybrids, and shipping inland using trains and small electric trucks to get goods to the stores. Not 100% fossil fuel free, but using maybe 10% of what we are using now.
Conclusion after a few years- people do now want to change, and cheap oil makes them not willing.
Oh I sold a few bikes to early pioneers. But not enough to make a living.
I would be interested to hear how you did with your kelp harvesting business. And I think electric inboards are getting to the point were they can replace diesel for getting in and out of the slip.
So maybe not 100% crazy....

[hpeer]

And, if you are serious, take a look at this spot from a fellow living in Argentina. He writes from the perspective of someone who has seen the economy fail and reports on what it was like (Argentian economy collapse of 2001).

I'm not promoting or saying he is right. But he has a certain perspective and he does talk about post-xxxx economy and what people want.

Good luck

SURVIVING IN ARGENTINA

[dancarrigan]

Great! I'll check out those posts - thanks.
Regarding the kelp, basically i would go out sailing or rowing and grab the stuff out of the water and throw it on the sole to drain into the bilge, later on shore set it out to dry on rocks. a few days later after asking folks i knew better what to look for, not the eel grass material but the more nori-ish plant life. i collectde this for health, entertainment and exercise for the remainder of the summer.
I went around and checked on pricing but in the end used it as a supplement for dog food, which i began making for my animals. There were no sales to anyone despite a single unambitious ad on c-list. ironically some random people drove to the farm where i was staying and bought some sage from me...go figure! I'd been harvesting that too! the two events were supposedly unrelated, whatever that means.
"When the wind fails, take to the oars!"

[David_Old_Jersey]

Dunno about Kelp (that's the very long stuff, right?), but over here traditionally the farmers used to harvest Vraic (seaweed) and use that as fertiliser for the Jersey Royal Spuds.

Nowadays they use fertilisers and grow under polythene. Which probably accounts for them being so tasteless nowadays.......but it's what the market wants


On the sailing trading / shipping thing - coming from a small island this had occurred to me to daydream over. Main reason for discounting was.......too much like bl##dy hard work - especially loading / unloading ...........the answer I decided was a RoRo, but I ain't never seen a sailing one

[MoonlightShadow]

One day one may appear around the Corbierre light. Perhaps not as far away as one might think.

Try The new age of sail - tech - 26 February 2005 - New Scientist and:

highboldtage.wordpress.com/.../windships-modern-sailing-ships

[hpeer]

Now that you have me thinking weedy....

While waiting for a ferry in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia I saw a couple of guys with a boat load of something, kinda like eel grass I think. Looked to be a commercial operation of some sort.

Then, in New Bruswick I bought a bag of a local "delicacy" called "dulce." Some kind of seaweed that they munched on instead of "chips" back in the day. Google up "dulce seaweed."

So something is going on.

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by hpeer

So something is going on.

A bit of historical and some current info on seaweed commercial uses.

Vraic

Jersey 1906

[s/v Beth]

Arn't those big kelp leaves what they roll susi in? Now don't laugh- I really don't know!

[dancarrigan]

nori is sushi wrapping, i think...which is kelp (?).
yeah i was in nova scotia once and the fisherfolk there were harvesting some bales of something else..."square grouper" they call it in the gulf...
anyway i'm thinking low weight goods because hey it's got to travel on bike and this will certainly fail if it gets to be too much like work.
tea anybody? how about the boston tea party, backwards, where we get off the petroleum nipple and reclaim a bit of freedom from the, uh, them! anyway it's a light item.
"He who would travel happy, would travel light."

[SkiprJohn]

These are all interesting ideas which have been tried to some extent and if it were just me and not trying to serve a large community base I think it could be done.
regards,