http://cnet.com/news/cargo-ship-with-metal-sails-would-save-30-percent-fuel/57420784?ds=1
There have been ideas for a while to use airplane wing shaped sails to reduce fuel use. Motor sailing is far more efficient than motoring alone.
Gee, cc, something has to take the place of your beloved Geysir.
(ducking)
The Tres Hombres still seems to be sailing around:
How do they get over the manpower hump? Does the whole thing hinge on having unpaid trainees?
That’s exactly how Pamir stayed in business in the guano trade until she went down in a hurricane. Why pay a crew of 50 or more AB or OS wages when you could pay half of them less than 10% of that at the cadet rate? You can have a whole boat shining bright and Bristol fashion, not to mention moving cargo efficiently, for a fraction of the cost.
Whether this is Tres Hombres m.o. or not I have no idea but a cargo ship of that size is going to have efficiency problems anyway.
[QUOTE=rbc;163128]The Tres Hombres still seems to be sailing around:
How do they get over the manpower hump? Does the whole thing hinge on having unpaid trainees?[/QUOTE]
Even better. The entire thing hinges on each “crew member” paying hundreds or thousands of dollars per voyage for the “experience.” Seriously, the crew has to pay to be there.
I guess the trainees tuition is covering part of the ship operating costs? Sounds like paying to get your hair cut by a Beauty School student.
These guys found a niche market delivering cargo to backwater islands in the South Pacific. The crew is well paid by “tall ship” standards but they make in a week what an AB makes per day elsewhere. [Some of the ports they deliver to the vessel has to anchor out and send in cargo by skiff.]
https://sites.google.com/site/sailcargo/
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Also, they did some figuring back, I think in the 80’s, about sail assisted cargo vessels. They had three or so vertical wings instead of traditional sails and the idea was to motor sail to save on fuel consumption but it was still capable of meeting deadlines.