The cost of foreign STCW compliant crew, even at standard ITF wages, is ridiculously low. So low that from an American perspective, they seem pretty damn close to being unpaid volunteers.
A typical shoreside job in Central America pays about $500 a month. $1000 a month is really good job. It’s only the 1% that make over $50,000 a year.
This sailing cargo business better resembles an NGO than a commercial business. When it does not make it as a commercial business, it will probably morph into a “sail training” NGO. If it runs out of donors, it will become an adventure cruise passenger vessel, or perhaps even just a daysailer in the right location.
I believe I saw some of the lignum vitae that came up that way at some of the East Coast boat shows in the very late '90’s. I carved some nice transom banners for folks from some of the mahogany. But the lignum, as I remember it was literally being sold out of the trunk of a car at Mystic if I remember correctly.
These people are either a bunch of loonie, obtuse granola eaters or they are a pack of criminal scammers disguised as loonie, obtuse granola eaters.
Can’t see any inbetween but anyone who puts any cash into this venture believing they will ever get it back with dividends is even more loonie and obtuse.
If it’s a job afloat, it should be a good union job at good American union rates (which have some catching up to do, themselves). Organize all these tall ships, I say. Everyone willing to sail deep sea hauling cargo for pennies and dreams is both screwing themselves over and undercutting professional mariners.
A lot of comments here are denigrating a project that has perhaps altruistic aims and the general theme is to stomp on it hard because of the dire threat this tiny thing poses to the comfortably excessive wages of properly paid professional crews protected as they are by restrictive trade practices.
Such threats are gross exaggerations.
My objection to the ship is its lack of mechanical propulsion which is a safety and practical oversight. Is she also to eschew electronic nav aids to retain the traditional feel? How about refrigeration, water maker, or even a generator? I regularly show a movie aboard of Captain Irving Johnstone’s time as an apprentice aboard the ship, Peking which had no electricity, no engine, no radio, no electronic anything, no watertight compartments apart from a collision bulkhead foreword and carried cargo around Cape Horn from Chile to Europe. Those were the days! They made everything aboard from new sails to new iron fittings. Is this ship to be the same? The romance won’t cut it.
Although the actual crewing arrangements remain to be specified it seems a mix of professionals, passengers and a form of trainees will man her. I’m very sceptical.
I might add my ship has such a mix and it works well on a shoestring. Five paid crew, ten volunteers (some of whom are highly skilled and hold professional qualifications but nevertheless volunteer) and 40 trainees totalling 55 for seven-day voyages. The aim is character development of young people and it works. It requires an extensive pool of volunteers (some seagoing and some shore maintenance/admin), generous sponsors, a dedicated board of management, community acceptance and support, scrimping and saving, fundraising, marketing, begging and pleading, mates rates etc. It is not a charity but a non-profit organisation. I don’t see this model working for a ship plodding far afield wherever cargoes dictate without a schedule.
Looks like they have secured cargo for the planned transatlantic cargo sailing ships being built in France for delivery in 2022 and 23:
Sorry, not likely that you’ll see many Americans on those ships, union or otherwise. (Most likely the crew will be French, on good French union rates and conditions)
If you want to see that you better start your own sailing cargo ship project.
US designed and built and fully manned with US mariners.
US shippers will probably support you wholeheartedly, designating their cargo to your ships for patriotic reasons.
But they do have engine power for entry into ports and for safety.
Does that ensure you that safety is taken care of?
They may save on tug hire as well, unless that is compulsory in any of the ports they call at.
Michelin won’t miss me. I’ve never bought their tyres and never dined in a Michelin Star restaurant. I can get very adequate tyres cheaper and food wankery is an utter turn-off. I’d rather have a sausage on a fork. But the Singapore stallholders I frequented probably deserved a star or two but would regret their new clientele.
Coal-fired steamers … mmmm, possibly but I see the coal converted to liquid first. Voila! Centuries of cheap shipping fuel and everybody wins.
How much engine power? Enough to propel the ship against 30 knot headwinds? Enough to ensure safe unescorted passage in a narrow channel against the current and wind? Enough to guarantee a schedule?
They will certainly save on tug hire because departures and arrivals will be spaced much further apart with the many weeks at sea crossing the pond dependent on the vagaries of the weather. There’ll only be a few each year.
Good old efficient fossil fuels are the way of the future. I enjoy sailing, but I sleep sounder knowing I have engines too.
I’m perfectly happy with this if it’s a professional French crew at good wages and working conditions, and if it has obtained cargo all the better. Who am I to care who crews a ship in an international trade as long as it’s not a sail training racket.
I like studying their projected expense sheet. As c captain said, they missed the biggest expense, crew wages. Food is about right per month, not too far off for a crew of 8 in the USA. More than enough if buying in Costa Rica. Better have a good, paid cook for all those volunteers…
Add a line item for crew injuries and medicine. Those will be more percentage-wise on a sailing vessel than a motor ship, because the work is more physical, and with unskilled crew you’re going to get more injuries. First-worlders will demand top-flight medical care now. Plane flights, medevacs, etc. Maybe under the laws the company operates under they can foist those costs off to the volunteers…
Line items for dinghy fuel and crew attire, but nothing for safety equipment. The liferaft, flares, and fire extinguishers need annual service/replacement. As do radios/EPIRB/sat coms. You could shove those into maintenance, I suppose, but I would make them a stand alone.
Insurance is way too low, even if the vessel was cheap to build. Maybe OK in Central America. But if they get in a lawsuit in the USA, legal costs will eat them alive.
Maintenance at $41k/year: If they do all their own work maybe that’s fine, though I think sails aren’t cheap and do wear out. If they’re using solar, then they’re using batteries. If they’re using an inverter they’re going to need 10 or 20. Those batteries will need to be replaced about every four years. I suppose their plan is to careen the boat themselves, etc., but good hull paint is expensive…It all adds up. But in Costa Rica these things are much cheaper than the States.
Jughead mentioned there is no line item for tug costs, and to my mind too this is a big omission. Sail to their berth in each port? Flub a landing and theycan damage both boat and dock. Do it in Hawaii and they’d better have good insurance. BC coasts have big currents and big fogs…A tug is the cheapest insurance you can buy.
Nothing at all for longshoring/stevedoring. Maybe no big deal in Costa Rica. In USA and Canada you better know if the dock you’re calling at is union or not. The volunteers will love sailing, but cargo ops? If the cargo is just a few tons of gift shop stuff it won’t matter. If they’re loading lumber or bagged coffee beans max stow, the volunteers will not be happy. Better rent a crane and rolling stock. Dunnage costs? It all adds up. Maybe they thought it all out…
No fuel? How do you cook? How do you heat the accommodations, running between Hawaii and Canada? It gets damned cold even in summer.
I will review your links in due course but whenever I see the term “zero emission” my BS detector alarms uncontrollably. If this ship works and can make a profit over a life cycle come back to me but your wide eyed advocacy of such pie-in-the-sky projects astounds me.
Why anybody would even want zero emissions beats me. The warming effect of CO2 is almost saturated already and Covid restrictions have shown that a world largely shut down/locked down has not had any effect on its level or growth. The world cooled last year - did you notice? Why we would subject ourselves to such silly, debilitating constraints whilst the Chinese laugh at us is a question nobody can answer. The whole thing is moronic.
I don’t “advocate” anything here. I only find links to actual information on the various project.
As opposed to your negative attitude, based on assumptions that everybody else are idiots that know nothing about shipbuilding, sailing or the shipping business.
I also pointed out that there are still traditional sailing ships carrying cargo in many parts of the world
