Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doldrums. Hurricanes. Impulsively murdered albatrosses. Kraken. Also pirates, undead and otherwise. Really the list goes on.
Rum, sodomy, and the lash.
I can't believe scurvy has yet to be mentioned.
350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat
21–30 of 146 posts
Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat
#22With starlink we could see completely autonomous drone sailboats for shipping coming soon?
How would you secure them? Pirates have already begun to be a huge problem in particular political/economic hot spots around the world. Autonomous drone sailboats would be ripe plums just waiting to be plucked. I think one of the biggest issues is that these drones could ostensibly be jammed from beyond visual range and then disabled and captured during jamming. This would make it very difficult to detect the perpetr…
There could be a convoy of drone ships, each with automated defensive system. The convoy would be patrolled by smaller/faster manned ships with security personnel looking out for pirates
Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
all in all it's gotta be cheaper to ship time-insensitive things via a vehicle that consumes no fuel. I'm curious if they can turn around and monetize their lack of emissions thru some kind of carbon markets or whatnot
The fuel burned by container ships is literally the sludge left at the bottom of the distillation vessel after all of the lighter petroleum fuels have been removed for sale. It is incredibly cheap fuel, extremely energy dense, but unbelievably dirty stuff. Unfortunately, these ships only burn the nasty fuel in international waters so the process of getting them to pay for emissions would have to go through internatio…
I'm envisioning a Coast Guard cutter type boat in the middle of the vast ocean trying to pull over a ship to issue a ticket. Of course, it's all in the style of a cartoon in my mind to compensate for the farcical nature of trying to police the open ocean
Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat
#24350 tons equals about 20 40ft containers at 18 tons cargo per container (usable capacity of ~67 m³) or 14 at 25 tons per container (maximum freight weight for a standard 40ft container) or 12 at 30 ton per container (maximum freight weight for 40ft reefer (cooling) containers). The average capacity for container ships traversing the oceans is around 5000 20ft containers (TEU) or 2500 40ft containers. That equates anything between 125 and 200 of these sailing ships for each average container ship. Most modern container ships are far larger at 12000 TEU capacity or more.
While this looks like an interesting approach for the types of cargo which caters to people who are willing to pay a premium for having their product transported by sail power - this coffee/chocolate/... was made with single-origin beans/... harvested by ... and shipped on a modern clipper - it is not a feasible solution for normal container shipping. Other types of wind-powered propulsion exist which can be used to reduce the fuel consumption for cargo ships which probably are more efficient in reducing shipping emissions than having large fleets of these 'freight yachts' traverse the seas.
Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would you secure them? Pirates have already begun to be a huge problem in particular political/economic hot spots around the world. Autonomous drone sailboats would be ripe plums just waiting to be plucked. I think one of the biggest issues is that these drones could ostensibly be jammed from beyond visual range and then disabled and captured during jamming. This would make it very difficult to detect the perpetr…
There could be a convoy of drone ships, each with automated defensive system. The convoy would be patrolled by smaller/faster manned ships with security personnel looking out for pirates
Oh, okay. So, instead of crewing the ship, you're crewing multiple ships to go along with the unmanned ship? The logic with some just eludes me
Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat
#26Just by reading the article the impression is that it's both faster and should be cheaper (?). I get that only some type of cargo would fit or would make sense to load like this. What are the downsides?
It doesn't carry even a 10th of the cargo of the big windjammers of the 19th century (5000-8000 tons!). Of course, setting aside the value of zero emissions which is their obvious selling point, it would otherwise be competing against big container ships (up to 200,000 tons!). I assume that until they scale it for a few more generations that it'll be more a gimmick for low tonnage luxury items that just want the zero…
Use wind power to produce methane, then use methane to power huge container ships.
Sailing by proxy.
Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat
#27With starlink we could see completely autonomous drone sailboats for shipping coming soon?
Hmm, what’s starlink needed for if it’s completely autonomous? Satellite internet covering oceans has been around for a while - but the hard part of fully autonomous sailing is not a low latency backchannel for telemetry :) Some small, drone sailboats exist for ocean research in the 2-3m range. There are some designs and prototypes for larger vessels. A lot of the actual work of the crew on an ocean crossing is fixin…
For these drone ships, what are the operating parameters regarding weather, size of waves, etc?
Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat
#28I was a little sad to see that this is more eco-friendly performative than a serious attempt to disrupt the shipping industry.
With advances in material science, meteorology, and automation, I’m hopeful cargo sailboats can make a comeback.
Re: 350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
all in all it's gotta be cheaper to ship time-insensitive things via a vehicle that consumes no fuel. I'm curious if they can turn around and monetize their lack of emissions thru some kind of carbon markets or whatnot
The fuel burned by container ships is literally the sludge left at the bottom of the distillation vessel after all of the lighter petroleum fuels have been removed for sale. It is incredibly cheap fuel, extremely energy dense, but unbelievably dirty stuff. Unfortunately, these ships only burn the nasty fuel in international waters so the process of getting them to pay for emissions would have to go through internatio…
The dirtiness of the fuel has certain environmental benefits, namely the production of low marine clouds. These were offsetting the warming impact of shipping by about a third. https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/marine-clouds-climate-change...