low cost cargo boat

[BMP]

Someone I know is considering tying 4 40ft shipping containers together into a 100ft "catamaran", adding bows and sterns and sailing them up the west coast to Alaska to bring agricultural products to his area and save on freight.

To his credit he wants to hire an NA to do the structure. I said he was looking as a million dollar project (just for the rig) and the Coast Guard would probably have something to say about it.

But it got me thinking if one was looking to transport some cargo by sail on a shoe string budget how would you go about it?

 

[gonzo]

If saving money is the goal, a used boat is the way to go. Converting containers into a boat is possible at a considerable expense. Further, it will be, at best a mediocre boat.

 

[skaraborgcraft]

Agricultural products? You mean food that might need to be refrigerated? I dont know what your towing laws are up there, but 2 40ft containers can be shifted by a single truck, for less cost than the diesel required by a boat.

 

[BMP]

I gather the plan is to transport grain/animal feed by sail power to save fuel over driving it up the ALCAN which is the current method.

I think that sailing idea has merit, but using shipping containers as hulls is a recipe for disappointment as least.

 

[skaraborgcraft]

An 80ft Thames barge would only carry 2. Bare in mind containers themselves will sink depending on contents, so at the very least a barge/lighter hull would need to be built; plus any rig to power it. You might find an ex-landing craft or some such that could be converted.

 

[Rumars]

But it got me thinking if one was looking to transport some cargo by sail on a shoe string budget how would you go about it?

I would find a suitable hull and convert it (back) to sail. For grains the choice between bulk or sacked is dictated by the available port infrastructure.
If the budget isn't tight a purpose buildt new ship like the Grain de Sail 2 is the way to go.

What usually kills such ideas are the economics. On one end you are competing with the door to door transport of trucks, on the other with the large scale economy of big ships. Making it work requires special conditions and fuel savings don't usually make the cut.

 

[portacruise]

How fast does it have to go, at just above drifting speed and able to tiny motor steer to take advantage of currents, a ship might be considerably more economic than equivalent load truck container transport, at least at large scale... Truck transport assumes zero cost for the road, whereas a ship doesn't have road construction/repair/enviromental, road width, outage, etc. costs or other issues associated with land routing.

I'd look for the largest/ cheapest used ship possible that is destined for scrap which can be cheaply patched up and cheaply converted to volume/weight carry.

 

[philSweet]

But it got me thinking if one was looking to transport some cargo by sail on a shoe string budget how would you go about it?

Not with sail. Diesel shaft is the cheapest by far. Sail and (small) hybrid drives are far more expensive. There is a measure of merit for this called transport productivity. In all respects, it would probably be better to just send it by Fed Ex than to use a sailboat. Understand that steam entirely replaced sail when it was 3% as powerful by weight and vastly more expensive compared to labor and had a thermal efficiency barely half what a modern diesel has. They also required a couple full time engineers to operate them and need frequent major maintenance and were often just scrapped after five years. That would still be true today. If a 100 hp coal fired steam engine weighed 40 tons with bunkers and boilers, it would still be better than sail. Diesels beat steam by WW1. In the thirties, 35hp/ton marine diesels in a well-integrated, reliable package were being mass produced by several manufacturers. A modern medium speed marine diesel weighs about 40 pounds per hp and will run for 20 years. Bottom line, if diesels were 100 times more obnoxious than they are today, they still beat sail on economics.

Probably the most efficient sailing cargo ships of all time were the Dutch "butter boxes" that made one lap around the North Atlantic each year with a crew of about six to ten. They ran a fixed route for decades, visiting (maybe Africa) a few Caribbean islands, a couple ports along the US east coast, then back to Europe. And history has almost entirely forgotten them. They ranged from about 60 feet to about 120 feet, with 60-70 being common, and they basically operated like a floating street peddler.

Fluyt - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[gonzo]

If you add the cost of today's wages, sail makes even less sense.

 

[portacruise]

Thought this might be interesting, for those that haven't seen it already,

https://www.cnn.com/climate/vela-wind-cargo-ship-spc-c2e

There's also a lot of information available about robotic ships using AI to reduce or even eliminate all on board human labor, at least for some Marine Niche uses..

 

[ondarvr]

So if this was actually cost effective it would already be being done.

If you needed a one time trip, just have the containers shipped by already existing companies. They have fine tuned the process, all you need to do is deliver it to the port and pick it up on the other end.

If this is an ongoing need, and you have a few million $$$ to blow, then go for it. It should only take a few years to get something engineered, approved, and then built. And be prepared to build it again, barges all too frequently sink on that route.

I have customers that build 50'+ boats in AK, they ship everything commercially. Its a full time job to transport goods to AK.

 

[portacruise]

Yes, I get your drift and generally agree.

https://www.cargill.com/2024/first-wind-powered-ocean-vessel-maiden-voyage

Above is a link with some numbers, for one that is still in operation. Not much savings, if any, unless they convert it to robotic without a crew? Converting Fossil fuel to diesel involves thousands of steps directly and indirectly related. So Interruption of almost any of them for a significant amount of time might cause economic and other disasters.. JMHO.

 

[HelmutSheina]

I am so "hip" I had to look up the meaning of your acronym.

 

[wet feet]

There is good information in the posts above.the economics of the project need to be looked into carefully because as gonzo pointed out,the sheer time taken will make it hard for an operator to earn much of a living if he has to compete with a truck travelling ten to twelve times faster.Then we could get mired in the regulatory necessities of building to a standard that is acceptable to both the authorities and to companies offering insurance.It goes without saying that operating without insurance would be a guarantee of very little business.Then there might be the consideration that taking a long while to accomplish a round trip might lead to divorce.Any of these factors could be why nobody is using this approach for the transport of goods over this route.

 

[BMP]

From what I gather the goal is to pick up the grain in Prince Rupert and sail it to Valdez then truck it to the interior instead of getting it in Alberta and taking the Alcan. There is still 300mi of road travel and 800ish mi of sailing but you save 1800mi of trucking, and in a perfect world (which the inside passage/north pacific is not) you save 1500mi of fuel. All fine and good, but then you have to sail the boat back and unless you can find a high value cargo to bring back to pay for your time you get to double the costs. None of this is for hire, and it would be a personal boat transporting personal goods so there might be a lot sell red tape to get through.

Freight cost is very roughly $2-4 usd per mile so max savings would be about $6000, Cruisers estimate about a month for the trip for sailing. So 12-18k max a year if you are lucky. Last I checked Alaska doesn't produce much rum, very little coffee and tea, and practically no chocolate so return cargo might be an issue.