Commercial Sailing: Vermont to NYC

Think globally, act locally....these folks making the very old new again.

http://www.sailtransportnetwork.com/node/927

 

If people are willing to pay more for freight carried by sail, they can maintain their business. Remember that sail was replaced because it couldn't compete any more, and that was with the very low wages and no insurance or guarantees of the time.

 

I do not think he has done any kind of serious economic analysis, or he will find that it cost more to operate a sailboat than to run a diesel engine to power it.

There is someone in the Puget sound area that delivers organic vegetables from hobby farmers to Seattle and Tacoma farmers markets in a sailboat. He hopes to break even with operating costs, and his customers like the idea of not burning fuel to deliver their produce and are willing to pay more for it. So it is really a hobby business and not really viable except for the willingness of idealists to pay extra because they have a mistaken romantic ideal that somehow paying more to deliver goods to market saves resources. The more it costs, the more resources are consumed in the process.

He will likely find the same thing. He will have to charge more than other means to deliver his cargo to stay a head of his expenses.

 

I would think that insurance and regulations would be a burden for small carriers. A couple licensed crew would break the budget.

Perhaps they did their homework and the small size stays under the regulation radar screen.

Would be nice to see it become successful. Perhaps selling as a charter , passengers, in addition to cargo could work

 

We have the good fortune in the US to have much less regulations than in Europe.
I hope it stay that way.

 

There's money to be made where people are interested.
This can-do attitude is what made America great. It's a good contrast to everyone watching the stock market or gold prices and hoping money will fall into their lap doing nothing.