Examples of sailing transport are multiplying, sometimes coupled with other themes than simple transport without carbon impact:
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Low-tech catamaran world tour 2016_2022
In 2016, Le Nomade des Mers, catamaran ambassador of low-technologies, leaves the port of Concarneau (France) for 5 years of exploration around the world!
A platform for experimentation, a promotional medium and a vector for dissemination, the Nomade des Mers aims to become an ecosystem, standard-bearer of sustainable and solidarity-based innovation.
At each port of call, the crew of the Nomade des Mers goes in search of exemplary low-tech initiatives: technical, economic, social or environmental.
On board the catamaran, the team tests the low-tech discoveries on a daily basis in order to demonstrate their potential or the need to optimize them. Read the press kit and visit the Low Tech Lab website (French and English)
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2. Sailcoop
Founded in June 2021 in Vannes (France), Sailcoop is a company whose objective is to reduce carbon emissions related to maritime transport while raising awareness on sustainable tourism. It has its own boats and plans to negotiate management/rental contracts with some owners in order to be able to use their sailboats. It offers travel offers from the continent to Corsica or between the French West Indies, as well as transatlantic projects. Open trips, on the model of BlaBla Boat (shared boats) and scholarships for crew members should also be set up to offer trips adapted to the desires of owners and users. (see article “Sailcoop. Une alternative décarbonée aux avions et ferries pour le transport de personnes“, 09/06/2022). From 2024, Sailing Shuttles will be deployed in several navigation basins, particularly on the Brittany coast and towards the Mediterranean islands close to the continent. Citizens communities and structures that wish to do so are stakeholders in the adventure… See the website here.
Sail coop also cites “Towt, Grain de Sail, SolidSail, Neoline, Iliens, Zéphyr and Borée, VPLP and many others are the precursors.”: Grain of Sail for example, in 2018 set up the construction of a cargo sailboat that since 2020, brings fair trade cocoa / coffee, processed and distributed in shops of Grain de Sail in France and bringing back French organic wines to New York. Discover also the cargo sailboats of TOWT, dedicated to freight, with its Anemos label, the only transport label in the world that guarantees carbon-free navigation thanks to working sailboats.
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3. Aegean Cargo Sailing
with wind and solar power and to complete the pilot implementation of electrification in its zero carbon footprint sea travel. At the same time, it organized 4 awareness raising events in cooperation with local authorities, institutions and producers in Kea, Chios, Ikaria and Syros, and discussed with boaters in the passages of Trizonia, Poros and Kalymnos about the possibility of achieving a sustainable model of mobility and transport adapted to the requirements of climate change mitigation and environmental protection.
The power of the sails allowed this year to support the vision for an eco-friendly shipping and transport project that connects with the land and retail trade, creating a niche market for small island producers to expand their activity and transport their products with the wind. . Next stop in this direction for the well-travelled Pelago was the Terra Madre exhibition organised by Slow Food International from 22 to 26 September in Turin, where more than 600 exhibitors active in the agri-food sector met.
