Largest cargo sailboat completes first Atlantic crossing
marineinsight.com
marineinsight.com
€3200 for France <-> Baltimore, 13 day trip. But with that you get three meals a day, a decent looking cabin, private bathroom, private balcony, and internet service (though how solid the connection is / what surcharges there may be is a question).
~€250/d doesn't sound too bad, and you could get work done along the way. Kind of sounds nice...
https://www.voilasailcoop.fr/transatlantic/
https://www.voilasailcoop.fr/transatlantic/transatlantic-a-b...
So I read "Largest cargo cult sailboat completes first Atlantic crossing" and was immediately intrigued...
The first 12 however are easy, they self-select to be low-maintenance, they just get their breakfast/lunch/dinner portion from the ship's cook, and have their cabin. A little electricity, reasonable running water, and they're contend. Essentially a hotel room plus partaking the staff dinner/in-House-catering.
Most people just can't handle the boredom these days, and many don't have that many days to spare, either.
Like you'll have two guys being repositioned and another guy will be there with a clipboard and tasked with something.
And he's probably the most able-to-handle-boredom human being that I've ever known.
It was amazing ! Perfect to relax, take a step back and think
There's plenty of things to do, you can hang out with others, read a book, work online, look at waves all day long, go to the gym etc.
The real danger is eating too much, food at restaurants is unlimited, even at official table service you can order multiple mains, multiple desserts etc. they won't say anything
Something to take into account is that USA residents have different cruises prices, usually cheaper, the rest of the world usually has to pay more
I'd probably not recommend more than a week for a first canoe trip anyways.
Weather at sea can be considerably worse than coastal weather. Cruise ships are pretty stable and it's unlikely to be awful, but plenty of people do get seasick. I used to be a professional sailor and so obviously can't see what the fuss is about, but probably half the passengers I spoke to felt ill on at least one of the days, and a few people spent the entire ocean transit in bed. If you're prone to motion sickness take some medication with you.
The atmosphere is different to regular cruises. Typically less of a party and the clientele skew towards older and more independent travellers.
To answer your actual question - go to cruisemapper and seascanner and you'll find them easily enough. They're all over the world.
Modern ships built in the last 10 years have stabilizers. I've been in a big cruiseship without stabilizer before and it can indeed move a lot laterally up and down (in the directions orthogonal to the direction of the ship). So, for people afraid of that just research if the ship has stabilizers
The difficulty is finding good prices for a solo cabin. For a cabin of 2 it's even easier to find good prices for repositioning cruises
As the other said, there are more days at sea (less stopovers), and it can happen that some stopover port get cancelled (for example they cancelled my stop in the Azores because they didn't want to bother entering a big Atlantic storm, it was risky)
Their main target markets appear to be mennonites and uptight assholes.
Our stateroom also hadn’t been cleaned when we boarded, and they had problems with the black water system so several decks just stank of shit. Our balcony had a persistent leak above it, so we couldn’t use that either.
The tickets themselves weren’t that much, but then it’s about €1,000 for internet access, and they nickel and dime you on absolutely everything, while not allowing you to have the things you already paid for - our bill on departure was about €4,000.
Oh, and at disembarkation in Southampton they destroyed two of our suitcases, and told us to go cry harder - and then it’s a three hour wait for a taxi.
Honestly, the whole experience was pure crap.
Also, unlike cruise ships, the QMII is a bona fide ocean liner, capable of crossing the N. Atlantic even in winter storms.
Another contender https://youtu.be/xsFc3pro8Y8
(Also FR based, cultural reason?)
This is based on what I learned 30 years ago so this may be out of date now.
That said, a lot of the relevant key components are technically capable of operation on either though doing so in reality can be more complicated.
Consider buying a bike in Europe instead - generally cheaper and you can get something more appropriate to the terrain.
I think the notion was to fit masts to existing container ship and stacks, and I gsve it scant attention as my intuition (I once studied actual civil/mech engineering prior to jumping ship for applied math) suggested masts are better as integral parts of ships rather than bolt on after thoughts.
EDIT: Wingsails to reduce cargo ship fuel consumption (April 2023)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35426482
I’m Joseph, and along with Arpan and Bailey we are the founders of OutSail Shipping. We’re building a sail the size of a 747 that rolls up into a shipping container.
When deployed, it will generate thrust from the wind to reduce the fuel consumption of a cargo ship. An array of these devices will reduce fuel consumption on ships by up to 20%. These sails are easily stowed and removed to cause no interference with cargo operations.
Here’s a short video showing our prototype:
Not quite as I remembered .. kite sails, et al. are a good idea, I'm still a bit torn by the physics of a container deployed boom extension sail and the thrust transmission to the ship. Still, I haven't modeled it, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt.
EDIT2: Both links appear dead, so I guess that was a swing and a miss. Still, good to see such ideas pursued.
EDIT3: Also related
350 tons of of chocolate and wine arrive on world’s largest cargo sailboat (April 2024)
You mention container ships. I haven't seen anything explicit on these, and I think the reason is probably that they cruise much faster than bulkers and tankers, which means the potential savings from sail is smaller. I would have thought 20% optimistic even for a new-build.
My gut objection to the container approach taken above in the first link was existing container locking mechanisms for ships can struggle in severe weather to keep the boxes on the boat .. additional forces from a sail (in good weather) might well mimic the forces that break stacks in bad weather.
Your point is well taken, I might suggest that container ships could be segregated into fast and slow cargo and that might help somewhat with total fleet fuel consumption. (pure spitball notion).
It seems quite mad that we even need to debate this. Wind is free power and we have at least 2000 years of engineering to draw on how to use it.
Any propulsion unit needs to be effectively attached to a ship. Screws are attached longitudinally, low down and push. Sails are a bit more tricksy. A triangular sail mounted along the long axis will generally work best because it can handle more wind angles but a square sail mounted across the long axis will provide more power on a "reach" to a "run" (the wind is mostly from behind, so pushing).
The cutting edge of sailing ships that carried stuff are the tea clippers. Think "Cutty Sark" which is now a visitor attraction in London, Greenwich. Note the stay sails - the triangular sails at the front. Then note the three masts. Each mast has several main sails that are huge rectangles for "reaches" and additional extensions. There are even more triangular infill sails above the main sails.
It's quite hard to explain how wind and sails work but you need to understand that a sailing ship can sail "into the wind". Those triangles are better at it than those rectangles but those rectangles can get more power by being bigger. Even better, you can use the front triangular sails (stay sails) to moderate the wind to feed the other sails with less turbulent wind.
Wind is free power and it is so well understood. How on earth is this news?
> I’m Joseph, and along with Arpan and Bailey we are the founders of OutSail Shipping. We’re building a sail the size of a 747 that rolls up into a shipping container.
This is probably a more reliable and practical solution than traditional sails.
From what I understand it's not hugely more efficient, but something like 10-20% fuel savings. Not really equivalent to traditional sails, but also much easier to retrofit and doesn't need additional crew
I suspect for any great deal of efficiency gain you’d need a similar system on cargo ships to support the forces generated.
The average transoceanic container ship carries around 150,000 to 250,000 tonnes.
Especially in a prototype, proving something can go wrong and you can still complete the mission is valuable data.
You wouldn't prototype something like this at full scale.
Basically the sail area grows with length squared, but ship mass and resistance grows roughly with length cubed. So propulsion gets weaker with size.
To move a full sized freighter, you would need a mast the size of a skyscraper and we don’t currently have materials that can support that.
If we did have a material that supported sails that large, it would still be a problem because you are functionally making the ship top heavy (when wind is applied) increasing how likely it is that the freighter rolls over.
Next, these ships can be downright dangerous for other, smaller ships. It has happened before that large cargo ships have killed people on sailboats when they didn't keep an adequate lookout. I wouldn't trust an autonomous system to have enough accuracy to avoid running over other boats.
The autonomous vessels need far higher robustness, not only to function without maintenance for months at a time, but reliably enough that few of them end up lost or stranded at sea.
I am only half joking. Anything luxury of vanity related, just add the fact they've gotten to the consumer on a clean ship and you'll find some people to pay extra for it. The more expensive the better. They can brag about it to each other.
I doubt Apple is lunging to do this tbh.
> The 136-metre-long vessel had to rely partly on its auxiliary motor and its remaining sail after the aft sail was damaged in a storm shortly after departure.
Used the motor "shortly after departure".
Hundreds of years of progress and known limitations.
They failed immediately because of a storm.
It's rather more interesting to them if luxury stuff is made out of the rarest and most undangered species possible. Also diamonds mined by kids are more popular and expensive than fabricated ones.
That's probably right. I guess I was thinking of the smaller segment who are more publicly visible and want to at least look virtuous while still bragging to their peers.
https://ediblebrooklyn.com/2011/the-mast-brothers-live-up-to...
Apparently Neoliner Origin capacity is 265 TEU (twenty foot equivalent units).
That’s tiny by cargo ship standards and bulk, not weight, is the bulk of bulk shipping costs.
Coasting ships were the main cargo transport before trains and for some time after in the UK. Even as late as 1950s a fair percentage of cargo came in and out of London on relatively small ships from UK ports and Europe mainland. Before containerisation of course but I'm not sure it was containers that killed that traffic off. I suspect it may have been motorways and lorries.
Switching modes of transport increases cost and complexity.
The volumes also needs to be very large for it to be worth it.
Switching from just point to point trucking to truck -> ship -> truck needs to have extremely large efficiency gains in the ship portion to be worth it.
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:96...
But are you sure they are bankrupt? The Internet claims "The company says the purpose of the acquisition, for which the price was not reported, is to strengthen the development and commercialization of “Seawing,” the automated kite system". That might be bs of course.
There also seems to be anther company trying it out, https://cargokite.com/
They are still developing the technology:
https://www.offshore-energy.biz/k-line-automated-kite-system...
But wind's biggest downside, besides it sometimes being too strong, is it can completely stop. That and the complexity of sails, and its potential for failure, would probably not make it economically viable. Even if it was technically cheaper, the inconsistency and potentially poor performance would lead customers to continue chartering motorized vessels. There's a reason everyone switched from sail to steam.
> There's a reason everyone switched from sail to steam.
One reason was, they thought the climate impact cost zero. Also, technology was much different then.
Obviously, it's still not done, and yet to prove to be profitable, but their reactor design does suggest that they have a chance to make it work and replace a lot of CO2 emissions.
1. Original article, but paywall: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3331031/chin...
2. Derivative (+based commentary), but no paywall: https://www.chosun.com/english/world-en/2025/11/07/MND3QUGUT...
Have they been used in for-profit scenarios? Military ships and ice breakers don't have to turn a profit.
Flying to the Moon can be made to work - it's been done for 56 years. But turning a profit is trickier.
Well, that's a bummer. That said, this does seem the way of the future. We just need to either figure out maintenance robots and/or find a way to keep human crew happy on long, slow voyages across the Pacific.
If you get the chance, the Pommern is a beautifully preserved ship from that era in Mariehamn's excellent maritime museum.
The few people I know who pursued jobs on boats did so because they liked being out at sea, away from land.
Combine that with the modern availability of high speed internet via Starlink and entertainment is not a problem.
Maybe it wasn't just the land they were getting away from.
I lived by the sea my whole life so sea on its own was not much special for me but being on the ship anchored in the middle of water with no land in sight was just different.
Makes me think of Rory Sutherland's ideas for getting passengers to be ok with a long ride duration on the Eurostar https://www.instagram.com/reel/C98_wbssLjG/
The stronger argument is that wind is not consistent or reliable enough for logistics. At least, not without doing a lot of extra math.
So I agree that sail propulsion alone won't happen at large, but it's an interesting question of how far in that direction commercial shipping can go with modern technology.
Back when engines first replaced sailing fuel was nearly free, and sailboats were incredibly slow, dangerous, unreliable, and didn’t sail upwind well, and all that has changed- time to take another look.
Plenty of customers don't care about latency, just cost. No fuel = no fuel cost.
Customers care about total cost, not just fuel. There is also crew wages, maintenance, insurance, capital depreciation, etc. Sailing vessels that carry useful amounts of cargo are much slower than equivalent motor vessels so all other costs go up. Fuel is cheap.
Surprisingly, no, it wasn't. I'll slightly fudge the numbers and talk in terms of proportion of world trade that was carried by ocean-going vessels (because if you double the population then it's reasonable to talk about doubling the number of ships).
The world economy was very globalised in 1913. That level of globalisation in trade wasn't matched again until the 1990s.
We're only a little more global now than we were in the age of sail.
The British navy and merchant fleet was a wonder of its era.
At the end of commercial merchant sailing, the largest steel hulled merchant sailing vessels were about 1/10th the cargo capacity of a modern container ship, but actually pretty comparable in speed, which is limited more by the physics of displacement hulls in the water than the propulsion method.
Historically, sailing ships risked becalming, but that is no longer a risk, with improved weather routing and backup engines that allow them continue at full speed if the wind dies.
Considering that the cost of modern shipping is 50-60% fuel cost alone, and that in principle with modern tech sailing vessels won't require large crews, it is not clear to me that it can't be economically viable nowadays even at the scales already possible a century ago, nor that it would be impossible to develop tech to scale merchant sailing up to modern container ship sizes.
Even with old sail tech it was already closer than you might expect to modern container ships. Look up the Preussen, launched 1901. It could do over 20 knots and carry 8,000 tons of cargo. Although small by modern standards, there are economical viable smaller container ships operating today in that speed and cargo capacity range.
Even if you still had an old low tech boat like the Preussen nowadays, modern sail technology and hardware, plus better weather routing data would make it substantially faster, and require a tiny fraction of the crew that was initially required.
The even better news is that the technology is becoming available to the general population and also commercially viable for projects like this.
> The power required would be the same as that provided by the bunker fuel engines in common use
And that is a lot of power! Emma Mærsk has an engine output around 80-90MW.
The largest off shore wind turbine today is 26MW with a rotor diameter north of 300m/1000ft(!!). Common (modern) offshore wind turbines today are about 10-15MW with rotor diameters of ~220m/720ft.
I will not conclude it is impossible at this end of the scale, but you need a huge foil area to match such engine output.
IIUC, the physics work against us as we scale up in size, because of the square/cube-law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square%E2%80%93cube_law (weight of the foil/sail + mast is cubed when the area is squared).
You do realize that none of those ships could get into any port, right? We've made modifications to accommodate that.
I tend to agree with you that putting a fixed sail on top of a container vessel won't fly.
Maybe ships would need to be smaller. I think the size of ships was mostly increased because it makes it more efficient. But if fuel is free, you could have smaller ships take direct routes instead of the layovers we do now. That might compensate for time lost as well due to lower speed.
This is a PoC not a finished product
Of course it won't, it's not an airplane.
> You do realize that none of those ships could get into any port, right?
Container ships sail under bridges all the time. Check YouTube for videos of this or just Google it if you want proof.
For ocean-going ships, isn't 99.x% of the trip in the open ocean? If so, what limit is there on sail dimensions? It's a genuine question; if coastal infrastructure isn't the limit, what is the next limitation.
They could lower sails, and use a motor and/or smaller sails, around coastal infrastructure.
Ok but ... what was it carrying? I mean there may be a government active right now that is bombing civilian ships, in particular when they carry fish.
This article gives a decent overview though: https://thebulletin.org/2024/09/why-nuclear-powered-commerci...
Not to diminish the skills required to run a conventional ship powerplant but running a nuclear reactor would take years more training and education and also command higher pay.
The ship would also be a prime target for pirates/terrorists.
NS savannah (US): 1962 to 1971, too expensive to operate
NS Mutsu (Japan): 1972 to 1992, neutron leak
Otto Hahn (Germany): 1970 to 1982, converted to diesel power
Sevmorput (Russian): 1988 to 2007, converted to world's first nuclear powered drilling shipIs it cheaper?
If it isn’t cheaper it isn’t on the board for the next decade or two outside niche routes. The hard part is in making it economically viable. We already know sailboats work.
Name one decision that the entire human civilization has ever consciously made
If you could build mass fleets of smaller ships that are sail and electric powered to move electric cars and containers of batteries.
Not happening for decades. Not until America’s boomers, Xi and his wolf warriors and Putin and his circle are dead.
Solar is a success because it’s economically viable. We need more solutions like that. Not conference presentations wrapping a regressive carbon tax as a sailboat.
Taxing CO2 isn't regressive - poor people don't fly to vacations or commute in unnecessarily large single-occupancy trucks.
It certainly is. Everything poor people need is manufactured and delivered with fossil fuels. Rich people could afford extra costs for carbon without blinking.
We need more container ships polluting or the post 2020 global warming rate could double!
Ultimately, people should be free to choose how to spend their carbon budget. I haven't flown in years, I think I'm entitled to some chocolate from time to time.
The Neoliner Origin cruises at 11 kts (20Km/h). "Straight line" on Google Earth from Saint-Nazaire to NY is about 5300 Km, so it crosses the Atlantic in 18 days.
The Emma Maersk (which I am aware plies a different route, but just for comparison's sake) cruises at 25kts (46Km/h) and therefore takes about 5 days.
The logistical chain is long, so delaying one link breaks the whole chain, and that's costly.
Same thing with train carts that arrive to pick up the containers -- there's little place to park them to wait.
If we'd only carry modern LiFePO4 at 150 Wh/kg, their range (at zero remaining payload) would be: Emma: 13300 km E-Actros: 3000 km
Thus while a substantial payload mass fraction, the heavy engine could be mostly avoided (the Emma's main engine has a specific power of about 34 W/kg; contemporary power-dense electric motors/generators around even just 1 MW are slightly above 10kW/kg; a factor of 300).
IMO rather look at whether the approach to battery packs of Form Energy allows for this level of specific energy, and if so, how to hook container crane swapped battery packs to the ship's electrics. If that's too heavy, see how such a ship could be plugged in while in port with 1000 contemporary E-Actros worth of charging power (400 MW instead of 400 kW; gives 1 day recharge after 5 days at sea). By the time that's solved, batteries have gottwn cheaper. Those 5 days of battery capacity would cost in the high triple digit million USD today; for comparison, the Emma build cost inflation-adjusted around 233 million USD today.
A container train on flat track in Europe seems to be rated to 0.15 J/(kgm) while being grid powered, over twice as fast as the Emma (also faster then the truck), though that consumption is what the traction system needs to be rated to to reliably make the train schedule; fleet efficiency should be much better.
Sadly there's oceans either side of north America unless you want to take a great circle through Alaska and Siberia or through Greenland and Norway.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/11/shipping...
Written by someone who obviously has never owned a sailboat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_large_sailing_vessels
not the longest
but top notch tonnage
the French Wikipedia lists it at 13 278 GT
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliner_Origin
and
Recall how slaves were transported from Africa to the Americas.
How gold was transported from the South America to Europe and sugar from the Caribbean.
And not forgetting how opium was transported to China by the Europeans from India.
So transporting stuff by sail is definitely not “unresearched” rather it is a forgotten technology.
Circumnavigation is a longer voyage than those craft would travel in one go, and the stops would increase their transit time. Even without that it would be a close competition with the latest class of racing sailboats that are able able to maintain very similar speeds, and the next generation will be decidedly faster.
Things have changed.
It would be really hard to sustain an average speed of 30 knots in a sailing vessel for the entire journey. Certainly you'd need the assistance of the wind deities of your choice. Central to commercial travel by wind is the predictability or lack thereof with wind power. It would be tough to run a tight supply chain when you don't know when one's ship will arrive within a reasonable window. For that reason, I think the future can't really be purely wind-powered for most commodities, it's just not predictable enough to build schedules around.
> The Gitana 17 is a 100ft trimaran designed to foil offshore at sustained speeds of 45 knots or more.
Also, 1964, the all-nuclear Task Force One, including the USS Enterprise, completed a high-speed circumnavigation in 65 days.
The winner of the Vende Globe did it in 64. And that was solo (one person on board).
But the Vende Globe is restricted to monohulls (i.e. no hydrofoil trimarans) and as you wrote, is more about individual skills.
Also the same speed feels faster at sea than on the land because waves make sailing like drive off-road. A small boat can feel like fly at 30 knots. 11 knots makes a joyful ride.
Fixed it.
I am pretty sure there is a reason why the very fast Clippers were replaced by steam engines 150 years ago. I guess we can learn why again.
No ones suggesting building a sailing ship like they did 150 years ago. Just that the wind is still an interesting source of power.
It is a complex situation, should I be penalized for wanting to live a life that has little or no environmental impact at cost of those who want to live in reasonable comfort while being a part of/contributing to, society? Probably not but I can't help but wonder about what happened to the first 'R' of the three R's (reduce, reuse and recycle), no one seems to reduce anymore unless technology gives them a way to do it without any inconvenience no matter how small that inconvenience is.
We've crossed some of the busier shipping lanes of the world, and have had to call the bridge of a freighter on radio just a couple of times. And usually the watchstander immediately confirmed seeing us and clarified their intentions.
In theory, perhaps. In praxis, might makes right, bigger wins, and if you in your sailboat want to play chicken with a freighter of any kind, you're taking an unreasonable risk. Actually, commercial boats get priority over pleasurecraft, so even in theory it's probably your job to stay out of the way.
Not under command
Restricted maneuverability
Constrained by draft
Fishing (actively dragging)
Under sail
But COLREG is not the rule of the sea, just the rule for countries who are a part of the UN. But the truth is that a collision with such a sailboat will not phase these boats and generally writing a check is an insignificant cost and rare enough that it is what they do.
I actually agree with the idea of having a lower footprint, reducing, etc. I think you're doing a good thing, and I hope you stay safe at sea.
That's how the rules of the road work. See: COLREGs.
We also travel by a small sailboat, and it is always reassuring to see huge tankers make small course changes tens of nautical miles away. That way everybody stays safe and nobody is majorly inconvenienced.
The point is the inconsistency in tone between "your life choices make me go around your wind farm, that makes my life difficult", and "my life choices make your giant freighter go around me, I have right of way".
Either way, to repeat myself again, I did not say I was right or better and plainly stated my mixed feelings.
This is an overly simplistic view of demands on energy, but it might be one of the easiest for people decry. (As it happens, comfort is nice though.)
> should I be penalized for wanting to live a life that has little or no environmental impact at cost of those who want to live in reasonable comfort while being a part of/contributing to, society?
No, but it's also unrealistic to expect to be sheltered from all externalities of society.
After all, switching to sail cargo ships is itself reducing an externality incurred by others.
> what happened to the first 'R' of the three R's (reduce, reuse and recycle)
This is a good principle, but it's not universally accepted, and it still permits things that involve cargo via ocean.
As more and more people are pulled from poverty, they too will begin to use more energy to improve their lives, perhaps to the point that they can choose to follow their dreams upon retirement.
That's a very interesting perspective and I would love to hear some arguments or examples supporting it.
I don't think my device usage habits or media consumption actually improve my life. I'm not sure the energy that's been dumped into producing the many gadgets I've bought over the years really improved me life.
I'd say that a lot of energy goes into distracting me in a way that I can't genuinely say is an improvement.
eg I'm unconvinced smart phones are truly improving life, let alone getting yearly incremental updates from every manufacturer.
So yes, to some extent, most life improvements are going to use some energy, but I wouldn't argue that most increases in spent energy lead to quality of life increases for a majority of people.