

The Vermont Sail Freight Project - camurban
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1746378042/the-vermont-sail-freight-project

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zeteo
I'm not sure to what extent this will be able to sail under wind power. They
mention they will go through canals, which are too narrow to tack against a
headwind. Back in the heyday of canals, sail power was not used much - barges
would usually be towed by animals walking alongside the canal. If they're
aiming for renewable (as opposed to just plain archaic), solar panels and / or
a wind turbine (e.g. [1]) would be significantly superior.

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbird_(land_yacht)>

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HeyLaughingBoy
I was wondering the same thing. In my merchant marine cadet days I've taken a
ship (steam) up the Hudson from the Atlantic to Albany and it's quite a twisty
river, sometimes with tall, steep, wind-blocking banks. Assuming they're
planning to transit the Hudson, it will be an interesting trip.

However, I _love_ stuff like this and if I'm convinced that they can pull it
off, I will contribute what I can.

Now I'm wondering how many acres of soybeans it would take to power the barge
by biodiesel.

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nraynaud
Vermont has quite an obsession with food and local stuff. In Burlington I went
to a food place where mostly every ingredient was local, and the waitress not
see the irony of that in a MEXICAN restaurant...

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stephencanon
Please tell me what the irony is. I can see how it might superficially seem
ironic if one didn't understand the reasons why people might want to buy
locally-sourced food, but surely you appreciate that "food prepared in the
style of some other place" and "food that was grown locally" are in no way
exclusive.

~~~
pasbesoin
I read it as the circumstance being ironic in that Mexico is much further
south and one might not expect to find so many ingredients native to that area
also to be sourced locally in Vermont.

I guess the "irony" might be found in having to be in Vermont, of all places,
to find locally sourced Mexican cuisine. I don't know whether that is really
"ironic", in that there is a significant movement for locally sourced food in
Mexico, as well. (In which case, one might better describe the Vermont
experience as "surprising", rather than "ironic". Meaning, it's not ironic
because you _can_ find locally sourced Mexican cuisine in Mexico, as well.)

For those wanting to revisit the meaning of ironic, one exercise might be to
run the lyrics of Alanis Morrisette's song through your head:

<http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/alanismorissette/ironic.html>

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zevyoura
That song is not the best example, as analyzed in excruciating detail here
(warning, 1990s CSS ahead): <http://fgk.hanau.net/articles/ironic.html>

~~~
pasbesoin
Well, I hesitated a bit when typing my comment. And I chose the words "one
exercise" (of multiple possible exercises) with some deliberation.

But, it's a well-known work, and I thought it would be at least acceptably on
the mark.

I'll have a look at your link when I have a few more brain cells free for
contemplation. I did skim it, and at that level I found myself not fully
agreeing with the author on the specific points my skimming happened to
capture.

As for the '90's CSS warning, appreciated. But, from my viewpoint, far better
to have '90's CSS, than '10's "everything loads via Javascript" BS... ;-)

Isn't it ironic...

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endgame
I hope this works, but I'm a little nervous.

I don't know what the law is like in the US, but in Australia a new commercial
vessel has to have its plans approved by a survey authority before
construction can even begin. I couldn't find word that had been done, apart
from "extensive research into regulations".

If there was a lot of maritime expertise on the team, I'd expect them to be
announcing it on the Kickstarter. Buried in a page on his blog[1], it mentions
that he has help from a pair of boatbuilders.

It wouldn't be the first time a professional woodworker has decided to build a
boat[2], and it wouldn't be the first time that it's worked. I hope they know
what they're doing.

[1]: <http://vermontsailfreightproject.wordpress.com/about/> [2]:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notorious_(ship)>

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jdietrich
Large cargo ships are phenomenally efficient. The efficiency of sea freight
has more than doubled since the 1970s and is now in excess of 6 ton/km per MJ
- more than fifteen times the efficiency of road freight.

Large ships have two key advantages. The first is drag, which increases
approximately in proportion to the square root of displacement. The bigger the
ship, the less energy it needs per tonne of freight. Large vessels can use
extremely clean and efficient engines, with complex heat-recovery systems and
exhaust particulate filtering. They run on bunker fuel, which consists of the
densest and least valuable fractions of crude oil.

A standard 20-foot container is 30m^3 in volume and normally carries a maximum
of 14 tonnes. The queens of the ocean, the eight Maersk E-class vessels, each
carry 11,000 containers with a crew of just 13. Maersk have placed orders for
twenty triple-E class ships, which will be a quarter of a mile long, carry
18,000 containers and be 37% more efficient than the E-class.

If sail is the long-term answer to sea freight, then it will be on an
unimaginably grand scale.

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dccoolgai
[http://www.fastcodesign.com/1665567/4-reasons-why-the-
future...](http://www.fastcodesign.com/1665567/4-reasons-why-the-future-of-
capitalism-is-homegrown-small-scale-and-independent&);

Reminds me of this article re: the emergence of "small-scale"
capitalism...very interesting - thanks for the share.

