It is with this tranquil majesty of sailing ships that, on June 3, the schooner
Avontuur
docked at the quay of the port of Douarnenez (Finistère).
This century-old rig did not return from a pleasure cruise.
Loaded with barrels of rum, wine and Azorean tea stowed in the hold, the
Avontuur
returned from an eight-month journey on behalf of the Breton shipowner TOWT (Transoceanic Wind Transport), a young sailing transport company.
To discover
OUR SIMULATOR - Are you getting paid well?
Read also:
A mix of energies for the boats of the future
Ten years ago, the idea of bringing sailing up to date for the transport of goods was incongruous.
Today, The Return of the Sail is no longer a utopia of mad ecologists imbued with nostalgia.
Especially since the International Maritime Organization, which depends on the United Nations, demands that maritime transport reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030, and by 70% in 2050, compared to 2008 .
Sailboats are a bit of a showcase for green transport.
Lise Detrimont
"It is in any case one of the alternatives,
tempers Lise Detrimont, general delegate of the Wind Ship association which brings together about fifteen pioneers of the French industry.
Sailboats are a bit of a showcase for green transport. But the idea is also to succeed in lowering the consumption of existing cargo ships, in particular by adding sails, giant kite surf wings or by making better use of information on winds and currents, instead of drawing straight lines. in the ocean. In France, we have real industrial strengths to position ourselves in this emerging market. ”
Created in 2011, managed by Guillaume Legrand and Diana Mesa, TOWT employs 6 people and charters 18 old sailing vessels that it has unearthed in the four corners of Europe and which are owned by associations or small companies.
"There is an emerging market for products from green transport, even if this generates additional costs,
" said Grégoire Théry, Director of Development.
Our customers are usually committed companies that only import products that cannot be found in France, such as coffee, cocoa, or that export French products. ”
Read also:
In Le Havre and offshore, maritime transport is undergoing an ecological transformation
Rather, it concerns luxury products. And for good reason. Grégoire Théry figures the price of a transatlantic kilo in a sailboat at 4 euros, compared to 10 cents in a container ship.
“But, when we have built our own modern sailboat, the cost will drop to 40 cents,”
explains Grégoire Théry.
In 2022, TOWT is expected to break a bottle on the bow of its first 1,100-ton vessel.
A prelude to the construction of three others, it is currently in the hands of a French shipyard.
This 17 million euro project is financed by Crédit Agricole, Société Générale, Banque Populaire du Grand Ouest and Caisse d'Epargne.
“Unlike old schooners, they will meet current loading standards and will have much higher transport capacities
,” says Grégoire Théry.
The optimization of sailing is now possible thanks to the advancements in navigation brought about by ocean racing.
Thanks to weather analyzes, for example, ships can optimize their route much better than they were a hundred years ago. ”
Back to the roots
In 2020, the Breton company Grain de Sail, founded in 2013 by the brothers Jacques and Olivier Barreau, was the first to build a small green cargo ship.
It is part of an economic model geared towards almost complete independence of their production and logistics.
With 50 tons of capacity, Grain de Sail exports wine to New York then rallies South America to bring coffee and cocoa to Morlaix (Finistère).
This is where their company, with 37 employees and a turnover of 5 million euros, has its own coffee roasting plant and its own chocolate factory from which finished products are produced.
“The difficulty is to find certified sailors from the merchant navy who know how to sail.
"
Stefan Gallard
“We make two transatlantic round trips a year,”
explains Stefan Gallard, Marketing Director of Grain de Sail.
The difficulty is to find certified sailors from the merchant navy who know how to sail. ”
This problem could increase in the years to come. With its 22 meters, the small sailboat
Grain de Sail
, as precursor as it is, will not weigh heavily against the 136 meters and 4 masts of 50 meters of the future ro-ro ship of Neoline. This 45 million euros project is financed by the public bank Bpifrance, the Pays de la Loire region and equity capital. It is piloted by a group of merchant navy officers and chaired by an officer, Jean Zanuttini.
His long months of sailing on the
Belem training
sailboat
ended up giving him ideas to go back to basics. "
To ensure that the project was viable, we first had to find shipper customers," he
explains.
Renault, Bénéteau, Clarens, Michelin, Hennessy and Manitou are committed.
The ship, whose construction is due to start soon, should be baptized in early 2024. It will mark a flamboyant advance in this return to sailing transport. Jean Zanuttini knows that this still represents very little compared to the international maritime transport market. But he dreams of the day when the 150 years of existence of heavy fuel oil freighters will only be a short parenthesis in the millennial history of the merchant navy.
Irish beer sails with Neolithic 2.0
Creann Beatha, Killanny, Brehon… The name of the craft beers of the Neolithic 2.0 project leaves little doubt about their Irish origin and their artisanal character.
Adrian Hamilton, a convinced entrepreneur and ecologist, got it into his head to export them from his native island aboard sailboats. From Cork to Douarnenez, Neolithic beer therefore lives, in its own way, a nautical adventure.
The last cargo had landed from the
Tres Hombres
, a schooner refurbished by three passionate Dutchmen and chartered by the Batavian company Fairtransport Shipping & Trading. Head of an English training company in Le Mans (Sarthe), Adrian Hamilton worked for a few years as a waiter in bars in La Rochelle. He is familiar with the beer world. He launched Neolithic 2.0 in 2018.
“I wanted to start a business in this area,” he
says.
But I wanted to reduce the carbon footprint of the import as much as possible. Sailing seemed obvious. Today, consumers are sensitive to this way of doing business. ”
If the bottles are distributed in three Breton bars and sold on the web, it is nevertheless 90% on the markets of the Paris region that Adrian Hamilton sells his stocks.
Always in an ecological approach, he does not hesitate to make deliveries by cargo bike.
He is helped by Thibaultet Daphné, two young people who share his green approach to commerce.
"It is starting to work well
,
"
he says with satisfaction.
It achieved 10,000 euros in turnover in May.
"For three months, I have not put any more money in the company," he
adds.
On the Neolithic 2.0 stall, the curious passer-by is caught by a small screen, which broadcasts in a loop the crossing of the hoes of the green Erin.
It is a bit of the spray of the Celtic Sea that he also buys.
Le Figaro
Society, health, environment, education, energy
»Discover the actors and initiatives of change in Figaro Demain