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This is an important step that the Nantes shipowner Neoline has just taken.
This Wednesday, it announced that the construction of its first ro-ro sailing cargo ship would take place in Turkey, via the RMK Marine shipyard, for delivery scheduled for mid-2025.
The ship, named Neoliner, with a budget of more than 60 million euros, will be 136 meters long and equipped with solid rigging provided by Chantiers de l'Atlantique.
It will accommodate two retractable carbon masts 76 meters high to which 3000m2 of sail will be attached.
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Propelled mostly by the wind, the Neoline
“aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 to 90% compared to a ship of comparable size operated conventionally,”
the company said in a statement.
Operated at a commercial speed of 11 knots, it should be put into service on a transatlantic line linking Saint-Nazaire (Loire-Atlantique) to Baltimore (United States) via Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon and Halifax (Canada) .
Funding: private and public partners
The financing of the first Neoliner was carried out, for the equity part, thanks to the CMA CGM Group, Corsica Ferries, ADEME Investissement, Neoline Développement and Louis Hardy SAS.
In addition, the Banque des Territoires granted 3.8 million euros in the form of bonds and the Pays de la Loire Region 1.5 million euros through a repayable advance.
Its loading capacity will be 1,200 linear meters or 265 20-foot containers for a maximum weight of 5,300 tons of goods.
The Neoliner should be used to transport a variety of goods such as agricultural or construction machinery (Manitou), cognac (Jas Hennessy&Co), boats (Beneteau), cars (Renault) or luxury goods (Longchamp).
“We were taken for hippies”
“There we are, the first Neoliner will come to life [...] This announcement is the accomplishment of passionate, persevering and determined work. This is indeed the first outcome of a project of more than 10 years
,” says Jean Zanuttini, CEO of Neoline.
"In a context that reminds us every day that the fight against climate change is the challenge of this century, the wind propulsion of commercial ships is becoming more and more essential as an ultimately pragmatic solution to an energy issue. more and more complex.
The wind is certainly intermittent, but it is more predictable than the prices and availability of many other energies
”,
take up the thread of the history of maritime transport by sail”.
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"Fifteen years ago, we were taken for hippies
," said former commercial sailor Michel Péry, president of Neoline & Associés.
Today, sail propulsion has become a reasonable subject and many players are embarking on these projects.
For Laurent Castaing, CEO of Chantiers de l'Atlantique, the Neoline project is an opportunity to
"show that there is room for sailing cargo ships because the new fuels will not arrive before ten or fifteen years."
Apart from the merchant navy, sailing is also on the rise in the cruise industry.
On January 11,
Le Figaro
revealed exclusively that the subsidiary of the Accor hotel group, Orient Express, had placed an order with Chantiers de l'Atlantique to build two copies of the largest sailboat in the world.
The first should be delivered in March 2026 and the second a year later.