Cocoa Arrives, By Sail

[SOUNDBOUNDER]

Wall Street Journal:

[I]On the Red Hook waterfront next to a container ship carrying 20,000 tons of Ecuadorian bananas, a group of stevedores, sailors and makers of artisanal chocolate spent Tuesday morning unloading 20 tons of cocoa beans out of a 70-foot sailing schooner.

It was the first time a sailing ship had unloaded commercial cargo in New York since 1939, according to one city official.

Two years ago a pair of bearded brothers decided to try importing cocoa for their Williamsburg chocolate factory—which focuses on simple, ecologically friendly sweets—by sail. They hoped it would save energy, help lure environmentally conscious buyers, and, maybe eventually, cost less. Their ship finally came in from the Dominican Republic

Cocoa Arrives, By Sail - WSJ.com

[SJ34]

Very cool, where can I sign up?

From the outside, hauling cargo by schooner doesn't seem practical in the modern age, but for a boutique business that owns it's own ship and if it can be done for even money, eventually, why not. I would also expect this will give the Mast bros. some serious street cred among the organic/all natural crowd. Similar to the benefits Starbucks gets from it's Fair Trade campaign.

[turbulicity]

Cool, I hope this starts a trend.

I am curios though. How much fuel, per ton of load, would a fully loaded big cargo ship burn. Maybe on par with the total used by the schooner if it did motor some of the way to meet the delivery time.

[SOUNDBOUNDER]

I found some more photos here:

Figuring Out by Doing « tugster: a waterblog