Friday, November 8, 2013

Freight sailboat brings local farm goods to NYC

Last weekend, a flat-bottomed, two-mast sailboat came down the Hudson River with 12 tons of food from 30 Vermont farms in its holds.

The Vermont Sail Freight Project built the 30-foot craft, the Ceres, to be the first sailboat since the 1950s to arrive in New York City with goods. The cargo was bound for the New Amsterdam Market, restaurants, and customers who had placed orders online.

"Originally, I thought of the project as a kind of a publicity stunt," said Erik Andrus, a farmer and entrepreneur who heads the Vermont Sail Freight Project. But after receiving positive feedback, Andrus thinks there might be a market in sailing produce in the Northeast again.

"We believe ... in rebuilding a regional food system that's not petroleum dependent," he said. "If people ... receiving ... the food value that kind of resilience, then that's a reason for them to get their maple syrup from us rather than from the local corner store."

Freight sailing is reportedly expanding worldwide — small operations that dovetail with local food and environmental movements. They don't compete with massive container ships in terms of economies of scale. But even the shipping industry has started exploring wind power as a potential energy source.

For more of the National Geographic story: news.nationalgeographic.com

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