Not a new idea at all, but this becomes more and more appealing as fuel prices and pollution concerns rise.
As late as the 1930s big sail-powered vessels were still economical for some cargoes on some routes. The last ones to finally disappear were in the Chile-UK Guano trade. They were optimized for non-perishable cargoes on long routes, but eventually proved uneconomical due to the large, highly skilled crews required to handle the sails, and the high maintenance costs of the rigs.
These ships, called “windjammers” weren’t the fast, graceful clippers of the mid-nineteenth century, or the multi-masted, fore-and-aft rigged barques of the turn-of-the-century. But they still took advantage of the trade winds, as sailors have done since the 1400s. At certain times of year, in certain latitudes, the wind is strong, predictable, and unchanging. Under these limited circumstances, square-rigged sailers were actually faster than even modern vessels on long passages.
The most advanced sailing craft of the final days of sail even used steam winches and steel lines and spars to help handle their rigs, but eventually not even these improvements could compete economically with steam.
Today, modern materials science, self furling mechanisms and computer control, as well as increased fuel and labor costs, may make a modern version of the windjammer economical on certain routes for certain cargoes.
It will be grand to sea these sea birds fly one last time.
