There’s same-day delivery. Then there’s shipping by sailboat.

Brut America

There’s same-day delivery. Then there’s shipping by sailboat.  With his schooner, this man wants to create a sustainable alternative to one of the highest polluting industries…shipping.

Transcript

00:00What I wanted to do is just show a model of, here is a supply chain that we can be proud of,

00:04here's a supply chain that's transparent.

00:14We move freight and cargo with the power of the wind, distributing things

00:18south from Hudson down to New York City,

00:20and then we also take cargo from New York City back up to the Hudson Valley.

00:30We're completely blind to everything that happens on the water, like all of our shirts,

00:38all of our clothes, many of the things you buy, they come on large ships from across the ocean.

00:42The fuel that a lot of these big ships burn is a fuel that we call bunker.

00:46It's some of the heaviest polluting fuel we have.

01:00We got down here from Hudson with less than a gallon of diesel fuel.

01:12The goal is to get the diesel completely out of the equation.

01:23So this malt, I can tell you how it got from the farm onto the boat,

01:26how it sailed down the river on the boat,

01:28how when we tied up in Long Island City, we put it on the bicycle,

01:31how we pedaled it over here and unloaded it.

01:37I'd been doing all sorts of different alternative fuels like vegetable oil conversions for diesel

01:41cars and trucks and things that were steps in the right direction,

01:44but they always felt like some compromise.

01:45I sort of had the moment of watching another sailboat.

01:48It was like, actually, this isn't just history.

01:50This is still very, very relevant.

01:56I actually found it on Craigslist.

01:57It was just like a totally random thing where I was like,

01:59that looks exactly like the schooner we're looking for.

02:01It almost seemed like a joke at first.

02:02You know, I've been sitting out in this backyard for over 30 years.

02:14It's basically been a six-year journey and we only started sailing last year.

02:18There's no path.

02:19There's no how-to manual for doing Hudson River sail freight.

02:23So there's been a lot of improvising along the way.

02:27What is about to happen is Sail Freight Friday,

02:38which is a joint venture with the Renny Center in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

02:43We throw a party together.

02:58The schooner doesn't work for everything.

03:02The point to me is we just need to start thinking creatively about how to move stuff.

03:06How much does stuff have to move?

03:08Can it move less?

03:09And if it does have to move, what's the mode of transportation, right?

03:11And what's the impact of that?

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