It's all hands on deck as Sailcargo Inc. helps move shipbuilding towards a sustainable future.
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00:00 Around the world there's projects and companies doing really cool things.
00:06 The beauty about Sail Cargo is having an answer for absolutely everything.
00:10 We can build ships sustainably and I love being able to promote that.
00:15 I feel very lucky to be doing something for a cause I care about.
00:20 My name is Thomas, I'm the Chief Legal Officer here at Sail Cargo.
00:24 [Music]
00:35 People view shipping as this revolution.
00:38 We can now transport goods all around the world and between countries.
00:42 Yeah, amazing, but at what cost?
00:45 And we don't want to take that away. We don't want Costa Rica to lose a big part of their trade.
00:49 What we do want is to offer a sustainable alternative.
00:52 [Music]
00:57 The idea of building a ship without any thought of what's going to happen to it in the future
01:02 is fundamentally what is wrong with shipbuilding at the moment.
01:06 Sail Cargo is an organization that builds wooden ships.
01:10 Sail Cargo's vision is to build a fleet of mission-free cargo sailing vessels
01:14 within a regenerative system to prove the value of clean shipping.
01:18 When we first got here, it was an empty land. There wasn't anything except a small cabin.
01:23 We had a clean slate to start with.
01:25 We had to build a shipyard before building the ship and we laid the keel in 2019.
01:30 [Music]
01:35 We have architects that have been going through the plans,
01:39 engineers that have been going through them as well.
01:42 As boat builders, our work is to interpret these plans, to take the templates,
01:49 to take all the shapes and all the pieces we need.
01:52 Today I was working on the hanging knees.
01:56 Once these hanging knees are ready, we drill the holes for them,
02:01 we order the fasteners, and we bring them down to cut them on the ship.
02:06 [Music]
02:09 Costa Rica has a lot of natural resources for wooden shipbuilding, lots of usable lumber.
02:15 There isn't really a bad reason to use wood.
02:19 Wood has been the first material we've been building boats with for centuries now.
02:25 It's more than sustainable.
02:27 [Music]
02:30 Every single part of a tree we end up using.
02:35 Parts which you can't use in the ship, we then use those in other means.
02:40 Offcuts will end up being burnt and then cooled back down in charcoal and used to fertilize soil.
02:47 The nicer offcuts we either send to some local woodworkers in Costa Rica
02:53 who will make musical instruments, either to be sold by the non-profit or given to local schools.
02:59 It's not something you can really do with iron or fiberglass.
03:04 A lot of fiberglass boats end up in junkyards.
03:08 [Music]
03:15 One of the rules of thumb of woodworking and boatbuilding is
03:19 whenever you cut a tree, you should replant at least one.
03:23 [Music]
03:25 Acero Verde is our non-profit association that regenerates the materials we use in the construction of our wooden ships.
03:32 Natural resources are replenished through pre-planting programs.
03:35 To date our non-profit has planted over 10,000 trees.
03:39 The goal is for every one tree we use in the construction of the ship, we plant 25.
03:45 So we're talking about 12,000 trees before the ship hits the water.
03:51 Building a ship as sustainably as you possibly can
03:55 combined with planting as many trees as you possibly can
03:58 just brings an infinite loop of more trees being planted.
04:01 In 80 years time, they'll be grown again to build another ship.
04:04 That loop, in theory, is endless.
04:07 [Music]
04:15 Well, Sail Cargo provides a solution in the sense that
04:18 everything from the building of the ships to the sailing of the ships is contemplated.
04:24 Everything from the social aspect, the environmental aspect, the economical aspect.
04:30 We're able to do a lot with little.
04:33 We're able to be versatile as a company, to be able to bend with the wind.
04:38 [Music]
04:41 We live as low impact as we possibly can.
04:44 We cook three meals a day for all of us.
04:46 Local, vegan food.
04:48 I'm a believer that everyone does have a purpose, but you need enough people to do it right, to make a change.
04:54 To date, we've had over 250 workers come through from 30 countries.
05:01 So by involving different people from different countries creates diversity.
05:05 We bring in expertise from around the world that shares knowledge, shares ideas, shares their help.
05:11 We have to sacrifice a lot to get to where we are.
05:15 We sacrifice personal time, sacrifice other dreams to be able to fulfill this dream,
05:20 make a positive impact on the world. It's all been worth it.
05:25 My hope for Sail Cargo is that we can build a fleet, make positive change in the world that the world needs urgently.
05:33 To create a change in the global shipping industry.
05:36 As things grow and expand, we're looking forward to purchasing the land and building permanent infrastructure to be able to produce more ships.
05:45 If we can build a ship, sail a ship, transport goods and make money, then why can't we do it over and over and over again?
05:53 [Music]