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.
With his schooner, this man wants to create a sustainable alternative to one of the highest polluting industries…shipping.
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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?