Green Shipping

Our new acquisition is a 1970 Balboa 20' sloop in very good condition, shown above with the grey hull.  We are currently in Santa Barbara, Ca.  She is missing much of her equipment and needs a bit of work. We're on it!

Green Shipping reclaims, restores, and re-purposes sailboats and bicycles to transport people and goods without burning fuel. This has been going on forever. However, this project in particular was commenced in 2007 with the Mighty Nib, an 11' sailing dory (a car topper design by P. Bolger), as I ferried dogs, food, guitars and laundry  around the north Puget sound in that open boat. Almost a year later, Spot (my dog) and I lived in the NIb for thre weeks during the rainy PNW fall month of October.

 This is (below) our current (July 2011)  target sloop, 20'  LOA, and likely built in the mid-seventies. Work that needs to be done: electrical system needs to be re-wired, interior cabinet/wood-work needs to be completed, and not much else. The swing keel is disconnected and may require some attention. Otherwise this is a fine and solid vessel that rendered a promising survey.

We are waiting for the owner to get back to us with some answers...

Spot (above) on board the schooner Zodiac in Bellingham when I was painting her. She was dismasted last summer (2010)... 

This bike was reclaimed a few months ago, around the end of march 2011, one of many we do but I thought it made a good photo this a.m... 

We are updating this site...thanks for your patience, and park your car! 

Also new: All-Green! We are affiliating with a fledgling org' that is classifying new products as All Green, meaning green from the ground, green in the gathering and production, green in the transit, and green at the market! Guess what - we qualify with the sage! If you would like to get involved please contact us!

See Green Wheels Appendix A for zero-carbon bike transfer data (click on left below Contact Us)

 Just because people are wedded to their cars , we need not assume they cannot be divorced.

                                                                                                                                        - A.Q. Mowbray, Road to Run

  " Internet technology can reduce the need to travel. Some people are able to work from home, accessing their office computer system. Instead of going to a meeting, they may hold a video conference. People can also shop online. Rather than travelling to stores, they have goods delivered to their home. In this way, one delivery vehicle can replace many individual journies."                                                -  Cath Senker, How Can We Save Our World? Sustainable Transportation

A Sensible Proposal
The Concept: Green Shipping
The Definition: Transportation of goods with little or no redundant carbon emmision. The Green part means environmentally friendly and/or sustainable. The Shipping part means just that: shipping, and not coincidentally, by sailboat.
The Scenario: The development of an alternative to overland and fuel based commodity transfer using sailboat(s).
So:
   Wind is a renewable resource. Early tall ships took advantage of that and the natural currents to develop trade and explore the world. They relied on the trade winds to get large heavy wooden ships full of stuff everywhere. They wouldn't sail up wind and they required large crews who were frequently pressed into service (against their will) or absorbed voluntarily as an option to prison. It was tough dangerous work!
   The came the industrial revolution and steamships. The sun set on the days of tall ships as working vessels. The second half of the twentieth century brought  the advent of fiberglass and the notion of yachting to the working class, with trailer and weekend sailers: small sailboats became affordable and easily handled with the Marconi, or fore and aft sail, configuration. Thousands of sailboats were produced to meet the demand. At one time there were fie Cal 20's made a day!
   Flash ahead to the twenty first century. Peak Oil looming. Marinas so full of sailboats they're giving 'em away for cheap of free! People who can no longer afford to support a house mortgage, a car lease, escalating cost of living, and the luxury of a dock ornament - an unused boat - that cost money to slip, insure, maintain, and even destroy (which is what the marina will do to the boat after it is seized by lein and not saleable when they are "too far gone" and exorbitant to destroy). Eventually the boats acquire a negative value; they cost of reclaiming them is beyond their actual value - seaworthy and operational boats can be found for less! That kind of boat is called an upside down boat. They are still good! They can be restored and used by savvy people and reclaimed materials! It can cost thousands to destroy a boat.

What?
   What if sailboats, which use almost no fuel, were used to move goods with renewable energy to deliver goods, again? Sailboats are actually solar machines since they rely mostly on wind, which is generated by the sun in the form of shifting air masses of varying temperatures. They have engines called auxilliaries (outboards, inboards) that usually use fuel but there are also electric motors now, and sails that double as solar panels! Even using gas or diesel (or biodiesel), it is said a sailboat gets a thousand miles to the gallon.
  As a pilot project it's good to start small. In fact, the whole current business model of success by (large) volume may be over. The Buy Local  thing may become not just a zeitgeist but the norm as it no longer makes sense to ship avocados up from Chile to sell in California where they already grow. This is one form of redundant shipping and only occurs because the existing system profits heavily from it (how?) especially in the form (government subsidized) fuel consumption. Some distribution companies send goods back and forth on the sme run as per contract, and a wholesaler can be bound by contract to support such redundancy. That means goods produced ine one region leave and come back to be sold locally!

  
The story:
   About seven years ago I started reclaiming unwanted boats as a hobby when I was not on tour as a performing songwriter. The first sloop was a 21 foot boat in Florida. It cost me $700. I gave it away in the end. My next boat cost $200. It sank at the dock while I was working on it but I stuffed a plastic bag in the broken thru-hull and managed to save her. I did my first gig by boat on her, a 24' Islander, and sold her for $1750. Then I got a 28' Islander for $500 and brought her as far back as I could before going back on tour. I gave away her to a friend.

   People were surprised when someone gave me a 24' C & C after more touring, especially since it needed no work. I learned to single-handed sail in the snow of wintery Bellingham bay. I sold her and got a bus after waking up locked in ice too many times. Last spring I was given a 42' antique (1940) wooden ketch in San Pedro, Ca. I brought her back as far as possible but the title was not forthcoming and this blocked further superstructure work (and financing). I left her for the owner, much improved, and published my second novel which, documented the process, materials and craftmanship, called Deja Vu. See a photo essay at www.myspace.com/dancarrigan.
   I also reclaimed a sailing dory,  wooden, and experimented with different handmade sails and pulled sticks from the woods, eventually whittling the right sized mast. I sailed this boat so much, with my akita, that at one point when the ambitious acquisiton of a 32' Tahiti ketch fell through, I lived in and out of it for three weeks!Tthis was an eleven foot open boat. So my experience with boats has been very lively and extensive in a relatively short period of time. I have also worked for cheap or free on myriad other sailboats of legendary and obscure pedigree, mostly free. This is called a labour of love.
   Last summer I began harvesting kelp from the bay to supplement the dog food that I was making for my animals. I did this during the morning row, or sail, daily after the dog walks. The dogs came (I'd acquired a shepherd mix too - she LOVED boating!) and I'd snag kelp from the water, throw it in the boat and lay it on rocks to dry once ashore. Then it got chopped up and mixed into their foods. At the health food store it $40 a pound, when available.
   The year before I was rowing and sailing to my volunteer job at the food bank and doing the same to get back. I was commuting by boat, and on the return leg transporting food for myself and homeless people I knew that couldn't get there themselves. It was a very rewarding and healthy lifestyle, especially with strong headwinds! I would also boat with my guitars and laundry, etc, The dory proved much better than my bike for moving anything bigger than a bag, plus my bus got 5 m.p.g. less on vegetable oil which was a bear to garner. The oil I mean. That's alot of material! So I preferred to keep it parked and transit across the water. One thing is for sure: it can take longer!

The plan:
   I have sourced many boats since my arrival on the west coast a few years ago. There is no shortage of sailboats and no shortage of unwanted ones. I would like to restore this boat with my own skills, volunteer help, endorsements, sponsorship and funding. It will be used to bioneer  the green shipping idea and show that not only is it viable but fun and healthy. It will be a model for future generations to come, and surely they will improve on the ideas! In fact there are all sorts of high tech boat alternatives extant for years now: Huge ships with wings on deck, etc. 
     
Appendix:
Who am I?
Dan Carrigan, singer songwriter and three-time author, boat rescuer and project catalyst, at your service!
 
 
I will update this proposal to keep the data current, as it is available. If you are interested in becoming involved please contact me with your ideas and.or resources. I welcome all input the supports and promotes this project. It may take a community!
Thanks for your time,
Dan Carrigan
please use email:
greanshipping@hotmail.com

December 11th - see 2010 -2011 page in index for full dossier and photo...

The Columbia is looking good after this early mornings' survey, below deck and above. If I get it (free) on Monday she will need to be re-slipped and insured. If anyone can help with this please let me know soon!  This means either you have a slip in Oxnard or some money for one and insurance. Her name is LaVita and she requires a mainsail, re-wiring and toe-rail work for now. Spars and standing rigging in great shape. She's a good little pocket cruiser that will sail to the islands and/or move stuff without carbon emissions. I've restored way worse boats than this one!

December 9th 2010

I went with a friend to see a free boat in Oxnard yesterday, having returned from Washington and a summer of sailing three dogs around in Ping and Pong about a month ago. It's a Columbia 24'. We both decided it was ugly and undesirable afterwards. Today I'm trying to see how I can get it anyway. It's actually a perfect candidate for Green Shipping! More later... 

September 7th, 2010 update:

Many miles later...

Before I left California I bike carted some food from the farmers' market in Santa Barbara, up State Street, to the Food Bank there. We were a traffic stopping 17 bicycles with trailers and such, quite the sight. many photos were taken - I got none though.  Eventually I sold both the bike and the cart (after restoring/converting them), and wended north overland by van.

I wound up getting two boats, up in Bellingham, Wa. The first, Pong, is a 14' freighter canoe with a transom-end (which proved useful for swimming). It's a stable  beamy boat that paddles and rows easily but has a tendancey to spin with heavier wind. The second, acquired  shortley theresafter, Ping, is a heavily built fishing skiff made of wood and fiberglass. She's also 14', with a  wooden mast and gaff and bowsprit, and is heavy enough to require her own mooring. Pong makes a perfect tender as a light boat with lots of space for three dogs. Ping and Pong - they go back and forth!

The canoe was $50 and needed minor glass work. The skiff was $200 and also needed minor work - a bottom job, a new gaff, and a few adjustments here and there.  The mast step was reset after it popped out under sail and with building winds.

So the summer has been spent working with these boats and sailing or rowing or paddling.  Sailing with three dogs can be a real challenge, especially on Bellingham Bay. I may still be moving some stuff with Ping, other than myself and dogs. The season here is just about finished though.  We'll see what happens.

I also got to paint the Long Shot, a friend's boat and a scow like Ping but bigger, with a cabin and not a sailboat. He takes it crabbing. See photos of the dogs under sail at www.myspace.com/dancarrigan..

 
march 30, 2010 update:  

The  target sloop - the Irwin 32 described below  -  I discovered this morning, was sold to be destroyed for her lead keel.

Unfortunate but not surprising.

 
Current Proposal Logistics:

Bellingham is at the north end of the Bay. Fairhaven is also called South Bellingham (at least at the train depot) and about three miles south along the east side of the water. The farmers market at Railroad Square is uphill from the small beach at Cornwall, which means materials/people could move easily downhill to the beach by bike to a waiting tender or beach-able sailboat. An easy model to try would be a short trip to the water  from the Square and then a (hopefully) nice sail to Fairhaven and the Ferry Terminal/Train and bus station. There is also a small dock at the Taylor Pedestrian Ramp leading to the causeway and Boulevard Park. There is also a boat ramp at Fairhaven near the Bellingham Bay Community Boating center and the Coast Guard cutters.

Ventura is fifteen downhill miles from Ojai, which is 8 nautical miles from Oxnard, the next port south/east. Add some overage and call it forty miles total. If the sloop is designed to sleep six, which it is, it has space for the carry on baggage of that crew and the space needed for it's provisions. If the sloop is cruising short distances with a crew of let's say, two or three, that space can be re-allocated. Let's say the available space is two by two by six, or 24 cubic feet. In shipping that's called the cube (I had a brief stint as a freight forwarder). The cube is one factor and the weight is another. The calculations are oriented to the greater number. Obviously something like lead would only be granted a tiny cube since it would be so heavy. Feathers, well, stuff in as many as you can! Get it?
   This is why something like dried sage, with a higher market retail price, would work so much better that oranges, which sell in season for about twenty cents a pound. Especially if being transfered over land by bike cart (I used to be a bike messenger in San Francisco) even if it is downhill. Not that I'm ruling out oranges. A recently read book tells how a ketch stepped in to deliver oranges in the islands when the sched'd packet ship couldn't make it (Blue Water, Bob Griffith), as one example.
  Although all the cost projections are currently incomplete, imagine a slip fee of $450 per month ( it's $432 in reality), that would be a fixed cost to be met with the shipping price, among others like maintaince and materials. So at $10 a pound, shipped without fossil fuels, a hundred pound load would generate a gross of a thousand dollars. A hundred pounds is fifty less than the 150 lb. maximum of my bike cart, so there's room to move. A commodity that was light, like sage, would have a larger cube than oranges but if it was small enought to fit in the twenty-four cubic feet of space it would be ideal as a light product with a relatively higher retail value. Oranges, for example, wouldn't work since at a retail price of $.50 a pound, or five bucks for a ten pound bag, you'd need to ship two thousand pounds of oranges to make a grand, even if they were free of charge and freely (no charge) delivered by bike !
   So using that (incomplete) formula, four runs a month could generate four thousand dollars in gross. This is figured as a dead-head or one way system but goods should be transfered on the way back. In theory that doubles the potential gross to eight grand a month. So far the overhead is only $450 but we know there are other costs unarticulated as yet. In fact, the start up costs must be amortized but compared to other business I believe they can be re-couped relatively quickly. The run can expand into a route. as more business is acquired and experience is built on real situations, more boats can be rescued and re-assigned to the fleet as needed. When it's up and running information can be shared with other locals wanting to emmulate the plan.
The more people doing it, the better it will work. This is no idea to be kept secret! It's not high science!
What does that mean? In theory, the business can achieve the aim of carbon-free shipping while reclaiming unwanted boats destined for destruction and landfills, while actually turning a profit. How cool is that?

Other ideas:
   There is no reason why passengers can't be aboard, for a fee to offset costs, to commute. There is no reason why the vessels can't be chartered in their off/down time for weddings or special events. My personal favourite is to carry mail - Sail Mail (light and small!) - and/or have a band on the boat. There are unlimited associated opportunities.
   The enterprise can partner up with sail clubs or associations and serve as a part time training vessel to promote sailing and sailing skills, with or without official certification.
   The vessel may be able to obtain environmental data - animal and environmental changes that are monitored - and be paid for that, to eliminate other research vessels' efforts in the same areas.

Avant Garde Bioneer Vessel
   They have electric motors equal to or better than combustion engines, diesel or otherwise. It has been suggested to pull the diesel engine out of the boat and replace it with an electric motor. I think that's an amazing idea. One step at a time!

   But You would have a solar powered small ship moving commodities while eliminating the carbon based transfer. That's not just using french fry oil, already used once, to run your bus (eliminating the use of petroleum products and thus lowering the demand and smelling great). It's fostering a sustainable and renewable industry while creating an altrernative to the old one. Switch a thousand miles to the gallon to a milion!
  Sure it's nice to pick up the phone and have UPS/FEDEX/DHL etc. at your door in an hour and your stuff across the world in a day or two. This is not about that. This is something else that can not compete with that, nor can it be competed with.