TOWT Anemos Cargo Ship. Photo Credit TOWT – Transport à la voile
Having noticed a trend in travellers wanting low-carbon emission options, a French start-up TransOceanic Wind Transport or TOWT, has opened cabins on its greener cargo ships.
These journeys are designed for a minimal number of passengers to travel alongside cargo whilst crossing oceans. Monday, January 27 Artemis, the world’s largest cargo ship outfitted with sails docked in New York after a 32-day trip from Les Havre port in Northern France. It delivered 1000 tons of liquer, Bon Maman jam, champagne, Vilebrequin swimsuits and the company’s first four travellers. The journey was a test run by the TOWT company, to see how passengers would manage the greener travel route across the ocean.
TOWT’s modern sailing Cargo ships are made for a greener, sustainable travel option.
The cargo ships have been fitted with sails that have a 23,000 square foot surface area and they travel at an average speed of 11 nautical miles per hour, occasionally 17 with favourable winds. Engine powered ships tend to travel at about 14 nautical miles an hour. The TOWT ships do have a backup diesel engine used to steer into port, but TOWT has estimated that its ships CO2 emissions are 90% less than those using fossil fuels.
TOWT says that their mission is to “decarbonise maritime transport by harnessing the power of the wind to provide a maritime transport that is more sober, less dependent on fuel and more transparent.”
Per person Guillaume Le Grand, TOWT’s CEO says their “carbon footprint is between five and 10 kilos, compared to around a ton of CO2 if you get a plane from Paris to New York”.
Le Grand noted the need for an alternative method of travel to planes for travelling by sea. Although trains are an alternative for land travel he decided that there was space in the market for a fleet of vessels travelling a transatlantic route.
Whilst referencing Greta Thunberg’s 2019 journey from the UK to a UN climate change conference, he recently joked that “If you want to go to America and don’t want to emit any carbon emissions, two months ago, you had to swim or take a small sailboat like Greta Thunberg did.” He says that now passengers with TransOceanic Wind Transport can visit family in “really decent cabins”.
Each cargo ship will have six double cabins for travellers to use, they will share the ship with crew members and many pallets of cargo stored in the ship’s hold. From March 2025, TOWT plans to have regular services on board its Anemos and Artemis ships, with trips moving between France, the US, Colombia, Brazil and the Carribean islands of Guadeloupe. With more vessels being made TOWT hopes to offer more frequent departures from 2027.
Discover other green and sustainable ways to travel in our articles here.
