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AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AFP) — Gliding into the port of Amsterdam under full sail with a booty of 40 tonnes of Caribbean rum, coffee and cocoa, the twin-masted Tres Hombres looks like something from the heyday of 17th-century piracy.
But this 32-metre (105-feet) brigantine has a much nobler mission than the pirates of old: Sustainable goods transport using the energy from wind captured in its sails.
“We have almost no emissions because we sail without an engine,” said Sabine Fox, the 51-year-old boss of Fairtransport, the firm that operates the Tres Hombres.
Every year the ship, whose name is inspired by the three men who founded Fairtransport in 2007, sails some 7,000 kilometres (4,300 miles) across the Atlantic, bringing goods from the Caribbean to Amsterdam.
“We choose products which are not produced in Europe because we didn’t want to be in competition with local markets,” Fox told AFP.
“How many things do we import from China that we don’t need?” she asked.
By offering a selective and clearly slower supply chain, Fairtransport aims to raise awareness about emissions from shipping.
According to the UN’s International Maritime Organization, shipping accounts for around three per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
The sustainably farmed products transported by the Tres Hombres are sold to high-end stores in northern Europe, which the vessel sails around every summer.
Aaron Smit, a deckhand, seems a bit disoriented by the industrial landscape of the port of Amsterdam after more than a month sailing from the Azores to the Dutch capital.
But his face lights up when he recounts his experiences aboard the Tres Hombres.
