windmills outside Copenhagen

Reflections on a successful delivery of 8,000 bottles of wine, Holland to Denmark

At this writing, the Tres Hombres schooner-brig is just reaching the Netherlands, on its way back from Copenhagen. I wish I had taken the round trip and remained with my able crew mates, but I had to keep to my sail-transport research schedule by returning to the Mediterranean.

Fair Transport is the world's foremost sail cargo company. Its 32-meter ship, the Tres Hombres, has pulled off many a voyage in the past few years to bring rum, cacao and other goods from the Caribbean to northern Europe. Shorter runs have involved France, the UK, Denmark, and the Netherlands.

The solid, strong brigantine vessel's home is Den Helder, the naval/ship-building/museum port first envisioned by Napoleon. Now the ship is bound for Copenhagen where a visionary buyer will capitalize on the "green" market for carbon-emission-free wine.

Hoyle Hodges founded the new Olympia Schooner Company in the Puget Sound. This year it has instituted delivery of fresh produce as part of a business plan to at least break even with sailing cargo and eventually passengers. The company began as the Mosquito Fleet Sustainable Shipping project at Evergreen State College where Hoyle studied.

When we saw his video here at Sail Transport Network central in June, we were inspired to learn more. Here's the interview we conducted:

Note: for Jan Lundberg's mini-presentation on sail power and the U.S.-China debt-for-nature swap, go to this link http://64.175.136.240/sirepub/mtgviewer.aspx?meetid=240&doctype=AGENDA. At the video scroll forward from beginning to the marking of 4:29:54 or before, and play a little over three minutes to Jan's conclusion at 4:33:23. An hour before him is the beginning of the formal presentation to the City of Santa Cruz on its Draft Climate Action Plan, at time-stamp 3:31:40.

Here is an update on presenting the local Sail Transport Network's agenda and vision for the Bay of Monterey and beyond. At the Santa Cruz City Council meeting of January 24, 2012, on the occasion of the Draft Presentation of the Climate Action Plan, Jan Lundberg supplied a public comment.

In the interests of keeping the show on the road and the doors open, we need you as a supportive reader to help Culture Change cover basic costs in February. Here's why:

At Culture Change we aren't giving our readers and supporters a part-time, share-our-feelings service. No, we are full-time activists living a low-consumptive, engaged lifestyle. Cutting-edge projects have been our hallmark: Pedal Power Produce, banning plastic bags, depaving, initiating or participating in protests, the Sail Transport Network (STN), multi-media materials and events, arts, networking nonstop, and more --

On April 19, 2011, five 60-foot boats left Auckland, New Zealand to set off on a year's voyage. Stops have included a sacred Polynesian homeland known as Hawaii, the end of one of the longer legs of a round-the-Pacific tour. A sixth boat had joined at Cook Islands, and a seventh in Tahiti. The crews represent the biggest traditional transport and exchange of Polynesian islanders in modern times.

The nearly identical boats are traditional but modern canoes, a catamaran rig called a waka (or vaka

A sail transport revival is afoot and afloat around the world. As the cheap, easy crude oil has mostly been extracted from the Earth and spewed into the sky and water, the desirability and economics of sail power get stronger.

Sail Transport Network (STN) is an open project for almost anyone to participate in. Most of the inhabited world is coastal or on rivers. STN was put forward originally by Culture Change in 1999. We sail-transport activists envision linking coastal communities, islands, and river communities together sustainably --

I was discussing with a salty old colleague the possibilities of Sail Transport Network here in Portland, Oregon. It's not the perfect environment for all-wind power, but there are ways of greatly reducing petroleum for trade and transport over land and water now, before petrocollapse. One idea that relates to sail power and community-building is to help the homeless population while enhancing the whole public good.

On August 19, 2010 a fleet of twenty human powered boats will leave
Eugene, Oregon to pick up locally grown grain and beans in Harrisburg and carry them to
Corvallis. This is a nod to the history of using the river as transportation and
distribution for the products grown in the valley as well as a promotion of the rich
variety of grain and beans raised today in the Willamette Valley.