A British schooner docked in Penzance yesterday carrying 30,000 bottles of wine on a voyage that enthusiasts believe will herald a return to wind power in merchant shipping.

The first commercial cargo of French wine to be transported by sail in the modern era is due in Dublin this week after a six-day journey, which is being touted as a green and ultimately cheap alternative to fuel propulsion.

The 108-year-old, wooden, triple-masted Kathleen & May has been chartered by the Compagnie de Transport Maritime à la Voile (CTMV), a shipping company established in France to specialise in merchant sailing. “This is beyond anybody's dreams,” said Steve Clarke, the owner of the Kathleen & May, which was built in 1900 in Ferguson and Baird's yard at Connah's Quay near Chester.

“When I bought this boat in 1966 it was going to be cut up with chainsaws. Nobody ever imagined it would ever sail again.” He said that amid high fuel costs and concern over carbon emissions, commercial sailing ships could have a future. “I think they might have hit on something.”

Frédéric Albert, a former French radio journalist who founded CTMV this year, agreed. “We are the only firm in Europe doing this and the level of interest in our project has far exceeded our expectations,” he told The Times. “A lot of big companies have contacted us.”

His initial contract is with 80 vineyard owners from the Languedoc-Roussillon region of southern France to carry their bottles to Ireland on the tall ship. CTMV is finalising another deal to bring Irish whiskey and Scotch back to France by sail, Mr Albert said.

The Kathleen & May, which spent most of its working life transporting coal and clay before being taken out of commercial service in 1960, left Brest in Brittany last Friday and spent yesterday in Penzance to be inspected by British customs officers.

It travels at a top speed of eight knots, about half as fast as a modern cargo vessel. Its supporters say that it is pollution-free - unlike almost all the other 50,000 merchant ships in the world, which emit 800 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.

“Originally this was intended as an ecological project enabling producers to put a label on their goods saying they had been moved by a clean means of transport,” said Mr Albert.

“But it could become economically interesting as well given the high price of fuel.” He said CTMV had chartered five sailing ships to transport products such as Fairtrade coffee, jam and alcoholic drinks. “We are 5 per cent more expensive than standard merchant shipping companies at the moment. But we are going to build our own ships and when they enter service, we will be cheaper.” His initiative comes with the French Association of Shipowners predicting that wind-powered vessels could capture 0.5 per cent of the commercial shipping market, which transports 90 per cent of the world's traded goods.

Trouble at sea

— The International Maritime Organisation said this year that carbon pollution from the world's merchant fleet had reached 1.1billion tonnes - three times greater than previously thought

— Nearly 4.5 per cent of all global emissions of carbon dioxide is generated by merchant ships, and the figure is predicted to rise to 6 per cent by 2020

— When Tesco started ferrying wine by barge last year, 50 lorries were taken off the road each week. Three journeys are made each week along the 40-mile stretch from Liverpool to Manchester, carrying 600,000 litres of wine on each trip

Sources: Times Archive; www.sail-world.com

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