Freighter
Freight sailor (also cargo or cargo sailing ship ) is a sailing ship for the transport of goods . These ships are still used today in the Southeast Asian island world around Indonesia and the Philippines .
history
The designation cargo sailor used to be unusual because the boundaries between cargo, passenger and warships were often blurred. In times of war, merchant ships were often equipped with cannons and thus upgraded to warships, that is, merchant ships were armed for self-protection alone. In addition, merchant ships often carried passengers with them in addition to freight.
The term only caught on when there was a stricter distinction between freight and passenger transport through specialization. Even under the German flag , cargo sailing existed with the Pamir until 1957. The Hamburg shipping company F. Laeisz was world-famous for this shipping company. The end of the freighter (and all commercial sailing ships) came in the middle of the 19th century with the increasing spread of steam and motor ships in freight and passenger traffic. The large European and American freighters were either decommissioned or lost due to shipwreck .
present
Some of the remaining tall ships are still in service as sailing training ships (e.g. the Kruzenshtern , ex. Padua ). Other large cargo sailors now serve as museum ships (e.g. the Passat in Travemünde ).
The great tradition of the Kaphoorniers (English Capehorners ) is also based on professional sailing: the reputation of having led a cargo sailor around the extremely demanding, especially dangerous for sailing ships, Cape Horn. It has now become virtually impossible to join the dying phalanx of the Kaphoorniers. Occasionally, Ukrainian and Russian tall ships still sail around Cape Horn , but their voyage does not count according to the rules of the Kaphoornier Brotherhood, as they have an (auxiliary) engine and do not carry any cargo.
Today only smaller cargo sailors play a role, especially for regional freight and passenger transport in coastal areas, e.g. B. in Arabia the dhow and in Asia the junk , a role. The price of a newly built Chinese junk is said to be in the range of around 40,000 to 50,000 dollars.
In the meantime, old cargo sailors have been reactivated sporadically, some of which also sail across the Atlantic to carry cargo in a CO 2 -neutral manner. Examples are the Tres Hombres and the Avontuur .
In recent years, various concepts have been developed to use wind power again for cargo shipping. On the one hand , the concept of the same name developed by the SkySails company since 2001 : a fully automatic towing kite is to drive cargo ships in addition to the existing engines and thus save fuel. On the other hand, E-Ship 1 or Estraden ships with Flettner rotors as an additional wind power drive. A system that has meanwhile been conceptually successful in the private sector, the Dyna-Rigg , has recently been presented with increasing frequency with new designs of CO 2 -neutral cargo sailors.
literature
- Thomas Reitmaier: Pre-industrial cargo sailing ships in Switzerland . Swiss Castle Association, Basel 2008, ISBN 978-3-908182-19-1 .
