France’s Grain de Sail is readying an order for a third in its series of cargo sailing vessels.
The wine and chocolate company said the 200-teu ship will be launched in 2027.
The Grain de Sail III will carry 3,000 tonnes of cargo across the Atlantic in 13 days, using only wind power.
“With Grain de Sail III, we are displaying our ambitions and strengthening our leadership in the decarbonised maritime transport segment,” said Oliver Barreau, the company’s co-founder and president.
“To make wind-powered transport accessible, we need to change scale, and that’s what we’re about to do with a pure sailing container ship,” he added.
The 110-metre vessel will have 4,000 square metres of sails and operate with a crew of 10.
Grain de Sail said it would achieve a decarbonisation rate of more than 90%.
Its maximum height of 62.5 metres will allow it to pass under bridges along major maritime routes.
The goal is also to design a near-passive vessel through strong insulation.
A wood pellet boiler will provide heating and hot water for the crew.
Since 2013, the company has been a coffee roaster and chocolatier, and since 2020, it has also operated a fleet of cargo sailing ships with very low carbon emissions.
Vietnamese-built ship
The ships are flagged with the French International Register and export French products to New York and import organic cocoa and green coffee from Latin America, as well as raw materials for other clients.
The second vessel was ordered in 2022 and was much larger than its initial 50-tonne capacity ship, which transported 55% of the cacao mass used in its chocolate factory across the Atlantic in 2021.
The aluminium-built Grain de Sail 2 can carry up to 238 pallets in two holds and 18 cbm of bulk liquid in a tank to export wines to the US.
A further five cbm of liquid can go on deck in barrels.
French boatbuilder Piriou was awarded the contract at its shipyard in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
The budget for the second ship was below €10m ($11m at the time).
