Dutch captain Jorne Langelaan has been fascinated with sailing ships since childhood.
Now the 41-year-old is closing in on a dream to offer a sustainable alternative to the mainstream shipping industry by launching a fleet of cargo sail vessels to traverse the globe.
Langelaan founded EcoClipper in 2018 and is now finalising design plans he hopes will lead to a fleet of engine-less ships trading on three routes with fixed schedules, “thereby creating a new shipping logistics system for sail cargo vessels”.
He told TradeWinds: “During my teens I was already drawing sailing ships for trade, and in the late 90s I joined for my first time on a sail cargo vessel under Captain Paul Wahlen.”
In 2007, Langelaan founded Fairtransport in the Netherlands with two friends. Fairtransport, which describes itself as the first emission-free shipping company of the millennium, runs two engine-less freight sailing ships, Tres Hombres and Nordlys, trading organic and traditionally crafted goods.
“I worked within this company for 10 years, in all roles from operational manager, shipping agent, shipbroker, master, CEO, etc,” he added. “At the current moment, I am not operationally involved there but still have shares in the holding and the ships.”
Langelaan hopes to launch the first investment campaign for newbuilding funds for his own vessels in August.
“Building time should be 12 to 14 months,” he said. “We contacted about 25 European shipyards. We are still talking with a few from Poland, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands.”
■ Three square-rigged masts; no engine
■ At least 23 sails with an area of 976 square metres
■ 500 tonnes of cargo
■ 59 metres long
■ Draught of five metres
■ 12 crew and 36 trainees
Investors are “a few people from the maritime and sustainability world and some friends”.
One investor from the Netherlands with a “broad business experience” is taking care of the financial management.
Two more partners have recently come aboard with more cash to aid the design development.
“These investments should be sufficient to further develop the EcoClipper500 prototype, until the stage that shipyards can be approached for detailed building quotations,” EcoClipper said.
“The ships will be partly financed through maritime loans, partly bonds through crowdfunding and partly individual investors.”
Langelaan conceded that the EcoClipper500 will not be competing on cost or speed but on “sustainability, transparency and story”.
It is targeting small to medium-sized companies with a link to sustainability, ecological produce or fair trade.
“These businesses are of particular interest, as they are the fastest-growing segment in the US and Europe and resemble a substantial economic power,” the company said.
It expects a surge in demand from importers and exporters in mid to high-income countries.
“As our shipping lines become more established, and climate impacts become more visible, the expectation is that companies from other sectors and low-income countries will enter the customer base,” it said. It believes the IMO’s target of cutting emissions by at least 50% by 2050 can be reached only by a return of sail power.
EcoClipper said that if its operations develop according to its strategy, a fair dividend for shareholders can be achieved, and the value of their investment will rise substantially.
It believes profitability will also be “substantial”, with EcoClipper becoming the world’s major developer of sustainable shipping concepts.
“We have just successfully finished the first round of investment and are planning for another round this summer, which will finance the first ship,” it said.
But Covid-19 changed the way the company works.
“For a couple of months already, we had occupied a nice office space in Alkmaar [north of Amsterdam]. Then the coronavirus pandemic hit the Netherlands and rather quickly public life was moved towards a voluntary lockdown,” Langelaan said.
“All of a sudden, we were forced to abandon our new routine of going every day to the office with five or six team members of the EcoClipper organisation. It definitely felt like a jump in the deep ... or towards the kitchen table.”
Remote working is not exactly new to this industry, he noted.
“Running a shipping company without an office has been done before, probably many times and in all centuries. First-hand, I have seen my uncle, when I just started sailing, run his shipping company from the galley table on board his 700-tonne coastal motor cargo ship,” Langelaan said.
“My time in the late 90s trading in the Caribbean Sea on the sail cargo schooner Avontuur also showed me how Captain Wahlen ran his business from a floating office.”
Langelaan’s first job was in a topsail schooner, sailing with passengers in the North Sea and on the Dutch lakes. He worked up from deckhand to master of anything from tugs to three-masted barques.
He rounded Cape Horn in 2002, followed by a period as a ship’s artist and later chief officer on expeditions to Antarctica, before becoming a founder and director of Fairtransport.
As for his life outside of work: “I like walking, am a dedicated reader, own a traditional sailing yacht and have shown my drawings and paintings in national and international galleries."
