The Schooner Apollonia, a 64-foot, steel-hulled sailboat built in the 1940s, carries up to 10 tonnes of cargo by sail. Their team of ambitious, young adventurers, led by Captain Sam Merrett, has restored the dilapidated hull and returned it to the water.
The Apollonia has been trawling ports from New York City up the Hudson, its hold stuffed with all kinds of upstate goods headed south – and products made in Brooklyn and Manhattan returning back north – using only sustainable energy – sail power and vegetable oil! Red oak logs, pumpkins, malt headed to the boom-market of craft brewers, finely-made barrels (and whiskey), honey, hot sauce, and on and on, finding increasingly bigger markets in Red Hook, Brooklyn and the South Street Seaport as savvy shoppers get used to the boat’s once-a-month deliveries.
At a moment when global shipping is in the news every day for its Pandemic-spawned slowdown, and as people consider the carbon footprint of those overnight Amazon orders, shipping by fossil-free sail freight makes more and more sense.
Jan Boorman's film follows the exploits of the Apollonia team and reflects upon the roles of sail cargo in local and regional transport as the problems of fossil fuel based transport become clearer.
Contect tim@timesup.org for location details.