Departing from the Piriou shipyard in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, on September 10, the Artemis, the second schooner of TransOceanic Wind Transport (TOWT) arrived in Reunion on Monday, September 30, after twenty days at sea, via sea of China, the Sunda Strait and the Indian Ocean. A journey “mainly carried out solely by the force of the wind”, indicates the French armament. This is a first stop on the road to the metropolis, before another stop in Brazil, for this sistership of the Anemos, TOWT’s first ship, which carries boxes and modems for Orange, tea in its holds for the Gardens of Gaïa and coffee for Belco.
This stop in Reunion is “a planned technical stopover”, indicates TOWT. It must allow “mechanical and electronic adjustments”, “as part of the delivery and reliability of the ship”, in addition to allowing “rest for sailors”.
TOWT received during the summer the first two ships of its future fleet which should number eight units by mid-2027. Delivered by the Piriou shipyard, these 1500 UMS Phénix class sisterships use sail as main propulsion. They measure 81 meters long overall, and 15 meters wide. These steel schooners with an air draft of 63 meters can carry up to 2,200 m2 of sail area which allows them to sail at around 10 knots, according to TOWT, in order to transport 1,100 tonnes of goods distributed in six holds. in pallets. The armament wants to sail most of the time, but the ships are still equipped with a 4-stroke diesel-electric propulsion (2 x 422 kWm at 1790 rpm) supported by a bow thruster which facilitates port maneuvers. The machines also make it possible to power the batteries and the board when the variable pitch propellers which can act as hydro-generators cannot provide sufficient energy.
The Anemos has already completed a first transatlantic voyage to New York, before heading to Santa Marta, Colombia, to load coffee. He then set sail for Quebec, which he should reach in a few days, before setting sail again to return to France.
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