Boats and projects

«We will exclusively ship cargo in line with our values regarding sustainability and ethics, i.e., goods produced in a fair, organic and sustainable way, for which transportation is ethically agreeable», as Hawila explains on its website. Hawila is a cargo sailing project in Denmark.

The “Avontuur” (Dutch for “adventure”) is one of the few ships that already transports cargo under sail today. “The Avontuur should primarily be seen as food for thought,” says Captain Cornelius Bockermann. “By returning to a millennia-old, sustainable, proven propulsion system, namely sails, it stands not primarily as a symbol of a necessary technological new beginning, but in particular as a symbol of a necessary change of heart in society.”

Designed as a modern sailing cargo ship, the Ecoliner was developed in the first half of the 2010s. Companies such as Fairtransport in the Netherlands and Sailing Cargo Schifffahrtsbeteiligungs GmbH in Hamburg tried in vain to build the ship. At one point, it was even discussed as a car transporter for VW. Now Greenpeace is using the concept for its new flagship, and the Veer company in the Bahamas is working on the construction of a container ship.

For years, the project has been a magnet for cargo sailing activists, wooden boat builders, and ecologically motivated volunteers. The Costarican company Sailcargo Inc. is building the wooden sailing cargo boat «Ceiba». Jobs and training for the local population, a reforestation program, and the cultivation of organic vegetables made the «Green Shipyard» an all-round ecological and social project. After setbacks, work is currently underway to resume construction.

The Republic of the Marshall Islands is currently the only country to have established its own fleet of sailing cargo ships. It supplements this with training for seafarers. As part of the move toward climate-neutral transport on water, sailing catamarans are set to replace boats with fossil fuel outboard motors within the lagoons of the atolls.

Ferries are usually fast and therefore consume a lot of fuel. Saillink has set up a sailing ferry service between Boulogne-sur-Mer and Dover using a catamaran. 2025 was the first year of operation, and in 2026 the young company plans to test another route between Normandy and Sussex.