Grain de Sail’s cargo boat docked at One°15 Brooklyn Marina at Brooklyn Bridge Park. Photo by Kevin Duggan
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BY KEVIN DUGGAN
A cargo sailboat docked
in Brooklyn Bridge Park on
May 13, bringing thousands of
bottles of wine from France to
Brooklyn by wind power.
The schooner by French
company Grain de Sail docked
at One°15 Brooklyn Marina
after a 27-day trip across the
Atlantic Ocean earlier this
month, delivering some 8,000
bottles of the good stuff in an
environmentally-friendly way,
according to a rep for the European
fi rm.
“Big cargo ships are big
polluters,” Grain de Sail’s US
director for wines and spirits
Matthieu Riou told Brooklyn
Paper. “It’s one of the ways we
want to say that it’s possible
to do it another way, a cleaner
way, only using the wind which
is a free resource.”
The vessel will remain
berthed at Brooklyn’s front
yard for about 12 days, before
heading to the Caribbean to
pick up cocoa and coffee to
ship back to France where
the company manufactures
chocolate.
The custom-designed 72-
foot watercraft has a large temperature
controlled hull capable
of carrying about 18,000
bottles of wine or 40 metric
tons of cocoa.
“We like to call it a fl oating
cellar,” said Riou. “The goal
is for the temperature to remain
stable. It’s the most important
point, to avoid any big
differences that could alter the
wine or cocoa.”
The boat gets its juice for
on-board equipment through
solar, wind, and hydro power,
and only uses a motor when
docking at a berth, due to maritime
regulations.
The Brittany-based company
behind the venture at
fi rst sought to sail across the
globe to import cocoa from the
Dominican Republic in a more
sustainable way than dieselguzzling
container ships, but
then decided to load up the
boat with wine on its way over
so it wouldn’t make the transatlantic
trip empty-hulled, according
to Riou.
They offer 25 different
kinds of wine from all over
France, which will be sold
at businesses in Brooklyn
and Manhattan. Prices range
from $25-40 per bottle, but
champagnes come in at about
$150 a pop.
The unconventional shipping
method doesn’t give the
wines a special sea-salty taste,
but Riou said that, in addition
to eliminating the need for fossil
fuels, the majority of their
products are also completely
new to the American market.
“Most of the the wine makers
that we are bringing to New
York City didn’t want to export
wine in the beginning because
they didn’t want to do it with a
big cargo ship,” he said. “So all
the wines that we are bringing
to New York are new, it’s the
fi rst time they will be in New
York City.”
This marks Grain de Sail’s
second journey to Kings
County shores and one of the
four crew members said it was
smooth sailing.
“It was pretty cool this
time,” able seaman François
Le Naoures told the Paper.
Grain de Sail’s maiden voyage
in November was rougher,
according to Le Naoures,
with the mariners having to
weather 30-foot waves out on
the open sea and a snow storm
upon arrival at the Brooklyn
Navy Yard four weeks later.
Wind power!
Cargo sailboat delivers wine by
sea from France to NYC
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