The ketch Irene, built in 1907 to carry bricks and tiles, has set sail with a cargo of Devon ale for Brittany and Spanish olive oil for  Brazil, on what will be, if all goes well, a five month voyage which will also carry cocoa, coffee, Amazonian “superfoods” and rum from South America and the Caribbean back to the UK.   The venture is being run by the New Dawn Traders in association with TransOceanic Wind Transport.

Vintage ketch sets sail to launch slow cargo movement 

The project, New Dawn Traders, was hatched by Jamie Pike, a Bristol environmentalist and champion of the slow food movement. He wanted to find a way of bringing goods back from South America under sail and approached Irene’s owner, Leslie Morrish, a retired psychiatrist who spent years restoring the vessel and keeping it at sea. 

The finances did not add up: it would have cost Pike £100,000 to charter the boat, a sum he simply did not have, but then Irene’s captain, Laurance Ottley, met someone in the olive oil business and came up with the idea of sailing a consignment out to Brazil (which has a growing appetite for luxury goods thanks to a booming economy) and letting Pike fill the boat up with goods for the return trip.

The 32 meter cargo carrying brigantine Tres Hombres, operated by Fairtransport in partnership with  TransOceanic Wind Transport, will be calling in Bonaire today through the 17th and is sponsoring an “open house.”