I’ve seen the clipper ship Grain de Sail II, and I’ll definitely check these ones out too! I really like seeing some proof that modernized sail (with fairly traditional-looking rigging) is viable, and especially seeing which cargoes and routes make it viable. I think that might be a good look at what makes for worthwhile shipping in a solarpunk setting (high value goods, ingredients that only grow effectively in certain areas, humanitarian aid, etc). I think some takes on adding sails are perhaps too unwilling to compromise on the massive container ship design, grasping for how to keep that format running rather than examining if we should.

I wrote about this on the photobash I mentioned, but I genuinely like the optimization and logistical advantage of using standardized, stackable shipping containers which fit on ships, trucks, and trains without the need to load and unload the cargoes by hand at each transition in their journey. That’s great stuff, no complaints. What I wonder about is if that cost efficiency has caused other problems. We ship cargo all over the world but much of the time, we do it because it’s so cheap to do so. We ship raw material from one continent to process it on another, we ship that material again so we can shape it into parts, which are shipped back to the second continent for partial assembly, and then for final assembly on a fourth. Is that efficient? It’s cost efficient. But we burn terrible amounts of fuel each time we do it, and we do it for so many things. I’m not sure if there’s a green stand-in for that kind of dirt-cheap bulk shipping.

The Passat, the steel-hulled barque I borrowed parts from to make my last image (and its sibling ships) hauled nitrate, grain, concrete, and other stuff using a pretty traditional-looking hull (and loading it was apparently an important process which could and did lead to issues if done poorly. Like I said, most of the designs I’ve seen for container ships look a lot like regular ones with masts added on where they won’t get too in the way. I’d like to find or work out a design that starts with a viable sail ship and tweaks it towards modern features, like a way to somehow still load cargo in shipping containers, without messing up its form/function.

So thanks for the link (and for reading my rant)!

In your previous artworks, I really enjoyed your themes of reusing/repurposing things from an earlier time. So the first thing that came to mind for me was an offshore platform (one of those shallow water ones that’s anchored to the seabed) repurposed as living space, research area, or a hub for an offshore wind farm.

I don’t know of the technology level in your setting could accommodate this, but I also thought about nuclear powered cargo ships. Lots of safety and environmental considerations, but the potential to vastly reduce emissions (since cargo ships switch to the cheapest, nastiest, most bottom-of-the-barrel bunker oil sludge they can get their hands on as soon as they’re in international waters).