Sailing Vessel Kwai

INTRODUCTION

When I started the Traditional Sail blog in August, 2021 I made a concerted effort to state my goals. That statement is posted on the TS website and is entitled “Traditional Sail—Why Should Anyone Care ?”

The goal statement ends with “…writing about Traditional Sail as it was, as it is now and as it may be in the future—a platform for advocacy, teaching and action as the means to bring people together to deal with the very real problems of ocean health.”

Now, five months later, a number of interesting and potentially important developments have begun to appear in various parts of the world. There are some new sails on the horizon.

This posting is about one of those developments that has appeared. It is relevant to the goal statement but is not completely representative of the new sails on the horizon. In terms of place and circumstances it stands alone, so I am going to deal with it first.

As you read this posting please be aware that there will be more to come concerning contemporary efforts in TS. Also keep in mind that all you need to understand the subject matter is intellectual curiosity and an awareness of global challenges to societies, cultures and sustainability. You do not need to be a sailor, navigator or cartographer, or to know the difference between a jack line and a jack  yard. You can always learn all that if you want to.

RMI

The Republic of the Marshall Islands, hereinafter referred to as RMI, lies in the West, Central Pacific Ocean, directly South of Wake Island and East of Guam. It is part of Micronesia and is composed of more than 1000 islands, of which only 20 low-lying atolls and 5 coral islands are inhabited.

[An island is a land mass surrounded by water. An atoll is a submerged island surrounded by a coral reef. When covered by sand and vegetation, and having sufficient rainfall, the coral reefs can become inhabitable strips of land, with open ocean on one side and a protected lagoon on the other. Remember that Charles Darwin, circumnavigating the globe 1831–1836, studied and wrote about atolls.]

The area covered by RMI is approximately equal to the area of the country of Mexico. Its population is 59,000, of which 27,000 live on the island of Majuro, the capital of RMI. Like many of DMI’s islands Majuro atoll has a small land area, 3.7 square miles- and a big lagoon of 114 square miles.

RMI’s mid-ocean location, wide-spread population ad low-lying islands make it, to my mind, a “coal mine canary”—meaning a clearly qualified, vulnerable representative of other low-lying islands threatened by rising sea levels. However, also keep in mind that RMI and most of the other islands in Oceania have been occupied by humans for at least 3000 years—and that sea level changes have also occurred during that span of time. Historical perspective is always important.

The RMI’s people, known as Marshallese, may be coal mine canaries but they are also smart and tough. They have decades of experience in dealing with international ocean politics and bureaucracies. They have been a possession of Spain, Japan and the United States, and an independent republic since 1988. They currently deal with big Pacific Rim countries in Asia, with the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Germany.

My story dealing with contemporary traditional sail begins in September, 2020, when the RMI government, based in Majuro, leased and began to operate the Sailing Vessel (SV) Kwai—a 120 feet long, steel hulled, gaff-rigged topsail ketch—to be used on a 4 month trial basis in order to carry mixed cargos of people, consumer products and agricultural products—to and from 25 of RMI’s atolls and islands.

At the end of 2020 the RMI government purchased Kwai and continues to successfully operate her.

KWAI

SV Kwai is, in my opinion, everything a contemporary working, sailing craft should be. Not too big—120 feet on deck—steel hull and masts—practical, and workmanlike. Judging from the photos showing her Plimsoll line she draws about 10 feet of water—always depending on how heavily she is laden.

She is not especially beautiful or majestic—doesn’t sport a bloody, great pyramid of sail—but she is the real thing: genuine. And as proof of her practicality she has a boomless main sail. The absence of a boom allows her to carry her own cargo handling boom mounted on the after face of the main mast and carried fore and aft on deck while at sea. Very basic, very useful and very well thought out.

Melanesia and Polynesia were discovered and settled by the Lapita people coming from SE Asia and Indonesia—moving eastward over a period of 4000 years. The ocean is an integral part of the lives, society, language and culture of the modern-day descendants. This extends to their material culture, specifically boats. The contemporary iterations of the famous RMI sailing outrigger looks like a Formula One race cars—stripped down and minimalist. They are wicked fast and they race on the RMI lagoons, still using the traditional crab claw sail rig. These people know how to sail.

The government of RMI has wisely used the republics special circumstances—remoteness, composed of low lying islands and atolls—to become a client of international organizations focused on climate change, specifically caused by global CO 2 emissions, especially those emissions coming from thousands of huge, ocean-going container ships.

In conjunction with the United Nations the United States, the European Union and German organization called GIZ (an acronym). RMI has defined a set of goals for the reduction of CO2 omissions in various sectors of its own economy. For the maritime transport sector the goal is zero emissions by 2050.

Goals are good. They usually reflect serious thought and effort. They provide milestones to evaluate progress—or not—and they are, usually, a useful means of communicating policy.

Now is the time for you—as a reader to look at two videos.

Watching these two videos will enable you to see for yourself what the Kwai is, what she does and how she does it. This is a much better way to understand what is being done than reading my long, tedious description. Proof that a picture is worth a thousand words! ENJOY

I think that by watching the videos you will see an effort that is serious and practical—even if accompanied with a lot of music singing and laughter. I also think that the choice of Kwai reflects pragmatism. Sail is what the Marshallese know, respect and practice. The sea is also what they know respect and are surrounded by. Using wind as a substitute for diesel fuel is, in the context of RMI, absolutely practical—if you have a tool like Kwai.

RMI and SV Kwai look like a perfect fit, but we know that, as always, the Devil is in the details. So let’s look at and try to think critically about the details.

First: Distribution
All of the fossil fuels, clothing, processed foods, machine parts, automobiles and manufactured goods arrive at the port of Majuro. A few things may come by air, but most come by ship—not gigantic container ships but still large trans-oceanic cargo carriers, sometimes called “feeders.” But these ships cannot distribute the consumer goods to the islands and atolls—for fear of shallow waters, filled with coral heads and also because of the absence of large scale cargo handling technology—cranes—necessary for unloading. (Keep this in mind as you watch the videos.)

Second Gathering
There is also a need to pick up and bring—to gather—agricultural products (see below) from the islands and atolls to Majuro where they are consolidated and loaded for trans-oceanic shipping.

Distribution
These two needs: taking stuff to the islands and bringing other types of stuff back, form the “niche,” the primary function that SV Kwai, and other ships like her, are able to fill. It is what they are made for—to be the last link in the distribution chain and the first link in the gathering chain.

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS

It’s a short list: coconuts, bread fruit, taro, papayas and pandanus leaves; also pigs and chickens - (but at a backyard, artisanal level, not for export)

Coconuts are the biggest export—by volume and value. Coconuts when husked, split open and air dried become COPRA—Copra has been around as a “cash crop” for a long time in the Pacific Islands. Many of the RMI’s uninhabited islands have large expanses of coconut palm “forests.” The nuts can be gathered and transported across the relatively calm waters of the lagoons to sustainable, inhabited locations for splitting, drying and bagging—before they are sent off to Majuro’s port for export. Copra can be pressed to yield coconut oil. Copra is also used as an ingredient in commercial livestock feed. The videos show bags of copra being taken out to Kwai for shipping. (I have no information on the commercial value of the leaves of the pandanus palm—which are used to thatch roofs, make baskets, matting, ropes and hats.)

But Kwai carries a lot more than cargo. She enables people to travel to the capital in order to go to medical clinics, educational and cultural events, organizational meetings, and their grand parents’ wedding anniversary. She is, in fact, an instrument of connectivity.

All these functions—social, cultural, political and economical are done at a very low cost due to being able to substitute wind power for fossil fuel power and in doing this by the presence and use of Kwai have re-established the RMI’s link to the sea that diesel powered cargo carriers (feeders) were never able to offer.

In summary Kwai’s stated purpose is to provide the means for RMI to achieve its goal of zero carbon emissions in the Ocean Transport sector of its economy; while it provides a lot of services described above: distribution, gathering social and cultural connectivity and inter-island transport of people and products.

Question— Will achieving the goal of zero carbon emissions in the Ocean Transport sector cause rising sea levels to halt?

My answer is a firm NO—because the practical impact of that zero emission status will be minor when compared to the impact of the carbon emissions of China, India, Indonesia and many other industrial nations of our planet. This, unfortunately, is an established fact.

However, I will argue that the importance of Kwai—of the “Kwai Experiment” lies in its demonstration that the use of wind power for sea cargo transportation can be useful, powerful, and practical and that it can—under the right circumstances have important social and cultural impacts.

Question—Is the Kwai example a possible model for efficient ocean transport in other parts—other oceans of the the planet?

My answer MAYBE

First, I would hope that the neighboring island nations like Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, and many others might try to do the same thing—or something like it. If they choose not to try to make a shift to wind powered cargo transport it will be interesting to know their reasons.

It is possible that RMI’s choice of sail powered sea cargo transport may be specific to RMI’s geography demography, culture and politics. That is a discussion for another time and place.

Question—So, if it is not a model of world-wide environmental wonderfulness what does the Kwai example have to tell us, if anything?

My answer is that Kwai appears to be a successful example showing that the concept of sail powered sea cargo transport of people and goods is demonstrably valid—given the right circumstances.

The Kwai “fact set” is one of several recent positive exemplars.

There are others out there, some now working, others being built and getting ready to work.

This planet has many places and 195 countries—many of them bordered by oceans rivers and lakes. 70 % of Earth’s surface is water.

I have many ideas about all this but I sure as Hell don’t have any answers.

Answers to complex problems involving people money, environment, politics and harmony are in short supply—in spite of our technologies.

But it is worth time and effort and the asking of questions to try to discover answers. My job is to present different aspects of Traditional Sail and to “think out loud” about them.

So, watch the videos, think about RMI and Kwai and formulate your own ideas. I sincerely hope that you have found the SV Kwai circumstances as interesting as I have.

SAIL ON, SV KWAI!

PAU

As always all opinions and ideas stated above are mine alone.

Duncan Blair

If you are curious, outraged or interested after reading this post please feel free to contact me: traditionalsail@gmail.com.