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this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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Sails fell out of favor because when people order something, they want it immediately. Sailing was too inconsistent and petroleum became too cheap. There's still a huge shipping market for overnight intercontinental flights for companies who can't wait. I'm happy to introduce hybrid propulsion systems to try to make a dent, but we can't pretend it's an altruistic effort. We can't pretend customer demand is why these ships are so dirty in the first place, either.
Traditional sails are also fragile, complex, expensive and very labour intensive even with electric winches. A fully rigged ship is exceptionally complicated and knowing how to work one takes huge skill and knowledge, and that's not even mentioning what to do when something goes wrong. And of course, it's much slower as well.
You say that like sailing was replaced with modern cargo ships. Sailing was replaced by coal steamers over a century ago. Same-day delivery had nothing to do with it.
OK, replace "petroleum" with "fossil fuel engines" and then replace "overnight" with "as fast as technologically possible at whatever time period you wish to examine in which powered transport was faster and more consistent than sailing ships" and the rest stands all the same