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Up until WWII, Finnish shippers were competitive using sailing ships for long range bulk transport of grain, Eric Newby details one such voyage as a sailor in The Last Grain Race (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Grain_Race). I see no particular reason why sailing ships with a little optimization couldn't be competitive these days if they were back then, especially since the fuel prices comparatively is higher now.

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The real kicker is labor cost per ton. Bigger ships don’t have a proportionately bigger crew. And sailboats were quite labor intensive.

Sounds like you just “created some jobs”

It’s totally possible that manipulating the sails and rigging is motorized and automated on these ships. Would be interested to see a demo of the operation of this ship.

I think the next thing you run into is height.

Sailboats are much taller than fossil fuel cargo ships of the same size. A lot of harbors have bridges in their path.

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