The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-06-09
SAILING.FLEET MAY FILL U. s.
 COFFEE NEEDS
RY oTT0 c. JANegRN

United Press Stan CowrespOndent)
 Washington, June e-(uP)-The sailing ship may once again bring coffee to the American breakfast table.
 Under Secretary of Commerce Wayne Chatfield Taylor believes the use of hundreds, perhaps thous- a1lds, of litSle wind-p0wered vessels may be the answer-or at least Q partial solution - to the problem growing out of the loss and diver sion of some of the fleet of big ocean liners which normally oper- ates between Latin American and U. g. ports.
 Taylor contends that, although the small capacity of sailing vessels would necessitate many trips, the scheme has definite merits.
 Facilities Available
 Tn the first place, all the con- struction materials and the skilled labor needed to build such ships can be found in the islands and along the coasts of the Caribbean sea. The bulk of the coffee supplies would move through the Caribbean to New Orleans and other Gulf ports.
 In the second place, sailing veS- selS are harder for U-boat com manders to detect. There is no tell- tale smoke trail. In the First World War, the British called the sailing vessel back into service to replace losses caused by the German sub- marine campaign.
 Writing in the official Commerce Department publication, Foreign Commerce Weekly" Taylor eSti- mates that it would require over 120 freighters of 5000 tons each to bring Brazil's l941-42 coffee quota of 603, 500 tons to U. s. Gulf ports
 Some Skepticism
 we may not have that many freighters available for importing coffee" he said.
 But we can convoy Brazil'S cof- fee to some Caribbean storage base, and then bring 1t through tn c Caribbean to Gulf port on an erld- less belt of sailing ships 2,0l2 voyages of 300-ton sailing ships"
 Taylor asserts that some people have opposed the use of sailing ships for this purpose on the grounds that it is almost impossible to estimate with any degrees of ac. curacy the sailing times of wind powered ships because of variable wind and weather conditions, the choice of routes and other factors.
 Schedule Unimp0rtant
 "This is true" he said, 'but the problem is not one of foretelling time accurately. A captain who sails on voyage from New Orleans to Port of Spain, Trinidad, will es- timate the voyage anywhere from three to five weeks, taking along provisions = which take up much less space than fuel-accordingly.
 Tn the spring of the year, with favorable winds, he may make Trinidad in 21 days, but he is not disturbed by 8 voyage of 25 to 30 days. He gets his cargo cfeaply, from New Orleans to Trinidad, and that is the fact which is valuable to him and to us," Taylor said.
 10 ADS0ED AWAS L3DOE
 The under secretary contends that the time has arrived to begin construction, by the fastest means possible, of fleet of ttesA wooden vessels. Some of the work might be done by domestic yards, but he be- lieveS the other American Repub- lies, particularly those in the Carib- bean area, should be encouraged to take on most of the work as Q means of absorbing their idle labor and materials.
 In addition, he points out that the Caribbean is the Western Hemi- sphere home of the sailing ship. The shipbuilding craft has been handed down from father to son for generations. Scattered throughout the Caribbean islands are little shipyards. marine railways and all the other facilities needed to unA dertake this enterprise.