Provident treads lightly - join us for an eco-friendly holiday

Read about Provident Brixham Trawler, our sailing holidays and our contribution to sustainable tourism. Come with us and you can help too!

Reduce, recycle, reuse! ♻️

What to do about global warming🌦️? How do we measure and reduce our carbon footprint👣? What does it mean to live and travel in a sustainable way? How can we make sure we respect and protect the environment we inhabit? Can we really make a difference? #respectprotectenjoy

At Provident sailing we know there are no easy answers but we do believe in trying! We hope that by choosing to come on a holiday on Provident you will support us to “tread lightly” on our world 🌎. Together there are things we can all do to make our holidays eco-friendly and Provident and all those who sail on her can take part.

Luckily Provident is a sailing boat so it can be carbon free just to travel! We can get to loads of places by sail alone. She is also very old so we can properly say that she has been recycled and reused. #netzero

Reducing can be harder. Here is what we are going to try.....

Let’s use the engine as little as possible. This means that our destinations will change from day to day according to the wind direction and the tides. Luckily in Scotland there is always somewhere fantastic to go.

When we do use the engine because we want to get to a specific place – we will make it a group choice and aim to be as eco-friendly as possible. If we are smart we can make sure the tide is always running the way we are.  If we are determined to get somewhere and the weather is calm, we will run on low revs which can save lots of fuel. #respectprotectenjoy

Although both the engine and the generator do make a noise (according to the skipper, they purr like pussy cats) it’s obvious when they are on and we will try to use the generator as little as possible. We hope this will encourage us to be economical with electrical and other devices. You might want to try a #digitaldetox anyway?

Think about how much water💦 we are using. The boat has finite water supplies. If everyone showers🚿 every day then supplies will run out faster and we may have to divert to a port to refill our tanks. The skipper says he showers once a week whether he needs to or not! The rest of us accept that shorter showers are the way to go and remembering not to run the tap when you are washing your teeth🪥 can save loads of water. Or you could just go for a swim? We expect those of you on the swim trips to lead the way! #swimdanthemerman.

We have learned that food can often be the biggest way of using up carbon. We will try to shop locally wherever we can and pay attention to the distance our food has had to travel and the way that it has been transported.

We can definitely reduce packaging especially if we buy in bulk. Please bring your own water bottle🍶.

We will buy #ecofriendly products even though we know they cost more ☹

We can encourage you all to travel by train🚂 or bus 🚌. The train line from Glasgow to Oban or Mallaig is magical. People come to Scotland just to go on the west highland line .    BBC iPlayer - Great British Railway Journeys - Series 10: 10. Hillhead to Connel Ferry Here’s a secret. The Jacobite steam train is brilliant and runs from Fort-William to Mallaig. It runs on the same line as the Scot Rail trains. Buy an off-peak return to Mallaig -the views are the same!

We will reduce our consumption of meat🥩. If you are all in agreement we will aim to make at least half our meals vegetarian. Morag has been making the refit crew vegetarian dinners all winter. They have never been so healthy – or maybe its all the work they are doing in small spaces.

Whenever we go ashore we can try to buy from local food producers. This could mean that our food miles for that dinner will be nil! The boat has a fold up bicycle🚲 in case we need to go a few miles to get to a farm. It doesn’t have many gears so we will be looking for volunteers.

We hope you will help us to at least one beach clean per trip. Sadly the west facing beaches can throw up a rubbish from all over the world!

We will limit our use of plastics by recycling and reusing where we can.

We will support the preservation of our historic wooden ship by making her accessible to others and allowing her to continue sailing. Support our new charity Provident For All (Provident Sailing Charitable Trust (SCO52216)

Come with us and you can tread lightly too.   #respectprotectenjoy