The Structure of the Nazaré Project.

January 2019, Dawn over Horseshoe Bay, Ger Kavanagh.

Back to base on Sherkin with Fiona after our Christmas travels, I was busy making a big press cum wardrobe there, which herself has been wanting for years. I had to make up to her for heading off again so soon! Lately I seem to have mislaid the ability to live quietly at home for too long. Perhaps I never had it, but disguised this restlessness in sailing, when I was able to do so. The sea soothes one by bringing chaos down to relatively manageable proportions, with which it is possible to grapple, while at the same time it does undermine the walls with which we habitually try to erect to contain that chaos. With the Anna M laid up, I found my mind more exposed to the mounting crisis of our world.

Stephen Grosz, in the book I mentioned in my last blog, talks about how some people in the South Tower of the World Trade Centre saved their lives by getting out when the North Tower was hit and the fire alarms went off – they had a quarter of an hour to do so – while more, for one reason or another, did not. Apparently some just went on queuing for food! If you have any grasp of what is happening - of, as Allan Savary puts it, ‘the tsunami bearing down on us’ - you have little choice but to see if you can do something about it! 

One would think it was a fairly simple decision, to get out of that sky-scraper, but apparently not. We have a huge resistance to leaving our track! Considering all the pressures on us, I suppose this has to be – yet it is fatal to be so committed to the little compartment we have hacked out for ourselves that we close our eyes to what is happening around us. The integration of all the various aspects of our lives is, on the contrary, the name of the game that leads to salvation, especially from a catholic point of view.

This is the very process of achieving integrity, and that family of qualities whose interconnectedness is revealed by language itself – wholeness, health and holiness in English being all from the same root, and then there is saint, sane (eng.) sainteté, sain, santé (fr.), santidad, salud (esp.), saúde (pt.) etc. It always amuses me to see what different languages do with the same basic word, in this case sanctus in latin! All of which does not prevent some people from questioning the very idea of integrity – the very possibility of reconciling all the warring factors of our make-up, both within and without, personal, social, spiritual and the rest.

I suppose the problem is that the idea of integration ends up requiring belief in one loving God – otherwise whatever way we set about achieving it will mean that we irrevocably end up losing our own personal integrity, becoming less than a human person, a mere cog in some great machine. One recalls the famous saying 'Lord, make me holy, but not yet!' What the achievement of integrity most certainly will  require is the sacrifice of our individual ego, hence the inescapable necessity and transcendent significance of the Cross....

I have come rather a long way from what I meant to write about, sitting at a big round table in the spacious office of our new premises in Portugal. Today the sky is blue and the sun is pouring in the big south-facing window, with a charming view across a field of pear trees to a line of wooded hills. Alec and I find ourselves somewhat in a position that I have seen recommended for entrepreneurs - Ready, Fire, Take Aim - not the usual order of things! What - between spells of cleaning the place up - I particularly want to get my head around is:-

Structuring the Relationships Between the Various Participants in The Nazaré Project.

This project arose from conversations between myself, Alec Lammas, John Aston and relations and friends, as to how they could make a contribution to the transition to sustainability that is vital for the world, particularly in the application of electric power, and indeed as the sine qua non of ‘the Fourth Industrial Revolution’ - for it is sadly possible that civilisation will fail before this is accomplished, rather as the Roman civilisation did on the threshold of the First Industrial Revolution that harnessed steam power, so that Europe only eventually industrialised over a millennium later.

Alec has to make a living and to this end has set up a company, David Alexander Lammas Unipessoal Lda, which we are calling DALU for present purposes; with some little help from myself wearing my Nazaré Project cap, he is currently fitting out a large modern workshop with space for multiple projects and also recruiting 3 staff. It is at Fervença, near Valado dos Frades, on the old road between Nazaré and Alcobaça in Portugal. He intends to specialise in electric drives both at sea and on land; he holds a concession to sell Lynch Electric Motors in Portugal, Spain, France and Ireland. He has plans to innovate particularly in the use of a sailing vessel’s propeller to recharge her batteries, and has applied for research and development funding from the EU Portugal 2020 scheme. Whether this application succeeds will be known in March.

I have documented my activities in recent years in the Gannetswaysailing blog, as I sailed up and down the Gannetsway between Scotland and the south of Spain in the 50 year-old wooden schooner Anna M. This again is our ‘home territory’, comprising Ireland where I am based, France, Spain and Portugal, and such components of the UK that may so desire. Both Alec and myself are originally from England, but I am an Irish citizen and Alec is becoming a Portuguese one. We would of course be supportive of Brits who are likewise committed Europeans, which in this part of the world seems an indispensable starting point from which to address the challenges we face!

What is to be the financial relationship between them all going forward? As things stand, Alec is the main investor in DALU, while small investments have also been made by myself and by Gerard Kavanagh, on the basis of helping the startup under The Nazaré Project banner. Also under this banner, the somewhat quixotic undertaking of restoring the Anna M has made a substantial contribution to Alec’s ability to get DALU off the ground. It is hoped that, with European research funds, DALU will in turn enable the Anna M to achieve a new lease of life as a research and sales platform for its marine electric drives.

Meanwhile the Gannetswaysailing blog will continue to give an account of our progress, and the Nazaré Project will continue to provide a context, to seek investors and provide support for DALU and perhaps other business enterprises, as well as more cultural and aesthetic projects such as the restoration of Anna M, which nonetheless may turn out to have important practical contributions to make. We are actively seeking to extend that synchronicity which has undoubtedly attended our efforts so far!