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!

On Oysters and Paranoia.

Staying with our Bella on Guernsey, and having both friends and neighbours on Sherkin and a brother-in-law in County Clare who farm oysters, Fiona and I were delighted to meet Bella’s friends Penny and Mark Dravers of Guernsey Sea Farms, and to be given a

Mark Dravers

fascinating guided tour of their oyster hatchery. A piquancy is added by the fact that the Murphys on Sherkin used to get their spat from here, and the story of why they no longer do so is curious.

Algal soup for oyster spat.

Fortunately there seems to be no lack of alternative markets, but the Guernsey Sea Farm is suffering from the odd fact that their spat has not been exposed to the disease which has ravaged the French stocks and also much of the Irish stock. The result is that they have no immunity, and whereas French spat are liable to losses of 80% due to the disease, the Guernsey spat is liable to be wiped out if exposed to it.

Millions of baby oysters.

Mark complains, quite rightly, that it was very irresponsible to allow French spat into Ireland, and indeed of the EU committee responsible not to have certified the disease and closed down all movement of infected oysters, as would be the case with foot and mouth disease, for example. He says they were leaned on by the massive French oyster industry to put their interests ahead of the scientific fact of this disease.

It is rather a classic case of the old English beef that the Continentals only face facts when it suits them, and when they are forced to acknowledge facts, only take the necessary regulations seriously when this suits them. Meanwhile the poor old English, not to mention Irish, are compelled to respect the regulations, and being in the main law-abiding folk are indeed inclined to do so, unlike those anarchistic and arrogant French!

While allowing a degree of truth in all this, let's examine the difference between the Germanic and Latin approaches. As someone who has pretensions to help reconcile these, I have to say that there may be just something to be said for the French approach, along the following lines: - Everyone acknowledges that the transmission of the disease is not the automatic result of exposure to it. After all, we know that it is exacerbated by factors such as stress from over-stocking. We have already also observed that stocks can build up a measure of immunity. What’s more, it is highly questionable whether it is in fact possible to eradicate such a disease by the usual preventive measures. Perhaps, while not neglecting measures to prevent the spread of the disease, we should also be trying to find ways of building up immunity?

I shall pass up the opportunity to expound the principles of homeopathy, and before the scientific fundamentalists of this world start jumping up and down, let me add that whatever way one finds to get through such problems, they must be based on rigorous respect for scientific facts - an infectious

Oyster eggs dividing under the electronic mycrosope.

disease for example is just that - as well as for other facts that don’t suit our current state of scientific knowledge, and above all on maximising our respect for other people who see things differently, a difficult undertaking at the best of times!

I have picked up an excellent book here at Bella’s - ‘The Examined Life’, by Stephen Grosz, a psychoanalyst. In a discussion of paranoia, he refers to another book, ‘The Great War and Modern Memory’, in which Paul Fussell 'documents soldiers’ widespread conviction that the farmers were directing the German guns to British emplacements.' He quotes Fussell ‘In both wars it was widely believed but never, so far as I know, proved that French, Belgian or Alsatians living just behind the line signaled the distant German artillery by fantastically elaborate, shrewd, and accurate means.’

Grosz comments that ‘It is less painful, it turns out, to feel betrayed than to feel forgotten.’  He depicts paranoia as an at times necessary defence against the more catastrophic sense of being isolated, alone, powerless and forgotten. The feeling of being hated shielded his patient from ‘the catastrophe of indifference’.

It all resonates with the current state of mind of some Brexiteers that I have encountered. They somehow manage to blame the chaos and mess of the current state of the British body politic on the EU in general and often President Juncker in particular. That gentleman’s name even vaguely recalls, without of course their acknowledging it, a type of German Second World War bomber. First step to undoing the knot - call out the paranoia, get rid of it!

We have come rather a long way from oysters.

Breeding stock - same lot, different environment.

It is amazing how one thing can lead to another! I shall come back to Guernsey, and a letter I just wrote to the Editor of The Guernsey Post. I am agreeably surprised that they have printed it. In a hotel bar here I found, besides the Post, the following Daily papers:- Telegraph, Express and Mail. Some kinds of paranoia run very deep, - but there may be a big change coming to Guernsey - part of a bigger breakthrough that may come out of all the Brexit grief! Here is my letter:-

Britain’s ongoing saga of ‘taking back control’, threatening turmoil and chaos on all sides as exemplified in your lead story today (8th January), is of intense concern to all its neighbours, and to none more so than the Channel Islands, perched just off the Continental coast. Like my own Irish countrymen, you had no opportunity to participate in the much-vaunted democratic process that brought it about. At this crucial juncture, you should consider what is truly in your interest and make your voice heard.

I have been coming here for sixty years, and have a daughter and three teenage grandchildren here. They like all their generation are facing a world with huge possibilities and also massive challenges, indeed as all widely respected authorities have stated, existential threats to the very future of civilisation. If these are to be overcome, and if Europeans are to be able to assert themselves and thrive in a world dominated by the likes of China and Mr Trump’s USA and their massive corporations, it is essential that we work together.

On page three of your paper today, we find the statement from Deputy Peter Roffey that UK immigration plans ‘could spell disaster for our economy’. Guernsey is by no means alone, and in the process very many people of all kinds are threatened with having their life options grossly curtailed. I have an English grandnephew who is threatened with a £21,000 bill for a year’s tuition in Spain that was going to cost £1500 within the EU.

Whence comes this monstrous desire to deprive those who consider themselves European of their rights and the many opportunities on this great Continent? Their essentially thuggish nature has just been demonstrated outside the Westminster Parliament. The lie is given to their commitment to democracy by their opposition to another referendum, in today’s much more informed circumstances - not that it was ever a good way of proceeding, being in Clement Atlee’s words ‘alien to all our traditions and beloved of fascist dictators’.

The value of the EU has been demonstrated in Ireland by the successful peace process under its auspices. Those who want to be Irish and those who would rather consider themselves British can cooperate and get on with life as best they may. Likewise, there need be no opposition between those who want to be British and those who consider themselves European. In fact the various identities complement and enrich each other.

However, confronted with a choice between facing the future and digging oneself into a bunker, there comes a point when this choice cannot be evaded. Such a time is now. I suggest that the Channel Islands would do well to announce their intention of getting together and applying to join the EU as an independent entity, and a great future would open up for you thereby.

Such a statement would also send a powerful message across the Channel!

Photos by Fiona.

At the Still Point of a Turning World.

Some of us, at least, and by no means necessarily the well-to-do types, are privileged at the turning of the year to enjoy a relaxation of the  steely grip that the world generally holds on us. There is a pause, a moment's quiet, as one year begins to fade into the Past, and a new one opens before us. Some people of course are merely filled with panic by the merest passing glimpse into the abyss that surrounds our lives, and rush to fill it with even more inebriation than they generally employ, in trying to maintain their tenuous engagement with life; let us hope rather for a blessed occasion to stand back, give a bit of quality time to the relationships that matter to us, and focus anew on what is important to us, even as Mrs May recommends.

What will the New Year bring? The prospects have been stormy, and the same old problems will still be there, but when for a moment we get off our high horses, is there any real chance of joining the shepherds in glimpsing the new hope offered in that stable in Bethlehem? But why does it have to be in a stable? Is there any hope for those of us, such as I have to admit myself on this occasion, who have spent the holidays in a very fine house?

View from our bedroom window, by Fiona..

It was not something that might have been expected, when Fiona and I came to live in a leaking two-roomed cottage and a small caravan in Glencolmcille, back in 1973. Not that it didn't have its blessings, including as Big John had it 'the best water in Ireland', which we called Braide wine as we drank it a simple Christmas feast there. Anyway, the three wise men or kings, or whatever they were, were on their way. One of our daughters married a member of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy, with a famous big house in County Wicklow, which is where we were this Christmas.

Whether one spends it in a big house or a humble cottage does not of course determine  the actual happiness of the occasion, and of course the big house was designed to run with an army of servants, long gone now, so despite the mechanical conveniences of life these days, running it entails a great deal of hard work. Nonetheless it was very pleasurable to sit down in the grand dining room with twenty members of the family.

The fine portrait paintings on the walls of previous generations evoke a sense of family continuity, and the formal rooms lend a certain dignity to life that, hopefully, enhances the human interactions which they sustain. So also do the sculpted views from the windows, and the magnificent tree-scapes backed  by glimpses of Wicklow's gentle mountain peaks

It is all a far cry from the 'self-made' wealth that is more generally approved of these days, but truly, if the genuine fruits of wealth are to be enjoyed, if the persona  of wise men and kings are to be truly reconciled, does it not have to be admitted that it is more likely to happen by way of inheritance than 'merited' by what passes for hard work and talent these days? Isn't wealth likely to be better used in hands into which it simply fell, than in those of people who thrust aside their fellows, used them in fact, in order to grasp it?

It is the very will to power and wealth that makes it so difficult to perceive and understand what lies outside its scope, to get off one's high horse now and again, to maintain honesty, integrity, a true sense of justice, respect for others and for nature. I genuinely have zero nostalgia for the past, but it does seem we may have to take some inspiration from unfashionable aspects of it, if we are to succeed in overhauling our ideas of democracy and make it fit for purpose again.

I spent over an hour looking at the carry-on in the House of Commons before Christmas. My default source of information on British politics is John Crace's Politics Sketch*  in the Guardian. I wanted to see if it really was as bad as he makes out. Actually I thought it was worse. In response to all sorts of real concerns, Mrs May just kept on repeating her line about carrying out the will of the British people.  I didn't see anyone nail that one with the simple fact that, even if one (unlike myself) accepts that there may be any such thing as the will of the people, and that the referendum result delivered it, that result was delivered under the leadership of gentlemen like Messrs Boris Johnson and Nigel Farrage who now repudiate her version of it. Mrs May is either deluded or downright dishonest, I hesitate to say which, in her claim to be delivering 'the decision of the people', and frankly one might say the same of a great deal that passes itself off as democracy these days.

British politics are fascinating at present because they are giving expression to profound cultural problems that our Irish politics are merely skirting over. Frankly contemporary Ireland is somewhat inflated with the capital of a handful of American corporations that exercise a deadening grip on our culture. I look to a long game of counter-balancing that influence through the European project; not being inclined to cultural warfare, I just have to hope it is not mere laziness that leaves me happy to chip away in my own little way, and grateful if I succeed in continuing to do so in 2019! 

*https://www.theguardian.com/politics/series/the-politics-sketch

True British Resourcefulness - A Birthday Card For Alec.

Photo by Stephan.

If you happen to need to move your boat, all 24 tons of her, and you are a real West Country man, it's simple enough. You just get your hands on an old motorway sign-post gantry at the scrap yard up the road, along with a few old wheels and jacks, and you make a trailer. Then you just have to get your hands on a big lump of a tractor, which you do by swopping it for a fine compressor that you had picked up cheap.

The particular specimen of that disappearing race to whom I refer happens to have wound up in Portugal, and he is none other than our one and only Alec. The poor old 'Whirled', that he built himself 15 years ago in Brittany, has for the moment been sadly reduced to his caravan, a somewhat unwieldy one it has to be said, which he is moving to a cheaper site. We are also in the process of moving all his kit into the new HQ, Yellow Windows. He is conscious that his time as an all-purpose marine Mr Fixit is coming to an end; together we are setting up a business that will enable him to use his head more and his limbs and muscles less, as befits his 54 years, and to do our bit to save the World while we are at it!

So many people in this world would have freaked out at the prospect of just making a trailer like that. They would have wanted some kind of engineer on the job, who had done all sorts of sums and drawings. Well I've nothing at all against engineers, but I do love that solid West Country approach of just doing it. It is however curious how the cobbling, make-it-up-as-you-go-along approach lets the English down when it comes to politics and the country's leadership.

Nebulous incoherence is by no means limited to the present incumbent of No.10 Downing St. For instance I have always been puzzled as to how all those subjects of Her Majesty suddenly started calling themselves citizens. There was no such nonsense back in the day when I had a fine dark blue passport, with a great big coat of arms on the front and something about Her Majesty's Government requesting and requiring that I be allowed to pass without let or hindrance on the inside. Did I miss something while my back was turned?

It sounds like a revolution in toothpaste to me, that's the kind we generally can rise to these days, but if there was some kind of serious revolution back in the 70s or 80s while I was totally immersed in fishing and rearing children, it evidently didn't satisfy the present crop of rabid revolutionaries. I was forced back into taking an interest in British politics by the Brexit vote, and found to my amazement that the nice vicar's daughter who had just become P.M. was full of fiery revolution in her speech at the time, to the Conservative Party Conference of all things! 'The roots of the revolution run deep', she averred, 'Yet within our society today, we see division and unfairness all around'.

For some reason, under her inspired leadership, The Referendum, like 'the Revolution', has acquired some kind of quasi royal authority. The people have spoken, albeit by a slim majority in a flawed campaign, and their will must be done. Never mind that the issues have become so much clearer since; in this version of democracy, debate is a waste of time; there is no such thing as gradually finding one's way and painfully building a consensus, taking a shared responsibility. That's surely real citizenship, but evidently the sort of thing that  may be left to those misguided Europeans!

However, ‘if you believe you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere. You don’t understand what the very word ‘citizenship’ means.’ What would Mrs May have us 'rootless cosmopolitans' be, cabbages? Actually, human beings come equipped with feet, for moving around, but let’s allow also, like monkeys, for climbing in trees. Then at least we would know where to look for roots. Let us imagine we are sitting on a branch of the great Tree of Life. It would for a start be wise not to cut off the branch that we are sitting on. Then we could go downwards, and find where our branch becomes part of a bigger one, and that one turns into the trunk, and then we may find some decent roots.

Mrs May prattles on about her desire to 'unite the country', while in fact it is becoming ever more divided under her leadership. 'Struth, Mr Junker's nebulous is too kind a word, but she is looking in the wrong direction for unity - at the clouds maybe? Never mind, the Tories are going to fix it, and apparently it all depends on Brexit! ‘Britain – the Britain we build after Brexit – is going to be a Global Britain.’ Meanwhile, everyone with a smidgen of coherence, from the Pope and the Secretary General of the UN, via David Attenborough and most scientists downwards, are telling us that we shall be very lucky if the Globe has not gone into catastrophic decline a few short years hence.

If only one could be confident that there was any other, more coherent, leadership on offer in England! It would be nice to forget about the whole circus in Westminster, as well as the violence in France, but the thing is, we none of us can avoid their effects; the world is indeed a global village now, whether we like it or not. Where does this Brexit leave us English people who have moved on, becoming Europeans of one kind or another (though perhaps with a deeper appreciation of England for that)? Sooner rather than later, Messrs Farrage, Johnson, & Co as well as their friends across the Atlantic have to be faced down - we cannot afford to just wait until they die off, or everyone will go with them!

Meanwhile, thank God for the odd Englishman who, precisely because he is firmly planted in physical reality, realises like the birds that there is more to the world than England, and also has the imagination to realise that there are other ways of relating to the rest of it than by mere exploitation or domination!

A Call to Action - The Nazaré Project

‘We are heading into one of those historical moments when the different facets of life come together – in a time of extreme physical, environmental, technological, social, economic, political, spiritual and, for each one of us, personal turmoil, crisis and transformation. To at once escape denial and to avoid falling into destructive violence or madness, it is imperative to find some way, however small and insignificant it may seem, of responding with creativity and love.’

This is me expressing my current state of  mind, that I hope will find a response in yours too, dear reader. For too long we have tended to keep our inner thoughts and feelings about such matters under wraps, afraid perhaps of raising issues that we just cannot cope with, as we struggle to keep our relationships together, rear our children and generally keep the show on the road.

I am back in Nazaré now, at its bright and sunny best, but I have been at home lately, while Alec and I were communicating closely nonetheless, across the 800 miles or so of this lot:-

The result is that we are ready to go with

The Nazaré Project

The key features of the Project are 3 S’s - sustainability, subsidiarity (local participation) and solidarity. These entail objectives such as meeting the challenge posed by the climate crisis, bringing new life to the entire European project by empowering people within their local communities and redefining the relationship between capital and regular people.

Dependence on oil, besides hastening us to self-destruction, is putting us in the hands of a shadowy and unaccountable elite. Not alone do we require a transition to electric power, but also to ‘power for the people’; and I do not mean merely some probably spurious political power, but the actual ability to participate in powering their own world, indeed to inherit their own lives.

The Project is developing with differing strands. It started in practical terms with the Anna M. Every sailor knows the sense of blessed relief that comes with stopping their engine, when the sails take over and once again the dominant sounds are those of nature and the way of their boat through the water. Now the whole world needs such a moment, leaving dependence on oil and internal combustion engines behind, and indeed this does seem to be coming to pass! Moreover, an ocean-going sailing boat is a very apt ‘entry point’ for addressing the challenge of making our world sustainable. She is a whole life-support and transport system, running on her own power.

Those of you who have followed this blog will also know - and the story is here for all to read - how I myself arrived at this point, aboard such a sailing boat, the 13.6m wooden schooner Anna M.  She was designed by the English designer John Illingworth and built in the South of France, 50 years ago. Fiona and I bought her 20 years ago, at Horta in the Azores.

I had just retired from 26 years as a commercial fisherman. I had embarked on that career partly in order to immerse myself in the problematic relationship between technology, capitalism and nature, in order to try to see the way out of that destructive phase of history that caused me to witness, for example, the reduction of a fine fishing ground off NW Ireland to a fish desert, and whose global consummation we are now about to witness. I meanwhile followed the fortunes of the Glencolmkille Cooperatives in Co. Donegal, and was subsequently Chairman of the West Clare Development Coop at Carrigaholt for several years.

Anna M leaving on IWDG cruise
 to the Cabo Verde Islands. 

I had been brought up sailing, and now wanted a boat big enough to take sailing trips, focussed on dolphin and whale watching. Besides doing so off SW Ireland, I went filming humpback whales with the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group in the Cape Verde Islands, and in the course of continuing around the North Atlantic, sailed 40km up the Orinoco River in the Venezuelan rain-forest. Anna M has sailed many, many miles in the company of whales and dolphins, and in a sense I now try to emulate them. It changes one, to look those creatures in the eyes and to hear their haunting songs beneath the waves.

Since 2012, with a welcome pension, Fiona and I have settled down to living on Sherkin Island and cruising the ‘Gannetsway’. This is what I call my ‘home ground’, where the gannets fly, from Scotland to the South of Spain. Anna M spent winters further and further south, and finally on the Rio Guadiana, between the Algarve and Andalusia.

In June 2016, I was sailing north up the Portuguese coast with two friends, but had to take the decision that it was unsafe to proceed, because despite considerable effort at remedy, the 50 year-old boat was leaking too much. I put her on the concrete at Nazaré, and there serious problems were found. Enter a remarkable boat-builder and marine engineer of 30 years’ experience called Alec Lammas.

Alec laminating a frame.

Alec and I soon found much in common, in particular a shared interest in electric drives. We cleaned out Anna M's hull, taking out the engine and fuel tanks, and discovered that many of her frames were cracked and rotten. Since I was now committed to a project way beyond my personal means, I decided we would somehow manage to 'go the whole hog', since the chance was there but would never come again, and fit a self-regenerative electric drive. Alec and I decided to set up a company in order to design, manufacture and install such systems, while Anna M will become a research vessel, test bed and demonstration ambassador for them. We are calling this company:-

Aston-Lammas Electric Propulsion Lda (ALEP).

As such, we have just agreed to rent a premises some 6 km inland from Nazaré in Portugal, just off the A8 motorway. It is in good working condition, with plenty of room for a fully equipped workshop, storage, office and design space and also for accommodation space. It only needs to be cleaned out and then we will be ready to go.

'Yellow Windows' - ALEP's premises.

We have also just submitted an application to the EU's Portugal 2020 scheme for 50% funding of our research and development program, and we have established a relationship with Professor Carlos Fereira of the I.P.L. de Leiria.

The motors will be supplied initially at least by Lynch Electric Motors, for which Alec has the concession for Portugal, Spain, France and Ireland. Our innovation will mainly lie in the systems’ abilities to recharge the vessels’ batteries, using the power generated by their propellers when the boat is sailing with sufficient force through the water.

There are already 3 boat-owners interested, and further installations are being planned, such as purely electric systems for locally built GRP dayboats that will be recharged with shore power. The company’s interests will not be confined to the marine industry, but applied also to transport on land. There is huge scope for the production of simple low-cost electric vehicles, which are essential to the rejuvenation of rural and urban communities alike. Flashy high-end electric vehicles are all very well, but are quite beyond the means of those trying to live simple lives in the country.

There is a beautiful village a little further inland from our premises, with a derelict ceramics factory for sale in it, which we would love to buy and use for our own purposes. Nearby there are several run-down old houses for sale and a closed-down school. It is a story replicated everywhere. With affordable vehicles and their own means of producing power, this community and countless others could be rejuvenated.

Nazaré itself provides a splendid opportunity for the application of electric vehicles. Near our workshop there is a new industrial estate that the local authority is currently equipping with services and access roads. It would be an ideal place to provide a ‘charge and ride’ facility, where drivers could pull in off the motorway and leave their car to be charged, preferably with solar panels that would also provide shade, while being left into Nazaré, thus relieving it of the traffic that gridlocks its narrow streets in busy times.

Immediately speaking, in the New Year, we intend to be able to provide accommodation and food to helpers, as we get the new workshop organised, complete with office and living quarters. Down the line, there will be opportunities to participate both at sea and on land, and your input on business or technical matters, as well as physical help, will be much appreciated. You will be able to follow what is happening on this blog. Email gannetsway@gmail.com to join our mailing list.

Our organisation is still very much in its infancy, and it should be emphasized that this is a personal blog rather than a mission statement. However, I think it best to be up front about where I am coming from. Of all things I deplore hidden agendas, that motivate people while they avoid engaging in honest, meaningful and robust ways with issues as they arise. However, it is not just that I am an old man in a hurry. Heaven knows it should be obvious by now that the Planet needs our haste. Sound and deeply rooted motivation is required if we are going to turn around this present, destructive way of going on, in which the usual flannel most often peddled by politicians and the media is proving woefully inadequate.

Unfortunately we cannot afford to delay in raising funds. We suddenly found that our application to Portugal 2020 had to be in by the end of November, or we would miss the chance to apply for a Research and Development grant for another whole year. It only went ahead thanks to a friend's generosity and that of Mierlog Consulting, who are still owed Eur2500. We also need to spend some money on rent and kitting out the new premises, though this will be done as simply and cheaply as possible. When we get an office to work in, we'll have some chance of organising ourselves properly.

Eventually your contributions will become formal shares in ALEPlda. If you let us know what you are most interested in, this will help us to shape our priorities. Of course you can always make smaller contributions too, and you do not need to be a shareholder to follow and participate.

Please lodge funds with the Gannetsway account -
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The Madonna is for me right at the heart and foundation of European civilisation, and for my part, the Project is under the patronage of Nossa Senhora da Nazaré*. I count myself answerable to the ethos and values of the Catholic Church, without however excluding anyone for holding to a different tradition. Alec for instance is a Vegan. In the end we believe all genuine traditions and values point in one universal direction, whereof the implications for today are best worked out in practice. It is by working together that we learn to trust each other!

Joe Aston.


*https://www.roman-catholic-saints.com/our-lady-of-nazareth.html

In... Out.... Time for an Overview.

It was well over two years ago now, on the 16th July 2016 to be precise, that having, in the wake of the Brexit referendum, given off yards about ‘that extraordinary act of vandalism, self-harm and misplaced anger’, I wrote that I would ‘take a break from all that nonsense’ as far as commenting in this blog is concerned. I more or less kept to my word, yet it turned out to be a compelling psychodrama for anyone in any way tuned in. You will not have been short of reading material about it, nor discussion if you are any way so inclined, though it has become more and more difficult to communicate with those on the other side of the argument, if such it may be termed. Now that the process is theoretically coming to an end, I will attempt an overview.

What rational debate there has been has been mainly confined to the economic sphere. This has largely been a matter of rustling up whatever plausible arguments that one can muster to reinforce one’s own point of view; it is obvious that economics is very far from an exact science. For what it’s worth, I would have thought the economic factors overwhelmingly point to staying in, but since they are rehearsed ad nauseam elsewhere, by people who should be better qualified than me, I won’t bother with them here. Mind you, some of the leading Brexiteers seem to me totally in cloud cuckoo land as far as economics are concerned. One must seek to understand their motivation elsewhere.

If one should delve in very different spheres, and allude for example to the obvious parallel between Brexit and the English Reformation, again, the chances of deriving enlightenment are slim. Frankly most people have only the vaguest notions about history, prior to 1914, bar the odd raid in a film or something that imparts no meaningful context. Good King Harry and plucky Francis Drake no doubt contributed hugely to the sub-plot of Brave England standing up to them forriners, but again, one is really back to one’s own point of view. What dark paranoia led to Catholic priests being savagely butchered in the market squares of England is hard to fathom.

None of the above provides anything like an adequate narrative for Mrs May's 'different' England. A big part of our problem today is that we have been trying to manage on a very inadequate one; that of the Enlightenment, Progress and Democracy, with a purely individual idea of fulfilment allegedly empowered by technological wizardry, and it is finally proving inadequate, indeed unseaworthy, under present conditions. In their dismay, populists are trying to take us back to national myths, though these failed so catastrophically in the last century. When we consider the EU, to my mind it is in danger of falling apart because it has largely failed to have the courage of its own roots, settling instead for the EnDem narrative with all its limitations.

Just as Brexit clearly relates to the English Reformation, the EU, while it may not like to admit it, relates to the Roman Empire and its successor, the Holy Roman Empire, and finally the Roman Catholic Church. Moreover its symbol is the crown of twelve stars with which Mary was crowned Queen of Heaven and Earth in the book of the Apocalypse, and many of its founding fathers were Roman Catholics. It is based on catholic values of universality, solidarity, subsidiarity, community and dialogue rather than brute power. I do not wish at all to imply that such values are the prerogative of Catholics, nor to deny that all too frequently we have failed to live up to them. I note however that having been effectively taught all down the ages, they were particularly elaborated in the Second Vatican Council, around the time when the EU was taking off. The shock of the ensuing gale, that blew in when the gates and windows of the ‘fortress Church’ were opened, caused such havoc that it may go some way to explaining what to me is the bizarre reactionary stance of some Catholics, who are mostly of the post Vatican II generation, such as Messrs Bannon and Rees-Mogg.

A real catholic narrative has anyway to be rooted in that older narrative which Protestants share. One of the best stories in it is one of the oldest; I mean that of the Tower of Babel. Just a few lines in the Book of Genesis, when men tried to build themselves ‘a tower reaching to heaven’, but the Lord ‘confused their language so that they could not understand each other’, and that was the end of that! Here we still are, trying to secure Heaven on our own terms, finding ourselves at odds with each other, and rejecting the very idea that our only chance of peace on earth and a transcendent fulfilment lies in paying attention to God.

Immediately people will be jumping down my throat to ridicule this idea. How can I say such things after all the violence committed ‘in the name of God’? To which I can only reply that mankind has been violent ever since Cain killed Abel, but who has been showing us the way to peace? Who has even managed to find peace in their own hearts and families, and how do they do so? But to do so, we surely have to try to come to some kind of terms with the rest of the world. I have found that I cannot sit back and see out my days in peace, as best I may, unless I also do what I may to build harmony in the world.

When people argue about climate change, they frequently seem to think that the issue stands by itself. It doesn’t; it is merely one symptom of a massive collision between our contemporary technological version of civilisation and the natural order. Anyone who is at all close to nature realises that this is being rapidly degraded in multiple ways. That climate change is a very clear example of the imperative to achieve a new solidarity among the nations and humility too is presumably why the Duckie and his mates deny it and also loath the EU. At least they thereby acknowledge that the two of them are related.

Where do we begin? How can we make an effective contribution to ensuring that our grandchildren inherit a blessing from us? When all is said and done, is this not one deep desire that we all share? And yet, is there anyone who has a plausible and coherent strategy? It simply cannot happen without a compelling vision of human destiny, of where we are trying to go.

To elaborate such a vision is the business of religion, and as long as we start from the view that religion is hogwash, and mankind’s spiritual journey has proven to be a dead end, then clearly we havn’t the proverbial snowball’s chance in Hell of doing so. In practice all the great religions point in pretty much the same direction, although it seems to me that there is one preeminently thorough and effective expression of it. The narrative goes something like this:-

In our quest for knowledge and power, we became locked into our egos, unhinged and separated from our fellows and from nature. This condition is known as being in a state of original sin, and is inherently destructive. The only way to break out is through personal love; anything less cannot suffice, for to give oneself over to anything less than another person makes us into something less than a person.

Our quest remains that of the New Jerusalem, the City of God. Christ uniquely offers his very body as the locus of that City, continually, dynamically and presently. He is powerfully helped by his mother, who makes it abundantly clear that her son does not come into the world in power as the world understands it, but by humble attention to God’s Word, while the whole business is rooted in physical as well as spiritual reality.

Now, as has been repeatedly pointed out, the whole world has reached a pass where we must either break through into a new solidarity or perish. None of our efforts will be adequate, and sometimes they will be counterproductive and destructive. If their flaws are indeed such that we cannot overcome them, well that is a time of out. Like the rhythm of the seasons, the drumbeat of life goes yes... no..., in... out.... But our last word, if we are not to be finally cast out, must be yes, in, be it done unto me according to thy word!

Getting Going at Seventy-two?

Emile Ratelband, the 69-year-old Dutchman who has caused a stir by going to law in order to 'become' 20 years younger, is surely raising many smiles, not to say laughs, all around the world. We know that, whatever the Dutch court may decide (and despite the tendency of the law-courts and others these days not to let mere physical facts stand in the way of their decisions), de heer Ratelband will clock up the magic 'three score and ten' years shortly. That according to ancient if unfashionable authority is the time allotted us.

     After that, it is time for us to realise that life is a gift and a privilege even more than a right! Yet who among us oldies has not sometimes wished to be 20 years younger? I sometimes certainly have  done so myself lately, as I find myself launching into a project that has the potential to go far beyond me. What a pity it didn't happen 20 years ago! Meanwhile, I cannot but ask myself - why bother, and have I the energy for this?
     

     "There you go, you're on a whole new journey now!", said the lady in the social security office when I finalised my pension. "Yes, thank you,"  I replied, "with a one-way ticket!" Having one's basic cost of living handed out by the state is presumably an advantage of age that our Dutch friend can afford to do without. However I see it as a huge privilege, which has freed me up no end to give time to occupations that I rather enjoy, like working on my old wooden boat and writing this blog; but also, darn it,  look where it is all bringing me now!

     Yet this is one of the true advantages of 'living on borrowed time': one can allow oneself the luxury of being 'brought along'. If you delve into the archive of this blog, you may find a reference to a lovely remark that M. le Curé made in the parish newsletter when I was at Le Palais in Belle Isle about a decade ago; he wrote how he enjoyed being with old people 'qui osent, enfin, être eux-mêmes' - 'who dare at last to be themselves'. That saying has stayed with me ever since. It's not however just a matter of 'daring'. The fact is one is much more likely to be free to do it.

Fiona was shocked the other day by a Catholic priest who said in conversation that the idea of celibacy was 'dead in the water'. To both of us, it seems that the main reason for it given by Christ in the Gospels is as valid as ever it was, namely that it is extremely hard to combine following God's will down the road of freedom with the responsibility of rearing a family, 'especially in these end times!'.

There are other reasons besides financial freedom why the broad perspectives of the open road, indeed, I would rather say the open sea, are very likely to open out in one's seventies. Living on borrowed time, one should realise that being alive is more of a privilege than a right. Now is the time, at last, to give up being a control freak, both about oneself and about others. Indeed of course the two go together. But behold, it's when you lose your life that you win it!' Now you can truly let go and let God - let things happen.

'All very well for dreamers and mystics!' you may say. Well, how are the 'people of this world' getting on? Why did the idea of that humungus train rattling down the railroad completely out of control in Australia the other day resonate in the imagination? It made me think of a lot of things, but especially the British Government and its Brexit train. If only they find a way to derail it! I know that will be a mess, but it's likely to be a lot better than careering on to the end of the line. And meanwhile they think that they are 'taking back control'!

So what does 'winning one's life back' involve? Control does have to be in there. We do have to keep to the road, and we so easily deceive ourselves and make mistakes, though hopefully we are less likely to do so precisely insofar as we are able to get our heads around the fact that we are soon going to die anyway. The great thing, and the reason why I sometimes feel more in sympathy with myself as a child than as a 50 year-old man, is to rediscover life as gift. Then we are open to looking around and seeing what's about us.

In a sense this could hardly be worse. Normally sober boffins are telling us that we are destroying the very planet Earth, that if we don't rapidly change in the next 12 years it will become largely uninhabitable, that the oceans and many species of animal are dying, that human fertility itself is in danger of collapse.... Meanwhile people everywhere would rather look at flickering images of reality, with the illusion that they control it, than at the thing itself.

So how do we get to set sail on the sea of freedom, the sea of life? Catch on to any bit of reality, I say, and even if it disappears in your hand, it will have led you onwards into the Mystery! And that is how we are proceeding with O Projeto Nazareno. I sailed into Nazaré with the Anna M very much against my inclination in many ways, though not without asking Our Lady what I should do, and getting a clear reply. Here I find Alec who rips into the old boat, and we discover that, yes, it was a very good thing that we did so.

An old aunt whom I hardly knew died and left me a few quid to enable the work to proceed, but only as far as renovating the hull. Having emptied and cleaned the engine compartment and its filthy bilge, I would much rather not put diesel back in anyway. Alec and I find we have both been thinking about electric drives for boats for years. He looks around at electric motors on the internet, identifies the best one for the job, and finds that it is made just up the road from where he was at the time in his native Devon with his girlfriend. He wanders down there and comes away with the franchise to sell them in Portugal, Spain, France and Ireland.

It just happens that this is the same territory that I called the Gannetsway, when I was looking for a name for my website about 20 years ago, and achieved the freedom to sail it. When I dropped the subscription once, the name was promptly jumped on by some bright-spark in India trying to get money out of me. That's how this blog became gannetswaysailing. It's alright by me. But what prompted me to keep it going, with no commercial basis? Chatting to a wise friend I said, "I wish I could find a way to make money out of it, without resorting to ads or something". He said, "Don't worry about that, just keep writing!"

So now the blog is pretty valuable in giving some credibility for this Nazaré Project. We're applying for big money from the EU under the Portugal 2020 program to revitalise the Portuguese economy, to fund the research and development of regenerative electric drives. The right people to help us along the road seem to be showing up precisely when we need them.

The latest example was when we went looking for a premises yesterday. Alec had identified various places on the internet, and we happened to pull up in a lay-by to consult Google maps. While Alec was looking at his phone I eyed a place across the road, that wasn't advertised at all. I thought it looked the ticket and got out of the van to have a closer look. I was no sooner at the gate than a car pulled up with the owner in it. I asked could the place be rented, was told it could, and soon we were looking around it. It is ideal for our purposes. Now to see if we can put them into effect!

I am as cagey as ever about getting involved with serious financial commitments, and yes, I do wish I was 20 years younger; but it just didn't happen then the way it seems to be happening now. The world itself has changed. Twenty years ago I was that miserable codger going on about doom and gloom, but not so now. Funnily enough, now that the world is more recognizent of the doom and gloom, I am a lot happier in myself, and perhaps more so than I have been since childhood. I am feeling really whole, with all my faculties and gifts functioning together. In absolute terms, no doubt I had a lot more energy 20 years ago, but I wasted so much of it that probably I am able to actually apply more now, even if I am getting a little clapped out in some respects. The gifts of 70 years plus can far outweigh the drawbacks, friend Emile, and being truly positive does not involve any denial of the 'downside' of reality!