“Mom, look—a pirate ship!” The little boy’s reaction in the port of Bornholm says it all: ships with traditional rigging are something people mostly know from adventure movies. “That was my childhood dream,” says an Austrian trainee as he stands ten meters above deck on the topsail yard’s footrope for the first time, still clinging somewhat uncertainly to the jackstay. Seafaring consists not least of dreams and stories — sailors’ yarns that even “landlubbers” get caught up in, and which eventually become myths.
This also applies to the Tres Hombres. It will soon be two decades since three young captains—Andreas, Arjen, and Jorne—found the near-wreck of a war fishing cutter in the port of Delft in 2007 and bought it for 3,000 euros. The time since then has given rise to many stories. “The three read Che Guevara, and one sentence stuck with them: ‘Be realistic—demand the impossible!’” Captain Wiebe summarized the founding myth on my first voyage. The quote, however, does not come from the Argentine revolutionary, but from the 19th-century French anarchist Pierre Proudhon. He also wrote: “Anarchy is order without domination”—a phrase that quite well describes the spirit of the informal community—the “family”—surrounding the Tres Hombres. Hundreds of owners and countless volunteers make it clear: The ship is the focal point of a civil society movement.
“The three complemented each other: a dreamer, an organizer, and a maker, ” Captain Arthur summarized during another voyage. The emerging “family” and a quarter-million volunteer work hours transformed the wreck into a cargo ship without an engine. What gets lost in the stories and in the ship’s name: There was and is also a woman: Sabine was there from the start and took on the work behind the scenes—from securing cargo contracts to manning the ship (without a cook, professional mates, or a captain, nothing works) to selling the goods—running the Fairtransport shipping company, the team in the “office” at the museum harbor in Den Helder. In short: the organizational and financial foundation, the balance between revolutionary visions and myths and economic survival in real-world capitalism.
Between High-Tech and Tradition
“If the wind is to power maritime transport, then certainly not with the Tres Hombres’ traditional rig.” On a technical level, such critics may be right. In the early years, the three captains did indeed work on the development of a modern high-tech sailing cargo boat. Then it turned out that operating it according to fixed schedules also requires sailing under motor power. If this is fossil-fuel-driven, then a small ship emits just as much—or even more—greenhouse gases per cargo volume as the giant container ships.
Thus, Fairtransport withdrew from the project. Yet they had originally been so convinced of the idea of a modern sailing freighter that a corresponding logo had already been created. Despite the ongoing financing challenges, the project for this freighter is still alive today and is currently being pursued by the company Veer. Perhaps fossil fuel could be replaced by hydrogen or an electric motor… Fairtransport, on the other hand, remained with the traditional rig of a schooner brig. And today’s logos feature stylized square sails.
Above is the logo from when Fairtransport was planning a modern sailing cargo ship. However, conceptual and financial obstacles led the organization to focus instead on the traditionally rigged Tres Hombres (below).
After withdrawing from the development of the high-tech sailing freighter, the adventure with the “Nordlys” began: Built as a fishing boat on the Isle of Wight in 1873, the ketch sailed for Fairtransport for several years as the world’s oldest cargo ship at sea. But the love of traditional ships played a cruel trick on the sailing cargo pioneers from Den Helder: The cargo hold was too small, and there was room for only four trainees. The ship could not be operated profitably under these conditions. When a major refit was due, Fairtransport had to part ways with the Nordlys. She will serve marine research in the future.
The Ketsch Nordlys proved to be too small to transport cargo profitably in European coastal waters.
Passion Sails With Us
Our choice of technology also stems from a passion: We have fun. We enjoy it. And that’s key: Preserving the planet’s life-support systems must be a joy. We don’t just sail AGAINST climate change, ocean acidification, marine heatwaves, species extinction, and oxygen depletion. We sail FOR life. For a good life. That makes it easy to avoid material excess.
Unlike modern rig designs—which can be operated by a single person at the push of a button or automatically convert wind power into propulsion—a ship without an engine relies solely on teamwork, cooperation, and people. A traditional rig embodies the KNOWLEDGE and EXPERIENCE of generations. Traditional sails are indeed less aerodynamically efficient than a Dyna-rig or a suction-wing sail. But they are optimized for human operation. Sailing such a rig is CRAFTSMANSHIP. Without electricity. Instead, it involves countless details that must be taken into account, which are learned and refined through mutual exchange. Every contribution counts; everyone is needed (and therefore valued without fanfare). If technological innovation alone is not enough to stay within planetary boundaries – including those relating to the climate – then we must find solutions based on existing technology. This is within the given limits: There is simply no other option but to make do with what is available on board—which, in fact, also applies to our only planet, our “ship” in the vastness of space.
“A New Mindset”
What is particularly surprising is the source of this appeal. Not a green party or an environmental organization, but the International Monetary Fund (IMF)— which, as its name implies, deals in money and enforces monetarist (i.e., purely money-oriented) policies in indebted countries worldwide without regard for social or ecological issues—called for the following in a 2019 study: “International institutions and governments (...) must also exert their influence to bring about a new mindset [emphanis in the original] — an approach that recognizes and implements a holistic approach toward our own survival, which involves living within the bounds of the natural world.” (Chami et al., 2029)
What that might mean can be learned aboard the Tres Hombres. “No engine” means using only the energy that is available NOW. Without energy sources that were stored millions of years ago in the entrails of “Mother Earth”—as indigenous peoples call the planet—and whose burning dangerously upsets physical, chemical, and biological balances. We have crossed seven of the nine planetary boundaries. Fossil-fuel civilization is playing with fire.
“First and foremost political”
Sail-powered transport without an engine is a radical critique of the ideology that claims planetary problems can be solved purely through technical means. In a 'Spiegel' interview, co-founder Andreas emphasized, when asked about the nature of the Tres Hombres project: “First and foremost, it is political. Economically, it is relevant insofar as people have to make a living from it.” Then, regarding global trade, he said: “In our view, it is simply unnecessary to have everything available at all times and at rock-bottom prices, and to do so at the expense of two-thirds of the world’s population, from whom resources are being taken away.” In other words: The necessary changes must take place on land.
Doing without an engine is a political decision. In practice, however, this is often impractical. You can’t seek shelter in a harbor during high waves because that requires a tugboat’s assistance, and simply handing over the towline is difficult enough in a world of wild up-and-down motion. So, in adverse conditions, you have to stay at sea day and night, as was the case in 2022 during the “Bloody Helltrip”. Or, in calm conditions, you won’t reach your destination in time and will miss an event like “Sail Amsterdam” in 2025. Two examples where, had there been an engine on board, the captain would have turned the ignition key with good reason. If you have an engine, you’ll use it...
Physics, chemistry, biology: we humans cannot influence the laws of nature. But we can decide how we relate to them. Burning fossil fuels fosters the illusion that nature is controllable, that it can be dominated for the sake of money and convenience. Sailing without an engine, on the other hand, as a low-tech solution, rejects dominance. You cannot work against nature with the help of fossil fuels. You can only work in harmony with it—a partnership on equal terms. You learn respect for limits and for forces stronger than ourselves. You experience humility before the vastness of the ocean and the starry sky, and not least, a different way of relating to time: serenity when things don’t go as planned, when you turn back to wait at a quiet anchorage until the storm has subsided. Or when the wind dies down and the sails hang limply from the masts. A deceleration that offers a different kind of quality of life than the materialistic fray of just-in-time supply chains within a “time is money” rush.
This is not to say that the further development of ship propulsion systems is pointless. Electric ferries for short distances or new fuels as a bridging solution for regions where the wind rarely blows are also welcome. But when it comes to sustainability, the first and foremost question is: “WHAT is being transported and WHY?” And above all: In what quantity? Only then must one answer: “HOW is it being transported?”
If the required new mindset is at the forefront, the answer is: “As far as possible without an engine.” Because a truly sustainable future requires different stories. For example, new “old” ones. Stories of hope. May the tales of sailor’s yarns fascinate landlubbers as well. Let’s allow the boy on the pier his joy in the “pirate ship.” If his fascination endures, one day he will come to understand the narrative: even the impossible becomes reality when enough people get actively involved. Or, as Maria, the pub owner on Bornholm, replied when asked what was different about the wine transported on the Tres Hombres: “There’s more love in it.”
References
Ralph Chami, Thomas Cosimano, Connel Fullenkamp, Sena Oztosun (2019): Nature’s Solution to Climate Change. A strategy to protect whales can limit greenhouse gases and global warming. in: Finance & Development, December 2019, Vol. 56, No. 4, International Monetary Fund, Washington, https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2019/12/natures-solution-to-climate-change-chami