(B)LOGBOOK

Our story doesn't begin today, but in the fall of 2015, when I came across the hull of a historic steel sailing ship about to be scrapped in the port of Trapani, which we would rename BRIGANTES. A few months earlier, I had had the opportunity to admire her sister ship up close at a sailing regatta in Germany, and the image was still very much alive. The idea I had harbored for many years— restoring sailing ships to their original function and thus to their true purpose— had found a real foothold, a starting point, with one of the last sailing ships from the glorious past of sailing.

Remarkably quickly, I was joined by an entrepreneur, a naval engineer, and a chief engineer, with whom we began the journey—a long story that deserves to be told for the countless efforts, the memorable milestones achieved, the inevitable difficulties, and the many, many people captivated by the beauty and fascination this ship was able to awaken. And at a certain point, it ran aground again, this time no longer in the water but in the shipyard that witnessed the first steps toward its rebirth.

The story that begins here is the story of a life that wants to live, like a tree knocked downby harsh weather events that still has lifeblood and stubbornly sprouts again, like this little tree abandoned for over a year under a colonnade and without a drop of water that we found near Bar Brigantes, a bar that shares its name with our sailing ship. Another story that wants to be told.