(B)LOGBOOK

While respect for the environment and thus the desire to reduce, if not eliminate, air pollution has been at the heart of the sail cargo movement, another core value has been discussed from the very beginning: "fairness," or the commitment to fair dealing with others, to not playing dirty, and to not exploiting the partners involved in one's business. While respect for the environment is linear and therefore ultimately measurable, the discussion regarding fairness is far more complex. This leads to the revival of ancient "recipes," such as the division of a ship's profits into one-third for the crew, one-third for the ship, and one-third for the owner (and investors).

However, this also stems from historical research that, during the German Hanseatic period, saw the figure of the "honest trader," intent on creating lasting relationships with his suppliers through fairness. Those who sail today, or want to do so, are commercially attractive precisely to customers sensitive to this value, which is very difficult to live up to today, given that we are all constantly under the economic pressure of a system that, as we all know, is moving in a completely different direction and continually tests our goodwill.

In these last years of war and destruction, which we Europeans experience only through the virtuality of more or less distorted narratives, the value of fairness becomes the elixir of life for people who refuse to give up and persist in believing in goodness... despite everything. Because if respect for the environment stems from the sensitivity of people who do not want to cause harm and who want to leave behind something better than what they found, how can true joy, true pleasure, true satisfaction be realized through the pain, suffering, and exploitation of others?

For those who want a change in this direction, sailing ships can become a powerful symbolic image of direct, human connection between people who, even separated by oceans, manage to experience a fulfilling mutual respect, encounter, and dialogue — a sign of true civilization for this humanity increasingly at the mercy of the law of the jungle.