There are about a dozen communities left on earth where people in traditional craft still rely on their sails to carry out meaningful work. They don’t do this for romantic reasons, but because they can’t afford a cheap diesel engine or the fuel to drive it. These working sailing fleets, that were originally responsible for binding humanity into a single ecological and historical system, have, almost by accident, become the last bastion of a disappearing tradition that globalised the human story.

Now I’m not a shipwright and I’m certainly not an an academic, so my knowledge of dhows is anecdotal, coming only from talking with the craftsmen and sailors (in broken Swahili/English) and spending a few days, joyously racing on the lateen rigged flying machines.

We talked about the boat and his sailing life in Lamu. So many of his issues were the same as ours; dwindling timber supplies, increasing maintenance costs, changing weather patterns. Within a few minutes he had invited us for a sail on his smaller double ended dhow the SAFINA to learn a little about how to sail a lateen rigged boat and to enjoy the waters of the mangrove clad Lamu channel at the height of the off season.