The headline that Steve “doesn’t know any boat building” was technically correct when he started, but ignores that he was already an experienced wood-worker. He’s also been refreshingly open to taking advice from people with more experience (and from books).
The “I’m going to wait to learn to sail until I can do it in my own boat” part is a bit stubborn though. Hopefully he learns lessons that he can walk (sail) away from.
Leo is not only a great carpenter, sailor, boat builder etc. He’s also managing a team of people, doing all the logistics, project managing everything, but he’s also shooting and editing all his videos as well. Honestly, even just as a video producer he’s fantastically talented, he’s got a real eye for composition and editing and could totally make a career out of that alone if he wanted to. Just an all around talented human being (and one of the people advising Steve).
It’s not stubborn, it’s stupid. If he had learned to sail in parallel with the building, the end result would have been much better. He could make informed decisions about what type of rig he preferred, the placement of winches for singlehanding, even his preferred cabin layout. A boat is not a cabinet or a similar woodworking project. It is a machine, and only if you know how to operate the machine will you be able to build one that works well. Or at all.
This is in addition to the fact that without experience on the ocean he will kill himself in the first emergency situation just from lack of seamanship.
Kinda depends on what you want to do with it. For daysailing and inshore cruising you can definitely get used boats that are in satisfactory condition and only need the usual running maintenance. Offshore bluewater cruising as imagined by this guy is another barrel of fish of course.
Then again, for me the perfect boat size is in the 26’–30’ range, your milage my vary if you are after something larger
He did buy another boat, Victoria. She was of very similar design and construction, but was basically rotten through after years out of the water. He salvaged tons of bronze, fittings, spars etc from her. The tender will be named Victoria in her honour (currently under construction on the Art of Boatbuilding channel).
I watch a few of these boatbuilding channels and you’d never tell that Steve was an “amateur”. He may be self-taught, but he really does know his stuff. He employs a “real” shipwright full time now, and they work as equals. The care and attention to detail is obvious if you watch a few of their videos. Heck, Robbie Doyle (one of the biggest names in sails/rigging) offered to make the sails just because he respects the project and finds it interesting.
As for setting sail with no experience, I agree it’s a weird choice, especially when it comes to things like cabin layout. He won’t be just dashing off into the blue yonder though, and will instead spend time learning with experinced sailors in calm waters first. Some of his videos detail the climbing trips he goes on with his GF. It’s obvious from those that he’s the kind of person who loves doing fundamentally risky but thrilling things, and doesn’t mind living with physical hardship, but also has his head screwed firmly on when it comes to safety.
I had a similar thought which boiled down to: “Why can’t privileged people just say ‘inheritance’ or ‘trust fund’ rather than ‘life savings’?” I guess in their minds “I didn’t spend it all on cocaine and sports cars” like most of my peers makes it “savings”?
Ok, makes sense, although why did he need thousands of pounds of new lead donated if he could have melted down the keel from an old boat he already had? I’d still guess that some amount of time and money might have been saved doing a ship of theseus job on the old one, replacing bad wood in-kind, but I can see the appeal of going with all-new construction. What I still can’t see is making this kind of commitment to a specific design without at least some real-world exposure to different options first. But passion projects don’t need to be rational, I guess.
The lead keel came first, Victoria came later. The previous owner found out about the project and offered her for sale for parts. But she was truly rotten right the way through, save for the interior panelling (now being reused to make Arabella’s tender). A load of the fasteners, including the keel bolts, were made of iron and had literally rusted away to nothing. Tally Ho (another youtube boat build mentioned upthread) was ship-of-theseussed in place, but she’s a race-winning boat with a history worth preserving.
As for wealth, if his family has any, they don’t spend it on their house (small, paint peeling off), cars (beat-up pickup trucks) or tractor (got to be at least 50 years old). Steve’s complained about his “perpetual” student debt so I wouldn’t take the degrees as a sign of riches either. His privilege is the land and the woods. His family has been on that land (about 10 acres or so) for something like 6 generations. No rent and no mortgage goes a long long way.
It’s blue collar virtue signalling. “Life savings” sounds more noble because it sounds like you earned the money working at a job over a long period and saved it up. Most rich people (who aren’t all in news all the time for being dicks) know enough to keep their wealth a bit on the DL.
(To be clear, I’m not saying any of this about Steve- I don’t know anything about him. I’m just saying this is why well-off people use language like that).
