ONE MAN’S DREAM BOAT
“You can’t have boats like this unless you build them with heart and soul. It’s utterly commercially unviable, it’s an exercise in madness. But it’s also a vision, it’s my life’s dream. If I never do anything else, I’ll feel I’ve done something worthwhile. It’s also been an example for my sons and their friends: that if you really want something, you can have anything you want.”
Mike Ludgrove is speaking in the saloon of his yacht Helena, after only his second sail on the 60ft wooden cutter that he devoted the past 13 years of his life to building. It’s the culmination of a lifelong dream, and Mike is rightly euphoric. Helena is a remarkable boat, immaculately finished both inside and out, and utterly graceful under sail. She’s the sort of boat that people stop what they’re doing to watch as she sails by.
And yet, immediately after his eulogistic outburst, he pauses and a slight cloud passes over his face before he says: “But be careful what you wish for, be very careful, because you might not want it when you get there! I feel exalted now, but there were times when I did feel this project was going to kill me, because it was taking so much out of me, emotionally as well as my energy. There were times when all the guys went up to London and I was left alone when I thought, ‘Have I really bitten more than I can
