Schooner Leonora Update, May 2022

Computer generated image by Will Krzymowski

It was 11 years ago that we first shared our intention to build another tall ship to add to our coastal fleet and enable us to sail on offshore voyages again. At the time we envisioned a wooden schooner, built by us, in Victoria, at a cost of $3.5 million. We quickly raised a couple of million dollars toward the project in 2011 and 2012. But we also found ourselves in a regulatory quagmire with Transport Canada, one that has taken over a decade to resolve. On March 22, 2022, we achieved a significant regulatory milestone and

crossed what we’ve long called the “major project risk reduction threshold.” The approval we received allows us to use “enhanced safety ladders” instead of large staircases, and slightly smaller bulkhead doors. While that may sound minor, this approval is of critical importance because if they had not approved it, we would have had to increase the hull size of Leonora and substantially redesign the ship. It means that our current hull size/design is viable in terms of meeting the myriad regulatory requirements. There are several additional applications for regulation exemptions we will make, but none of those are deal-breakers from our perspective, meaning that they won’t affect hull size/design.

At this project milestone, we need to take stock of how the project has changed from the beginning. Instead of our 2011 plans for a wooden tall ship built by SALTS in Victoria for $3.5M, the ship is now:

• Made of steel and synthetic, fire-retardant materials with very little wood, except perhaps the masts
• Since our SALTS team does not know how to build with those materials, the ship will not likely be built by us, except perhaps for the rigging
• Since we will not be building the ship ourselves, the ship is more likely to be built outside of Victoria
• The ship cost, originally estimated at $3.5M as of 2011, is now in the realm of $7.5M, and that estimate is a couple of years old and needs to be updated, now that we’ve just confirmed the hull size

The project has changed significantly as we’ve sought to overcome various regulatory roadblocks. The gap between the money we have and the money we still need is massive, and the pandemic has taught us that we need to retain a very robust emergency fund. Our next steps include updating the project cost estimate and deciding how far to go with detailed design and engineering. Then— should we build the hull with the money we have, and trust that another $5 million or so will flow in to complete the job? Or should we wait until we raise millions more before we lay the keel?

Computer generated image by Will Krzymowski

The answer depends on our appetite for risk, and that risk increases as the project cost increases. What we want to avoid is ending up with a half-built ship that we must pay to store and maintain, but that generates no revenue, and then drains away the Society’s resources. Ideally, and perhaps necessarily, we’ll confirm additional major funding partners before we lay the keel, so we can move forward in confidence that this project won’t jeopardize the financial health of the broader organization. So the best answer to “when will you lay the keel” may now be “as soon as we close the funding gap.” That’s a tentative answer, and one our Board will be wrestling with in the time ahead. In the meantime, we’re blessed to have two schooners that are restarting their wonderful work with young people on our beautiful BC coast, and we’re blessed that after two years of challenges, SALTS is still here, and still in good health.