Hi I'm Peter Lees. I'm an Architect who specialises in residential design (see www.cheaphomedesigns.com), mainly for low income families (hence my fees need to be on a much reduced tier so those with very limited budgets can afford my services). I design for a lot of owner builders and I'm very much an owner builder myself, hence owner built my own yacht called Leearcki with the help of my wife Irene. We are very proud of our creation and we sail her from Victoria (mainland Australia), across Bass Strait each year to cruise the wonderful waters of Tasmania (the smallest and most southern state of Australia). It truly is a fantastic place to cruise which I try to feature in my videos through www.yachtcruisingdvds.com Our "Leearcki" is a Bruce Roberts design, motor sailer 30 foot long and weighs a very heavy 8 ton (due to paranoid over buiding and inexperience in fibre glassing)), but she is a very nuggety go anywhere craft which has developed a "reputation" as such in local waters. We had never done any boat building when we first purchased the plans, in fact I had never even sailed a yacht, but I had a small aluminium run about which gained me a fair bit of sea experience (as well as nearly cost me my life on a number of occassions). That run about eventually sunk by us mindlessly not pulling it up high enough on the beach for the tide to not drag her back in when we went away to collect mussels. We later bought a slightly bigger fibreglass speed boat, had a lot of fun on that as well, but it capsized when filled with rain water after a very heavy 2 day down pour. Not to be deterred, we then bought a 33 foot gaff rigged wooden sailing vessel advertised in Trade-A-Boat Magazine. It had a colourful history and we excitedly bussed ourselves up to the top of Australia to sail her down south to Victoria, but she too threatened to sink half way across the Gulf of Carpenteria untill we set off an air and sea rescue and fortunately got towed back to Weipa (Queensland), having started out from Darwin. We sued the former owner and Marine Surveyor for misleading information and recovered most of our money (the legal eagles got the rest). After all this excitement, we decided that the only sensible thing to do was build our own boat, at least we would then know what we were getting for our money. It was many years of lovingly painstaking work, but finally we had a vessel we could be proud of, feel safe in and have a lot of fun sharing adventures with good friends.

Just For Fun

Hailing Port: 

Sandringham

Current Location: 

Victoria

Favorite Destination: 

Tasmania

Relationship Status: 

Married

Cruising Partner: 

Irene

Personal Website: 

http://www.yachtcruisingdvds.com

About My Boat: 

Leearcki was owner built from scratch and is painted almost completely red in colour. It is quite a distinctive vessel and very heavy for it's size, but it's safe and goes through anything. It sails to and around Tasmania regularly and is no stranger to most of the Bass Strait Islands. Has single handedly sailed to Ceduna (South Australia) in the winter and nearly came unstuck after the boat dragged onto the beach at Victor Harbour. It has something of a "reputation" now as a "go anywhere vessel". Presently it's still afloat

Vessel Name: 

Leearcki

Designer: 

Bruce Roberts

Model: 

30 Motor Sailer

Year Built: 

1995

Length: 

30 foot

Draft: 

5 foot

Beam: 

10 foot

Displacement: 

8 tons

Dinghy: 

8 foot inflatable

Engine: 

20 HP diesel