Making a wooden boat without any knowledge of sailing or carpentry: "I started by reading books."

ManacorSurely, when Juan Sebastián Filippini (Paso de los Toros, Uruguay, 1976) arrived in Portocristo, he didn't expect that one day he'd be able to sail his own boat. A self-made one, that is. For this telecommunications engineer, carpentry tools were a rare sight just six years ago, when everything began to take shape.

"The sea has always caught my attention," he admits. "In fact, I earned my PER here in 2017 and started looking at secondhand sailboats." But Filippini likes making things more than restoring them. Buying something, if it can actually be created from scratch, seems strange to a man accustomed to calculations.

So he began exploring, researching online and in specialized books. I saw that there were people who built their own boats." That's how, with no knowledge of sailing or carpentry, he started the 'do it yourself' that has brought him to where he is.

And when we say 'here,' we mean a space lent by a friend on a farm, a few kilometers from Son Macià and a short drive from Portocristo, where Sebastián lives with his family. A free spot, with views, where he goes on weekends to shape a boat with American reminiscences, designed for sailing near the coast, and made with sapele and iroc wood ribs and pine lining.

"If I caulked it right now (covered the squeegees on the boards where water could get in with burlap or pitch) and threw it in the water, it would float," he says, satisfied with all the sweat, with all the enjoyment he has had since 2018, when, at the same time, there are about two more years left: "I estimate that by the summer of 2027 it will be completely ready to sail."

Chesapeake Sailboat

But the Catalina (named after Jaume Barceló's mother, with whom he began the construction) is not a lute or a traditional boat, but a Chesapeak sailboat, an American vessel designed to sail up to 5 miles from the coast, and whose plans Filippini took from a book by George Buehler, a man who, like him, travels like a crab.

Everything must be weighed: every snail, every element. "If there's not enough weight, you can add it, but there can't be more because it would affect stability," he concludes, recalling that he also had to adapt to the affordable wood available in Mallorca, discarding Buehler's original Oregon pine.

With an already appreciable shape and volume, the boat measures about 5.40 meters in length (the same length as the mast) by about 2 meters in width. A length that will easily reach 6 meters with the rudder and bowsprit. To maneuver around the harbor without the need for wind, the Chesapeak will include a small four-horsepower engine.

Anyone can make a boat

Once here, an important question is: Can anyone build their own sailboat without a qualification or years of craftsmanship experience? In theory, building a boat yourself, just like that, isn't legal in Spain. It is in other European countries, if you're a resident.

The simplest solution to ensure everything went smoothly and the calculations matched from the start was to start by approving the plans with a naval engineer, performing weight calculations in accordance with European regulations, and determining their uses and sailing area. An administratively burdensome and financially costly aspect.

To this must also be added the periodic inspections that a professional from the Maritime Authority must carry out to approve each phase. In his case, the dean of the College of Naval Engineers of the Balearic Islands. "For me, far from being a problem, it's very useful, and I learn a lot from each visit."

If everything goes as planned, the Catalina It will be launched in the port of Portocolom in the summer of 2027, an event planned for which there are still days of work to be done, now more pleasant "seeing that the boat already has the shape. I will probably add some fiber to the deck and paint the hull dark red, but this will be seen over these months."