His professional years were devoted to restoring and racing classic wooden yachts across Europe and beyond. These boats required devotion rather than speed, care rather than shortcuts. Every hull had to be read before it could be repaired, every plank understood before it was replaced. The work demanded an intimate knowledge of how wood behaves under stress, how joints respond to movement, and how a structure holds together not through force but through balance. Through this world, he developed an instinctive understanding of wood. How it breathes, how it reacts to climate, how it ages when treated correctly.

Material was never decorative. It was structural, alive, and uncompromising. A classic yacht built with poor timber or impatient hands would not survive its first season. Longevity was not a promise; it was a result of discipline. This understanding, that the quality of the outcome is determined long before the surface is finished, became the principle that would later define Goodwood. The lessons learned on open water shaped everything that followed: respect the material, understand its limits, and never allow speed to compromise integrity.