Hacker News Reader

Comment by silisili | Hacker News Reader

Man blows money on junk ship, begs community to restore it.

Sorry if that's a negative take, but it feels pretty gutsy to buy something extravagant, move into it, then ask for volunteers to make it nice...

View on HN

Man buys boat and then can’t afford is a tale as old as time. But he took it to the next level.

Very impressive work and vision though!

He wants to make it a museum, at least. That's a boon to the local culture and economy if well executed.

My logical read of this is "man spends time and money to build a museum that the local economy will benefit from". Not sure it is worth for the man.

I don't understand that though, a museum of what? The ship herself? Is that interesting enough? I just can't imagine that being much of an income, I thought the wedding venue (also mentioned, but dismissed) idea - or just events in general - was much better.

Yeah, museums are always struggling. Event venue + vacation rentals sounds much more likely to succeed. Especially if you can arrange to moor it near a popular destination.

That's basically every sailing channel on Youtube.

Totally wrong. I do follow a sailing channel (that I will not name) and regularly watch a few more, they have nothing in common with this. The ones I know are self-sustained long term.

What stood out to me about this article, which I saw several days ago, is how it names but then basically says nothing about his partner, nor a single quote.

They live on board with him and "played a key role", that seems to be it.

If you read it quickly, you might not even notice that it wasn't a single guy + some volunteers.

The one instance of the word "couple" is referring to different people restoring another ship.

There's a photo of them in the gallery. It's likely the reporter didn't have time to talk to her, or she was unavailable or unwilling. You're probably overestimating the time and effort dedicated to writing this article. It appears to be mostly or entirely sourced from one short interview with Wilson and photos from him

You sound like you're defending the reporter, but I wasn't accusing them as we just don't know.

It's still odd, so I couldn't help being curious whether Willson, his partner, or the reporter is responsible.

No, I'm suggesting you're seeing intention where it possibly doesn't exist

Am I defending the reporter? Or complaining that they did a bad job by leaving that obvious question of the partner unanswered? Neither, I hope.

I can't be seeing intention without identifying a person who is responsible. That's nonsensical.

Well here's your own comment, which is clearly seeking possible intention, and identifies individuals who may be responsible:

>I couldn't help being curious whether Willson, his partner, or the reporter is responsible.

I just say that this phenomenon you noticed may be accidental, and there may be no intention by any of the individuals you named in that statement, or by any other party.

Sorry, but I can't explain this situation to you any more simply than that.

I agree there may be no intention to produce the article as it came out.

I was not using the word "responsible" to mean "caused the end result intentionally".

If I run over a squirrel with my car, it's not intentional, but I'm responsible. If the other person in the car slapped me and distracted me, we might both be partly responsible.

Maybe the editor cut something out they shouldn't have (are there still editors?). Or maybe a divorce is brewing due to the ship obsession.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com