Mads and SV Spiffy

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Mads and SV Spiffy

YouTube DIYer tackles new project in Oriental
February 20, 2026

H
alf a million plus dollars for a 20 year old luxury, ocean-going catamaran … or five years to rebuild a wrecked one?
Danish YouTube sailing channel content creator, Mads Dahlke, is taking the latter.

And he’s doing it in Oriental.

Mads Dahlke inside his converted workshop.

From the shores of Denmark to Eastern North Carolina, Mads is no stranger to do-it-yourself work. Having built an entire brand on exactly that, “Sail Life” has nearly 160K subscribers on YouTube alone. Mads has formed a loyal audience over the last twelve years, earning him the job title of Influencer and an income to match.

“I take a story based DIY approach to my videos,” Mads said, from his somewhat-mobile office and workshop, located just outside of Oriental, NC.

“I started [the channel] for fun,” he said. “It’s more of a business now. I still do it because I like to, and its the best job I’ve ever had.”

Presenting practical, how-to instruction through a storytelling lens, every project video tells a story. And there are a lot of projects.

Mads operates out of a shipping container faced with cedar shingles. It has been insulated and temperature controlled to house a CNC machine, 3D printer, and of course a video editing and streaming suite. Built out and fitted by himself, with a trusty tripod and GoPro camera capturing it all.

Mads and his cedar-faced shipping container and office / workspace.

Mads’ wife, Ava Corrado, is overseas working as a nanny for her sister, a film producer. Ava has her masters degree in childcare. Signing on shortly after grad school, she also stars in and produces content for the Sail Life brand. Which means plenty of sanding, a reoccurring theme in her narratives, in addition to cruising and living aboard.

The shipping container office, which they now call “The Box”, is located at Marine Craft Services and Marina on Broad Creek in nearby Merritt (AKA Whortonsville). A few hundred feet from where Athena, Mads and Ava’s boat and home, is docked. Built in the UK by Trident Marine in 1987, Athena is a highly customized Warrior 38.

Mads next to Athena.

The Sail Life crew’s newest project is a hurricane damaged, 2005 44-foot Antares Catamaran. Marine Craft specialize in reselling and maintaining Antares Catamarans, which are built in Argentina. Mads’ and Ava’s very much stripped down catamaran, dubbed S/V Spiffy, is on the hard at Triton Yachts boat yard in Oriental.

“So much good in my life has come from the channel,” Mads said. “My wife, friends, this place.”

The Sail Life Youtube channel chronicles Mads’ life on the water since 2014. From first starting out learning to sail in a two year, weekly lesson program, to the first boat he bought for $8000. The purchase of Athena in Scotland and her delivery to Denmark. To cruising through Europe, across the Atlantic, and the Caribbean.

The largest video segment by far online and in real life, and the most popular Mads said, is refitting and rebuilding nearly every inch of Athena.

Mads refit Athena in a minimalist style, doing the majority of the work himself. Those projects, filmed and posted to YouTube, helped fund the project.

He did it while living on a much smaller sailboat with no standing headroom. It was documented all along the way through weekly videos and live streams, while also working full-time as a software engineer. A career he studied for up to masters degree level.

“It took seven years,” Mads said, to get his boat ready for ocean cruising while working his nine-to-five job. Or “seven seasons” spent “Refitting Athena,” as the corresponding episodes on the Sail Life YouTube channel are labeled.

Major projects included osmosis treatment of the hull, rebuilding the rotted deck core, and going from a teak to fiberglass deck. Also redesigning and rebuilding the toe rail to seal the hull to deck joint, building a new rudder, gutting the interior, rebuilding rotten stringers below decks, and rebuilding the interior.

The final result is a modern and minimalist living space, incorporating elements like a butcher block style kitchen island with hidden diesel tank. Seaworthiness was not spared either, when it came to new sails (sponsored of course), new standing rigging, and a direct drive self steering wind vane from an Estonian company.

A video editing suite sits at one end of The Box, a converted shipping container that serves as workshop and workspace.

Complete with a washer dryer, and gimbaled electric induction stovetop and oven combination, she is powered by an 800 amp hour battery bank, with matching 800 amp hour alternator as one of many charging options. Sliding solar panels, in addition to a rarely needed diesel generator set, also help power the vessel.

Leaving his coding career and home country behind, Mads, and Ava (originally from Michigan), cast off from Denmark in 2021. Having met through Ava’s brother-in-law, a sailor and fan of Mads’ channel, the pair are lived together and cruised full-time aboard Athena.

They sailed from Denmark to the UK, France twice, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, the Canary Islands, Cape Verde. Across the Atlantic to Barbados and down the island chain to Trinidad, then up the Caribbean to Florida, by 2024. Soaking it all in with minimal maintenance costs after such an extensive refit.

“We had a solid four years of cruising,” Mads’ said. “When sailing, the channel dropped to half the views.”

Mads stands on the newest project for Sail Life: a hurricane wrecked Antares Catamaran called Spiffy.

The lower earnings and statistics Sail Life content yielded during cruising, versus what it yielded during boat refitting and rebuilding, were significant. The lower earnings provided a base to live minimally and cruise, but wouldn’t fund any significant DIY projects or life milestones.

With the next big ideas brewing—another boat, another ocean, building a home on land – Mads did not want to go back to work as a software engineer to fund it. Luckily, his ambitions now came with a built-in content strategy.

“We had made enough to go cruising,” Mads said. “But to do more projects needs more money. It just happens to workout the projects get more money.”

Mads shows off the stripped down interior, and a few of the details, of his latest DIY project.

That looks like weekly ads shot and edited for their signed ad agency “Station Entertainment;” showcasing a tool cabinet or other item related to the DIY genre. Sail Life also receives compensation through the Youtube Partner Program for creators, which pays per ad view.

Their biggest source of income, Mads said, is from the platform Patreon. An online forum where viewers can pledge a certain dollar amount per month or per creation to keep the project going. With just over 900 individual “patrons” receiving ad free, early, and live content from Sail Life.

“When sailing, the channel drops to half the views,” Mads said. Which for him, is just as well.

“I would rather cruise than document it. I would rather spend the time building the boat and building the channel to fund it. When cruising, its not good to rely on that as your only source of income.”

A look inside the workshop.

The current Sail Life segment chronicles the journey of purchasing the salvaged Antares catamaran hull in Florida for $36,000. Getting it ready enough to motor up the ICW to New Bern, where they hauled the boat at Bridgeton Boatworks, put it onto a Triton Yachts truck and brought it to the boatyard.

The boat had been wrecked in the Bahamas in 2019, and stored at a salvage yard in Melbourne, FL. In order to move the 44-foot cat to Oriental, the Sail Life crew were tasked with reinstalling the vessels twin Yanmar diesel engines, reassembling the boat’s steering system, rebuilding a platform on the bow, and installing temporary temperature controls and electrical power.

A beach umbrella and pop up tent provided shade for the long motor north.

“It was a hectic few months,” Mads said.

Mads made molds to fabricate clamshell covers for the catamaran. It was trial and error, but made for good video content as he explained his process.

Unlike Athena, Mads will have to source a new mast and boom for catamaran Spiffy, but that didn’t matter for motoring on the Intercostal. Similarly to Athena, which is powered by a 40-horsepower Volvo diesel, the catamaran came with working engines. Twin 30-horsepower Yanmars power the 44-foot Antares.

“I don’t like rebuilding engines,” Mads said.

Mads and Ava met the owner of Triton Yachts, Blair Cooper, along with his right hand man, Danny Jones, at a meetup hosted by Sail Life at a brewery in Charleston circa 2023. Blair and Danny were fans of the channel, and introduced the couple to concept of refitting their next boat in Oriental, NC. Not long after, the Sail Life crew met the owners of Marine Craft Services, also fans of the channel and the go-to for all things Antares Catamarans.

After acquiring the wrecked vessel in Florida, a quick road trip north was all it took to relocate the project to Oriental. They checked out the town and marine facilities, then had dinner at M&M’s in town.

“I remember it vividly,” Mads said. “I had the grits.”

Mads explains the customized collection system for the C&C machine – another DIY project that made it onto the Sail Life channel.

An impression that could last a lifetime. Officially arriving by boats ( Athena and Spiffy) in July and August 2025, and launching The Box in September, the Sail Life crew is currently scouting property to purchase in Pamlico County. By Spring 2025, the plan is to haul the catamaran, shipping container, plus a second container, to the land they purchase and finish the rebuild there over the following four years or so.

Content made along the way is what will fund the catamaran project. Finding and clearing the land, then building a large roof to cover it all is content gold for Mads’ niche DIY audience. Which allows for plenty of leeway in budget and timeline.

Mads said he works between 70-90 hours a week to keep everything afloat. From brand and content management, to filming and editing, and of course hands-on carpentry and marine construction.

The exact project timeline is unknown until the crew is able to gut Spiffy’s interior, Mads said, but so far they are on schedule with their projection of five years to finish the boat. From there, all eyes on the Pacific Ocean. And inevitably, Sail Life’s patrons, sponsors, viewership, and subsequent earnings, will drop again.

Mads Dahlke atop Spiffy at Triton Yachts.

Mads and Ava will be making the most of their earnings as content creators in the meantime. Funding major projects, saving for their next trip cruising, and investing in their future.

If all goes well the couple plans to build a 1000-square foot home, by themselves, on the land they purchase in the county.

“The plan is, if this property pans out, to keep it and settle down.”

Related Information
• Sail Life on YouTube

Story & photos by Emily Greenberg.