Want to be part of a story and add to it?  There is always a story behind a boat like Dauntless, and this one is a story of redemption. This 76ft steal hull schooner was designed by famous local artist Art Benson.  Like so many vessels, the boat began as one person’s dream. Arthur “Art” Benson, a renowned Baltimore sculptor and former faculty chair at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), wanted to build a boat he could sail around the world.

Adept at molding metal, Benson made his hull (and many other parts of the boat) entirely of scrap steel. Individual steel pieces were cast into one overall body. “The whole boat’s a jigsaw puzzle,” Cooney tells us.

The steel is 3/8″ thick. It’s a full displacement hull, so almost all of the boat’s cabin is under the waterline. The boat was equipped with 16 ballast tanks that could be filled with water, like you’d see on an icebreaker. It’s clear Benson intended to take the boat into extreme conditions.