Wonderful Wind Waker Watercraft Wows Wistful Watchers

How many hours did I spend sailing in Zelda: The Wind Waker? If I spent those hours building instead, maybe I could’ve crafted something like this King of Red Lions boat from LittleJem, who fulfilled a childhood dream by making the vessel a reality.

After all, if you’re going to build something from a 20-year-old game, you might as well go big with it.

Jem claims not to know anything about boat building, but does a brilliant job faking it.

The craft was built out of a used boat, foam blocks, lumber, spackle, 3D-printed components, resin, and boat parts. Jem put it together in only two months so she could get it on the water during the narrow window of English winter. And not content with only building a faithfully recreated floating sculpture, she even added a servo-articulated head. And an outboard motor.

The build video is a journey through her trials of designing on the fly and fighting a looming deadline. her two-month timeline is a lot for some projects after all, but not a boat. The end shows her taking a painstakingly built handmade creation out on a lake for its (and her) first time cruising, and hoping her electronic piece of watercraft cosplay doesn’t immediately descend to the depths.

Even though this is an incredible creation as is, Jem states she might not be finished. I can’t guess exactly which over-the-top accessory she’ll take on next, but I can imagine what game I’ll be revisiting in the meantime.