Made Of Mettle

When James Oakley receives some devastating health news, he becomes more determined than ever to complete his home-built aluminium speedboat. Mike Taylor finds out more...

Late in 2015, just as James Oakley was finishing the hull of his home-built aluminium speedboat, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

“I’d been to see my doctor for something minor when the nurse advised me to have a blood test,” he recalls. “This indicated an abnormally high reading of PSA and I was recommended to have a biopsy.”

James was advised there was a tiny chance of infection, but what he didn’t anticipate was being woken three nights in a row, delirious with acute sepsis. After specialist treatment in a local hospital to deal with the infection, he chose to have surgery, but doctors warned he might not make it to Christmas.

“While it was devastating news I just wanted to have the operation as soon as possible so I could continue working on the boat,” says James. “The situation was extreme, but I just wanted to get to continue on with my plans.’

Fortunately, the operation was a success and James began the period of recuperation, which caused him to look at life differently.

“The boat gave me a focus; something to concentrate my life on, away from brooding about my health scare. It made me decide to take on the risk of finishing the boat, with the view to setting up a business.”

Until this point, James’s project had been more of a hobby, borne from a childhood love of boating. Born in Harpenden, Hertfordshire in 1956, James experienced his first taste of boating at the age of four.

“Our first family speedboat was a second-hand plywood-built Cresta of the 1960s. It had a reputation for having a weak hull so a joiner friend of my father’s strengthened it and we put a new 50hp Mercury outboard on the back,” he recalls. “We did a lot of water skiing at Cosgrove Lake and on the River Blackwater in Essex. We also took it with us to Brittany on holidays.”