As I recall, the real John F Leavett was the Curator at Mystic Seaport.
I haven’t heard anything about Ned Ackerman in a long time. I don’t know whether he is still alive. If so, he must be in his 80’s. I have not run into him along the New England waterfront in many many years. Ackerman was a highly intelligent, highly educated, snob with family money and a huge ego. He was an insufferable asshole.
When he was building the LEAVETT at the Newbert & Wallace yard in Thomaston, one of the old time windjammer owners called him: “crazier than an outhouse mouse.” Ackerman turned that around and said he was “crazy like a fox.”
The figurehead on the LEAVETT was a fox with feathers streaming out of its mouth.
As the LEAVETT was completed, Ray Wallace didn’t want to sign the builder’s certificate. He told Ackerman to sign it himself. Ackerman wrongly thought that was a compliment. It was quite the opposite.
It would be a mistake to generalize the the loss of the LEAVETT, or for that matter, the DAYSPRING, or the original PRIDE OF BALTIMORE, to all wooden sailing vessels. There are plenty of wooden sailing vessels with many decades and miles on them.