'Just so wonderful': Vancouver family's homemade sailboat stolen, then found

It's been a whirlwind of a weekend for a Vancouver dad after a sailboat he spent a year building with his young daughters was stolen and then found – just in time for Father's Day.

It's been a whirlwind of a weekend for a Vancouver dad after a sailboat he spent a year building with his young daughters was stolen and then found – just in time for Father's Day.

Assisted by a six-year-old and a three-year-old, Duncan McDonald constructed the vessel in his backyard. Describing it as a passion project that he hoped would allow him to spend quality time with his girls during the build and beyond, it's truly one of a kind.

"It was just a really neat adventure," he says of the process, adding he'd never built anything like it before and didn’t really even know how to sail when he started.

"I ended up making absolutely every part of the boat from the oars, to the sail to the mast -- the whole thing … You don't know how something like this is going to go and it went really, really well. And it came together."

Underneath the green paint are drawings done by the children and before it was sea-worthy it functioned as a fort and a favourite location for tea parties.

"There's the spot where I have smudges where I let at a three-year-old paint where I shouldn't have let a three-year-old paint. There's still dents from where I let a six-year-old jump up and down," he tells CTV News.