[@Fat Boy Kyle] I think that that is fine. He wouldn't need the boats, and I'd rather not play him as a guy that can magically pull stuff out of his ass in order to solve plots.
''Well we can go to the Grey Island, but we have no boat''
''oh look suddenly one of my boats appears on the horizon lol isn't that funny''

Yeah, that's not gonna work. :p So I'm just going with - he lost all his current illegal activities due to the plague disrupting them, and since he feels like the plague might reach his estate at one point and the king is a lousy idiot, he'll have to go deal with it himself.

Give money to the consano, join an expedition.. yeah, I think he'd fancy his name in history books too. ^^