I doubt Barnabas, Jeremiah or Joshua directly had anything to do with the actual labor for the construction of ships. I'm sure they had people for that or it was contracted to someone else that specialized in ship building.
Barnabas' marriage to Angelique was a huge disappointment to Joshua for the following reasons:
1) She was in a lower social class.
2) Was a servant.
3) Had no business connections to help cement Collins family wealth.
4) He probably didn't like her.
5) It would have reflected poorly on his social class and position.
Josette on the other hand was a best choice in his mind because:
1) She was in the correct social class.
2) Her father was a shipper and client of the family business.
3) Her father would have other business connections to refer the Collins family business.
4) He felt she was more suited to Barnabas.
5) It would have reflected positively on his social class and position.
In the upper class, it's all about your family connections, social class or business connections. It may not always be about love. The marriage of yesterday was not necessarily about romance or feelings of love. It was duty.
I believe after Barnabas' marriage to Josette his inheritance and position in the family business would have been sealed. However, right to inheritance was not set and sealed to the eldest son and a father could and would change the inheritance rights.
In the current case, none survived. Joshua adopted Daniel and the rest is Collins family history all the way to the 1960s Collins family. Untraditionally, women in the family inherited controlling interest in the family estate and business. To wit, Judith and Elizabeth had controlling interest of the family business with the understanding that the next male inherited all when of age (Jamison and David). Thus, it was not a given that the first born son would inherit. Occaisionally, it skipped a generation.