His biographers consider him one of the most important heroes of Patagonia. Piedrabuena reached the naval rank of Naval Lieutenant Colonel, equivalent to Commander. Today he is commonly called Commander Piedrabuena. He was born in a large colonial house with large bricks, window grilles and a Spanish-style tile roof. It was located at the foot of the ravine that was crowned by a fort in those days, and today by the parish church.
From a very early age he was attracted by the sea. His childhood relationship with three seamen helped him to follow a life at sea. The second was an old friend of his father, the captain and former privateer James Harris who put Luis up at his home in Buenos Aires, where he enrolled in a primary school and later attend a high school specializing in nautical subjects. Returning to Patagones, five years later, he continued to pilot boats and managed to build his own cutter.
In another American whaler, John E. Davison, touched at Patagones. He was under Captain W. Smiley, who was leading an expedition in the South Atlantic. Luis's father entrusted him at the age of 15 to this sailor for seafaring instruction. He sailed with the whaler from Patagones on 23 July , heading for the Antarctic. The hardship of ocean voyaging in the cold and rough seas prepared him for the large enterprises in which he would participate in the future.
Piedrabuena accompanied Captain W. Smiley's whaling and sealing expedition in , picking up knowledge of sealing, and learning the geography of the straits and how to navigate in them. In Piedrabuena sailed from the port of Montevideo to Tierra del Fuego as an officer to supply the English missionaries. Offshore from Isla de los Estados Staten Island he rescued fourteen shipwrecked sailors.
Piedrabuena displayed characteristic solidarity and courage as a seaman in the rescue. In he was first officer of the schooner "Zerabia", taking sheep and cattle to the Falkland Islands. He reached Antarctica again.
