7/23/2023 0 Comments Acorns to arabella![]() Steve Denette: I’ve done a lot of paddling. In fact, Stephen doesn’t even know how to sail. When finished, he plans to sail it around the world, also something he’s never done before. ![]() So, then it became a not someday, but “alright, how do I make this happen?”ĭave Fraser, Connecting Point: Under this canopy in Granby, Massachusetts, Stephen Denette has been on a six-year journey to build a boat from wood harvested from his family’s land, something he’s never done before. Steve Denette, Acorn to Arabella: It really started when I turned 30, and I kind of sat down and did some reflection and thought about the path that I was on and if I was on track to do the things that I wanted to do and go the places I wanted to go.Īnd the answer to that was no. And when he’s finished, he plans to sail his boat around the world. But Stephen Denette of Granby, Massachusetts, is doing just that, even harvesting trees for the lumber that he’s using to build it. Tony Dunne, Connecting Point: Building a sailboat by hand is no easy task, especially when you’ve never done it before and never learned to sail. Hear KP, one of the people working on the Arabella, talks about their experience as a non-binary craftsperson in a digital exclusive interview. Producer Dave Fraser brings us the story. “And,” he added, “to harvest trees, build a boat, then have this boat take you anywhere in the world is romantic.Building a sailboat by hand is no easy task, especially when you’ve never done it before – and never learned to sail.īut Stephen Denette of Granby, MA, is doing just that, even harvesting trees for the lumber that he’s using to build it. Boats are just a more complicated, movable version of that,” he said. I always had this appreciation that someone went into the woods and cut down a tree and built this barn. “The idea of cutting down trees and waiting for the lumber to season and waiting years to build something is what you did. When his grandfather was in his 20s, he did the same to build the house Denette now lives in. The many different hands who have helped build it, and the individual trees that make up its bones - he can tell you which ones he climbed as a kid and how they were harvested, including the first batch he felled with his grandfather. When he marvels at what the Arabella has become, Denette said what he treasures most are all the stories the ship already has to tell. There is much work to be done, but the Arabella is already something to behold as it nears completion, hulking with lumber, nearly every inch of it from trees that once lived on the farm, all funded through a modern form of “busking,” as Denette describes it. Advertising and merchandise sales grew, as did the subscriber base, and out of the nearly 3 million people who watched that video came a stable audience that supported the project through donations, merchandise sales, and never missing a video, something that took on added significance during the early days of the pandemic when watching the steady progress on the boat brought a soothing assurance. “If we can inspire you, convince you to follow along and help us out a little,” Denette wrote on the original webpage, laying out his gamble, “then maybe, just maybe, we can leave our jobs and build full time.”īuilding the boat, and the audience, happened slowly until January 2018, when the YouTube algorithm decided people might enjoy watching Denette pour 4.5 tons of lead from a homemade melting pot to make the ballast keel, the heavy counterweight on the bottom of the boat. From the outset - the first tree and video were cut in January 2016 - Denette documented his progress on YouTube, first with the help of a friend and soon with a full-time video editor in Fundis, paying him out of pocket with what Denette made as a route-setter at a climbing gym.
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