This week on the Shipshape podcast, we speak to Steve from Acorn to Arabella. Steve, alongside a small and dedicated team, is documenting the building of a 38’ foot wooden sailboat from stump to ship on YouTube, using old-school building methods and lumber from his historic family farm in Granby, Western Massachusetts and has garnered a following of 172k subscribers along the way. Here, we find out more about the highs and challenges of this incredible project from Steve himself – as well as how they are planning to actually get her on the water in June 2022.

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Transcript ——

Farah [00:00:09] Hello and welcome to the Shipshape Podcast, a series of podcasts where we meet amazing people and talk about their experiences, personal, technical and or related to the maritime world. Come and dive in. Dive in. Diving.

 

Georgia [00:00:42] This week on the Shipshape podcast, we speak to Steve from ACORN to Arabella. Steve, alongside a small and trusty team, is documenting the building of a 38 foot wooden sailboat from stump to ship on YouTube, using old school building methods and lumber from his historic family farm in Granby, western Massachusetts. This week, we find out more about this incredible project from Steve himself and how they are planning to actually get it on the water next June. Say, my name is Georgia Tyndall and I’m a freelance editor and writer within the luxury yachting sphere.

 

Merrill [00:01:15] And I’m Merrill Charette, and I’m a liveaboard on a Ta-Shing Tashiba, 36, in Boston, Massachusetts.

 

Georgia [00:01:21] So thank you very much for joining us. This week’s David. It’s absolutely lovely to speak to you.

 

Steve [00:01:26] Yeah, thanks for having me. I’m really excited.

 

Merrill [00:01:28] So, Steve, where are you recording this from?

 

Steve [00:01:31] I’m currently sitting downstairs in the boat house, so the boat is right behind me and the downstairs workbench is right in front of me. And I’m. And what the boat builders would call the moaning chair.

 

Georgia [00:01:43] Oh, cool. So. Well, and just to get us up to speed, what is what stage is she at the moment? I’m sure everyone’s been following the videos religiously, but just for those who might not be quite up to date, where are we up to with the build?

 

Steve [00:01:57] Yeah. So we are gearing up to launch in June, like you said. So all of the hull planking is on the deck is on. We’re currently building and preparing to fiberglass the house sides, the house top and the cockpit. So she’s a mix of some really old school techniques and some modern ones as well. It’s kind of a little bit of a hodgepodge, but the interiors like 80% there, there’s still a bunch of electrical and fine finished stuff to do, but there’s bunks and a head and a gap. We’ll finish that up this winter and we still have to do the diesel install, but that’s all lined up for November and we’re doing the sails with Doyle Sails and we got some work to do. So, you know, we got like a year’s worth of work to do in the next eight months, but we’ll get there.

 

Georgia [00:02:50] Wow, that sounds very. That’s a classic boat. That is a year’s worth at eight months. That’s a pretty common scenario, isn’t it? Boat building?

 

Steve [00:02:58] Yeah, for sure. Especially when you set a deadline.

 

Georgia [00:03:01] Yeah, I know. I know all about missing deadlines, though. I’m sure you guys will be absolutely fine. So if you want to just give us a bit of the back story for those who might not be too familiar, give us a bit about the origin story of the project and what made you kind of decide to build a boat.

 

Steve [00:03:19] Yeah, so I’ve never sailed. I grew up fifth generation on a small farm in western Massachusetts, so we’re well over 100 miles from the ocean. And so it seems kind of kind of far fetched to be building a sailboat out here. But it was I described it as like a tickle in the back of my brain that I’ve had ever since I was a little kid. We would go up to Maine every once in a while and vacation and then camp up along the coast, and I’d see these beautiful wooden sailboats up there. And I understood a house or a barn was built, but how you took timber made it into this curvaceous thing that then went and sailed and seemingly had kind of a life of its own. And, you know, in a lot of instances would outlive the builders. You know, there was there was some mystique and some magic to that. And I just didn’t understand how that how you went from having a tree and a board into, you know, a curvy wooden sailboat. And in 2011, I was on vacation on Cape Cod. We had a really crummy rainy day and we went to a used bookstore. And I picked up this book called 50 Wooden Boat Plans. And that was the first time that I’d ever really looked at how a boat was constructed and so on, frames versus bent frames and all the different construction methods. There’s quite a few different ones covered in that book, and I just found it utterly fascinating. I couldn’t put it down. And over the next bit I just picked up books and researched and read simply because I found it interesting and I was learning and and then I turned 30 and I sat down and did some kind of life reflection and I was the head route setter at a big climbing gym. So I made my own hours and pretty much came and went as I please. I had a 4 to 1 care paid vacation, paid holidays, the whole shebang. But really I wanted to travel and go climb big walls and Baffin Island and go to Patagonia and go back country skiing in Japan and go see the Baltics and the mad and deepwater soloing in Vietnam and go see all of the amazing things that this world has to offer us. And. Realized that I was not going to accomplish that until weeks vacation a year?

 

Georgia [00:05:35] Probably not.

 

Steve [00:05:37] And it was at that point that I decided that I really wanted to build the boat. And it was an someday thing. I, I knew I had a lot to learn and there were a lot of pieces to the puzzle that were missing. But I felt like I knew where to begin, and I didn’t really know how it would go or where it would end, but I knew how to start. So I did a lot of research into into how to try to fund it. And that led me to some folks on YouTube sailing their fiberglass boats around the world and documenting that. And it took me a little bit to realize and kind of put together how those people were making that financially possible. And once I kind of put those pieces of the puzzle together, I was like, All right, if people will donate and support and contribute. Follow folks sailing their boats around the world, maybe, just maybe, they’re willing to do that to see some crazy farm kid who’s never sailed try to build one.

 

Georgia [00:06:33] Yeah, right.

 

Steve [00:06:34] So that ended up starting the YouTube channel. It was a way to hopefully get the time and some of the funds we needed to to build the boat, having all of the trees on the property and being fifth generation and having access to space and timber, that’s what really made it all possible. I mean, without that, there’s no way on earth I would have even been able to begin. But I had a chainsaw and I had access to a sawmill and I knew how to make boards and that was the first step.

 

Georgia [00:07:04] So how was it with your family when you suggested that you were going to cut the trees down and do this with are they on board or was there some resistance?

 

Steve [00:07:13] I wouldn’t say resistance. I think at first it was like, Yeah, all right, sure, go ahead.

 

Georgia [00:07:18] Yeah, you’re really going to do this? Yeah.

 

Steve [00:07:20] Yeah. Like you’re you’re going to apply yourself at this for a week or two and call it quits. And that would be fine. And when I really started in earnest and, you know, was piling up the logs and starting to build the building to build the boat. And I think the family was a little concerned. And, you know, he was working nights, weekends, holidays at the time, you know, I was working a full time job and basically doing a full time job.

 

Georgia [00:07:47] So, yeah.

 

Steve [00:07:48] And no free time for a couple of years. And the family was and friends were all a bit concerned about like, hey, you don’t seem to be doing any of the things that you love to do anymore and you’re not spending time with anyone and you’re just going to work and going home and hurling yourself at this thing and your kids.

 

Georgia [00:08:06] Are you about it? Right? It was everything to you, I guess, at the time.

 

Steve [00:08:09] Yeah, it was. I was going to give it my all and if I fail, I was going to not walk away saying, well, you know, I could have. It was like I gave it everything I got. And, you know, I came up short, I was swinging for the fences. And then my take on it was always we would have to get it to look like a boat, that there was going to be a lot of early time of cutting trees, knowing lumber, building a building, lifting floor, all of that. And we’re talking a year’s worth of effort before there’s anything that even remotely possibly could be perceived as boat like. So we never really thought that there would be a ton of interest in the earlier videos. But the hope was that if we got far enough that it gained traction and people joined say now when we are, you know, a year out from launch that they would have a place to begin and it wouldn’t be a pile of lumber and a boat house that came out of nowhere and that you’d be able to follow the journey from an empty yard and a forest of trees to a boat house and a boat.

 

Georgia [00:09:12] Yeah, for sure. So I gather you weren’t alone making the videos. Who was it in the early days that you were doing this with? Because you didn’t have, like, a video background yourself, did you?

 

Steve [00:09:23] No. No. So I am technologically literate. I’m great with basically anything pre 1980s.

 

Georgia [00:09:33] So you’ll go back like 1800 technology basically.

 

Steve [00:09:36] Yeah and that’s just always how it that you know to this day if you want to put an app on my phone like someone asked to help me figure that out because I don’t use apps but my my friend Alex, he went to school for photography and is all about the technology and super interested in that. And I knew that I couldn’t make videos, but I thought that he could. So I pitched it to Alex and he was interested and he moved down from Portland, Maine, down to western Massachusetts, and he was the early one filming and editing the videos. And then eventually the the project grew after me for the ballet school. And YouTube was like, Hey, man, you want to see this video of these guys porn four and a half tons of lead. So the algorithm really worked for us on that one. And then we were able to hire a video editor, Ben Fundus, and that was a huge difference, having someone who could quickly and efficiently edit the videos. Edit. As I’m sure you know, just doing a podcast is an insane amount of work and something that I think people really drastically underestimate the amount of pills and time that that takes. Yeah. And then it grew to banned and then we brought on you and Brian, and then Alex met an amazing woman and bought a house and his dad had some health issues. So he moved on to two other things in life. And then we hired Cappie to help just help push us across the finish line. And so, yeah, now it’s the four of us. This show.

 

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Steve [00:11:55] Welcome back to the Shipshape podcast.

 

Merrill [00:12:01] So it’s hard to really, like put into perspective how big this thing is, right? Like you said, that you go to the Cape and you went to Maine, and when I see like these wooden boats, they’re generally like smaller but 38 foot wooden boat. Just looking at your videos, it’s just a very complex project. And with that, you know, it’s like, where do you learn how to do that? Like, how did you figure out how to do all the planking and build the thing from scratch?

 

Steve [00:12:31] Part of that was growing up fifth generation on the farm here. So when I was a kid, my grandfather cut down the trees, sawmill came in the lumber and over numerous years he built the barn. He built his house when he was in his twenties. So kind of the thought of of taking on a big project like that, accomplishing it over multiple years was just something I grew up with. I mean, you didn’t have the money to buy the lumber and pay someone to build barn, so you took five years and you cut the trees and you built the barn. So I think there was a lot of confidence coming into it from that. And growing up on the farm, even the hay bales broke and the rain was coming in like you figured out how to fix it or you figured out how to get the hay in. And so I think growing up with the older generations around and, you know, kind of seeing that ingenuity and that problem solving and and all of the different things that just go into having a small farm, you know, there was a lot of that that isn’t directly applicable to both building, but is very applicable to both buildings. So like building a wooden boat, you’re constantly moving heavy things around and wrestling things into position and you know, there’s electrical and plumbing and all of these different things on top of the woodworking metal working. And I think the most versatile people that I’ve ever known in my life are honestly farmers and boat builders, because there’s not much other industry where you have to really be a jack of all trades. And I’ve done a lot of woodworking throughout my life, so you know how to use a block plan and cut to a line and and all of that. I knew how to do and knew how to use the tools certainly got a lot better with them over the last six years. But the boat specific knowledge itself, like how to hang a plank, how to scale, how to loft, even how to pick a design to build. That all came from reading and research. I hunted online forums. I have a massive library and I read. I’m personally someone who learns very well That way I can read it once or twice, and once I conceptually understand it, I will go and try to do it. And if I can’t do it, I will go back to the reading and try to figure out where I went wrong. And for me personally, that worked really well. So when it came time to figure out the 12 volt DC electrical system for the boat, I literally sat down for four days and read four electrical books and took notes and designed the 12 volt system and ran it past an experienced person and tweaked a couple of things. And that’s the electrical plan. So I’ve gone about basically the whole build that way. Early on it was really just reading books and trying to figure it out. And then as the project grew and as we got better known, I got more and more offers from people like Danielson or Harold Burnham or Shahzad. You know, they would say, Hey, if you get stuck, give me a call. And getting those connections and starting to rub shoulders with those old salts a little bit, that definitely made a difference because, you know, it can take you days to hunt down something where if you call someone like Harold Burnham, who is I don’t know how many generations shipbuilder out in Essex is like, Oh yeah, this is this is what you need to do or This is what you don’t need to worry about. And there was a lot of that that I learned talking with with the old salts. You know, you read all the books and they’re like 36 of them an inch and smile every plank. And you talk to the old guys and they’re like, Oh, heck no, you just do a good job. One afternoon edge set those buggers. I mean, sure, we file planks, but not that many of them. And learning like how the books talk about it and how the people actually doing the work go about doing it. That was definitely a big revelation.

 

Merrill [00:16:02] Can you explain a little bit more on that?

 

Steve [00:16:04] Yeah. So if you read the books, you know, they’ll tell you you want vertical grain quarter saw planking stock and then reality. I have yet to see a boat that’s planked completely out of perfect vertical grain water some stock you know like I said the books talk about smiling every plank and then you go talk to a lot of builders and, you know, they they’ll cut a smiley face or they’ll cut a frowny face so that it bends on the boat easier. But once you get to a boat of arabella’s scale and you’re talking about 40 feet of plank, you know, you can edge set it. So a lot of the books in it completely make sense. Like they write it to the highest standard. You know, they they’re setting the bar of if you are going to do this perfectly, this is what that looks like. And if you’re going to go build a multimillion dollar yacht by all know, that’s what that looks like. But, you know, if you go watch the documentary Vanishing Sail, you know, those dudes are with a chainsaw in an ads on a beach in the Bahamas. They’re what you know, they don’t have a level. They’re using the horizon.

 

Georgia [00:17:04] Yeah.

 

Steve [00:17:04] And the boats work great, and they sail and they fish and they race. And, you know, people have been building boats for millennia with far fewer tools and resources and knowledge than we have now. So what you do for perfection and what you do to to get a good, functioning, safe boat, you know, there’s a lot of wiggle room there. There’s a pretty big difference. And you read the books and they’ll say you should run your block plan from one end of the plank to the other and the shavings shouldn’t break. And if it does go back and figure out why and, you know, if you’re building a 20 foot boat out of cedar, like, sure, if you are putting together 40 foot long oak planks, I would love to see somebody follow that rolling double for 40 feet and white oak with four glute scarves and get an unbroken shaving. I don’t know how sharp your block plan is and how skilled your hands are. That would be incredible to see. And it’s just not really practical or obtainable in this particular instance. So reading the books and going through that, you know, some of it was really daunting and getting to know some of the professionals and folks that have been doing it forever and and getting to look closely at their work and getting to talk to them and see how they do things is really eye opening. There are things that do need to be really tight and really perfect, and there are things that are not so much. And yeah, oh, I think life in a lot of ways is that way. If you try to make everything totally perfect, you’re you’re not going to get everyone anywhere.

 

Georgia [00:18:29] Yeah, for sure. I mean, what is this? Just as you are talking, though, I was just thinking about how this is, you know, how this has been for you as a project. Have you learned anything about yourself in terms of doing this project? Like if you would, naturally, you know, very much a perfectionist that what you’ve described might be quite tricky. How is it sort of made you reflect about yourself and how you approach projects like this?

 

Steve [00:18:51] Yeah, it’s a great question. It really makes me thankful for growing up with my great grandfather and great grandmother and grandmother and grandfather around and seeing things that my great grandfather built when he was in his teens or his twenties. So we’re talking about the 1930s that are still functional and useful today and are far from perfect and very ugly. And like what? Like this old pipe that is stuck into concrete and buried in the ground for fence posts and they’ve got stuff welded to them and pieces of gold through them that he never bothered to cut out or remove. But, you know, we’ve used that same fence post five different times and, you know, in five different places and move fencing and rip it up with the tractor and go bury that hunk of concrete in a different place.

 

Georgia [00:19:40] It’s functional. It does what you need it to do. Right?

 

Steve [00:19:43] Exactly. Yeah. And you know, and I’ve seen things that have machines that we’ve bought that have come brand spanking new and you go to change the oil on it and you’re like, wow, I need four special tools and a half a day just to get at the oil filter on the stupid thing. And there you have something that was designed and built by professionals. So I think growing up with, you know, the kind of cool Yankee mentality of, you know, it has to work, it has to function. And as long as it meets those requirements and it’s easy to maintain, then we’re good to go. And I never came from a family that was like, it has to be perfect. And if it’s not your best, it’s not good enough.

 

Georgia [00:20:21] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Steve [00:20:22] I grew up with a grandfather who would chuckle and go ask good enough for government work. And, you know, and I think I was really thankful for that. Yeah, I grew up with that. So I think it was it was okay to make mistakes. It was okay to, to redo things that happened that, you know, And I think if I had come to this as someone who didn’t have that, like farming background and was, like you said, a bit more of a perfectionist, oh, I think it would be crippling to try to do something like this.

 

Georgia [00:20:52] Yeah, because it’s like it’s the attitude of I think what you’ve said about family support is so interesting, isn’t it? Because it’s that attitude of like, it’s okay to fail and it’s okay to not be perfect and it’s okay to make mistakes because I think there’s different styles of parenting, isn’t there? I don’t think what you’ve described can just be so liberating because it’s like, you know, try this thing and have a go. And if it is not perfect first time, that’s fine. You just keep grafting and keep trying. And I think that’s that’s really inspirational. And I think also the fact that you’ve seen other people make things that must have had an influence on you, the idea that you can just have a go and do things for yourself rather than contracting out or waiting for someone else to do it for you.

 

Steve [00:21:33] Yeah, for sure. And I watched my my grandfather and my great grandfather scratch their heads and say, I don’t quite know how to do this and you know it for different ways and get it on the fourth.

 

Georgia [00:21:44] Yeah, No, that’s really interesting. Thank you.

 

Merrill [00:21:46] So, you know, obviously doing the whole boat building, I feel like it’s relatively it can be dangerous. Right? You’re moving heavy things around your use and some pretty intense tools. What’s the most dangerous situation you’ve been in? Like, what is the. Most dangerous tool you have like, oh.

 

Steve [00:22:03] Hands down, bar none logging, going out in the woods with a chainsaw and a tractor or a skitter and dropping trees and getting the logs out of the woods. Hands down. Bar none. Most hair raising, dangerous part of the build. And I would honestly put logging and harvesting the timber as as more risky and dangerous than pouring the four and a half ton valve scale.

 

Georgia [00:22:25] Yeah. How do you navigate that? How do you make it less dangerous?

 

Steve [00:22:33] There are. There’s only so many things you can do in the woods.

 

Georgia [00:22:36] Yeah, exactly.

 

Steve [00:22:38] Yeah. It’s just be careful. And, you know, it’s it’s another thing where I grew up with older generations around and harvesting timber and cutting firewood. And so I’d watch, you know, trees get hung up and how to deal with that and what to watch out for and you know how and why trees barber chair and and go and directions you don’t want them to go to and it’s not to say that I got it right all the time that’s that’s for sure we plenty got plenty of trees hung up and had plenty of issues but it’s definitely one of those instances where stepping back for a few minutes and taking a look at things and proceeding slowly and cautiously is the way to stay alive. And that one.

 

Georgia [00:23:19] That. Do you do that yourself?

 

Steve [00:23:20] Yeah. So I harvested almost all the trees that went into the boat. We got some black locust from an arborist and Cape Cod. I got a couple logs locally from some local arborists, but the vast majority of it, Yeah. We went out in the woods and murdered the trees.

 

Georgia [00:23:37] Yeah. So you take that risk on yourself, don’t you, really? Rather than involving someone else.

 

Steve [00:23:42] Yeah. The trees standing don’t cost anything, and the mill is relatively cheap. Hiring somebody to sell them and get them out of the woods is not inexpensive. And if we had to do that early on in the project, there just I didn’t have funds for it.

 

Georgia [00:23:56] Yeah, absolutely. I liked them. I saw I am not sure if I’d read it or listen to it, but I remember you saying something quite beautiful about giving the trees a new lease of life. Can you just talk to me a bit about that? Because 95% of the lumber you say is from your own property and the tree’s getting on a bit. So could you just explain that a little bit to us?

 

Steve [00:24:17] Yeah. So my family’s on the property for five generations and we have some fields that we cut hay on. And hay is an annual crop and trees are a multi-generational crop. So we harvested trees on the timber on the property for five generations, and we cut our family’s firewood every year from the property. But timber harvests, we do a small harvest every 10 to 20 years. So my grandfather did one to build his house, he did another one to build the barn, and they did another one just to raise some funds and payoffs and bills, you know, ten or 15 years after that. So trees, like all things, they have a life span. And where we are here, we’re at the base of the Mount Holyoke Grange. So the soil is either very rocky or you’re down in one of the bottoms and it’s very wet. So the trees around here, they only get a certain size before either they’re in the rock or soil and they get blown over because they have these big canopies and eventually a storm gets them and they go or if they’re in the lower wetlands, that can still happen. But lots of times ants end up getting into them and hollowing out. So the trees that we harvested, a lot of them, they’re not going to be around in 40 years. Some of them, like most of them all. So by going in and harvesting a handful of those bigger trees scattered throughout an area, you leave all the other trees, they grow better and faster and stronger. So we didn’t take any oaks that were under, say, 20 inches or so in diameter at chest height. And everything we took was that or bigger. And we left a lot of trees that are, you know, 14, 16, 18 inches in diameter at chest height. They have these great, nice tree trunks because they grew up under the canopy of these bigger trees that were 28 inches in diameter. And now that we’ve knocked out those bigger ones, we didn’t damage the smaller ones in the process or selectively damaged the less nice ones, because sometimes you got a clear plan to drop a big one. And then those ones, now that the canopy is opened up, they’re going to put on girth and they’re going to grow that much faster and better. So in a lot of ways, if you’re doing small harvests like that, it’s actually beneficial for the forest. You can do it for a long time and forest will just keep coming back.

 

Georgia [00:26:40] Yeah, and those trees get to get to come with you on the journey, right?

 

Steve [00:26:44] Yeah. And so instead of becoming firewood or, you know, going back into the soil, they some of them went back into the soil a little bit. That became firewood. And most of it gets to journey on in a boat and maintain if I was an old oak tree and I think I think being a wooden boat would be. Be top of that list.

 

Georgia [00:27:01] Yeah, we’ll have to ask them one way. Yeah. Melissa.

 

Merrill [00:27:06] When we started on talking about kind of like marine and maritime, like obviously a good. Pretty much all the boats today are made out of fiberglass. And, you know, there are very few wooden boats that you really run into, but they’re all like, beautiful and amazing. And, you know, everyone can see the work. And so with the launch of your YouTube channel, have you had a lot of people reach out to you, you know, trying to build their own wooden boat and ask for advice? Yeah.

 

Steve [00:27:35] Quite a few, actually. Nobody to this scale, but a lot of people building smaller wooden boats. Yeah, built canoes. Kayaks. I’ve got a ten year old kid who lives down the road and comes up and helps out one and a half days a week and a bit more in the summer when he’s out of school. And him and his dad recently built a little wooden rowboat together. So, yeah, on the.

 

Merrill [00:27:58] Whole, you’re getting the whole neighborhood involved.

 

Steve [00:28:00] Yeah, for sure. Yeah. We were at the Wooden boat show and Mystic and Guy paddled up to the seawall and his kayak and pointed to the kayak and pointed to me and told me that the kayak was my fault. And, you know, he was obviously very happy and joking around. The I know we’ve heard quite a number of people who have tackled smaller builds. We had one guy who came a few years ago and volunteered and helped out, and he stopped by last year and he had bought a small full keel cruising boat and spent all his money on it and found out later that the connection between the keel and the hall was bunk and the kilometers come off and a ton of glasswork needed to be done and the keel to back on. He did not have the funds to do it, but he said after watching the videos of us were in the lead and going Arabella, he’s like, If those guys can do that, I can fix my keel. And he and his girlfriend so that he would watch one of our videos and get himself psyched up to go out and do battle and to go do battle and come back totally crushed and demoralized and get himself psyched back up and go back at it another day. And it took him a while, but he got the boat fix the optic seal back on. You got it in the water. And he’s going cruisin. And he said that he never would have even thought that he was capable of doing it if he hadn’t followed the channel. And he doesn’t think he would have stuck with it if he hadn’t seen us sticking with it. And we heard a lot of stories like that boat related and life related and all sorts of other things. And that’s something that I never expected starting this. But it’s been really amazing to just see the number of people who have who have drawn some sort of inspiration from this, and it’s made some positive impact on their life. And that’s been really, really amazing.

 

Merrill [00:29:42] So if some person was deciding that, hey, I’m going to go build a wooden boat, what piece of advice would you give in the beginning besides just do it?

 

Steve [00:29:51] Yeah. Be prepared for a long, bumpy, challenging road. I mean, life’s hard as it is, you know? Things happen, speed humps come up. I’m sure nobody saw that coming. You know, it’s all of that kind of stuff as things are out of your control. And so when you do a big project like what Life so happens and you have to figure that out. When I started this, people would ask how long it would take, and my standard answer was 2 to 10 years. Yeah, you know, everybody would laugh. It’s, you know, I really looked at it that way. It was like, I don’t know, maybe it’ll take two. I don’t think it’ll take two, but maybe and I don’t think it’ll take more than ten. So but going into it, saying like, there’s a lot I don’t know, this is going to be a long, bumpy road. Things are not always going to go right. This is probably going to take longer than I think it’s going to take. I think going in with that attitude and perception makes all of the speed bumps and the delays and the hurdles and the mistakes a lot more palatable. If you’re like, I’m going to build this boat this winter and I’m going to go sail it next summer, you know, that’s a different undertaking than say, I’m going to go build this rowboat in my basement and I’ll get it done in the next two years and we’ll go sailing and, you know, being prepared for that long, bumpy road and and not having a real firm deadline, I think takes a lot of stress out of it.

 

Merrill [00:31:10] Yeah. With the YouTube channel, it’s very easy to like edit videos and fast forward videos and do all that type of stuff. And you know, people I guess don’t necessarily see all the time because I mean, you’re live in it, but everyone else gets to experience it at like 100 times speed for sure.

 

Steve [00:31:28] Yeah. And there’s a lot of stuff we don’t show. I mean, if K.P. and I spend four days standing, you see one minute of. Yeah, exactly. So you see a lot of the more intricate things and like closer to some months of real time, but the real monotonous, tedious, time consuming things are all either not shown or sped up because you know who wants to watch someone sand for 4 hours or four weeks or four days?

 

Merrill [00:31:57] There’s some people out there, maybe some. Oh, ground noise.

 

Georgia [00:32:00] Oh. It’s going to save like asthma or whatever it is, Asthma. Yeah. Background noise. Yeah. Now that’s really cool. So I noticed when I was looking at your YouTube videos that you started off. Correct me if I’m wrong, but quite sure. And ones and then they got longer and whatever. Do you have like an optimal one for your videos that you try and aim for in terms of maximum engagement and all the rest of it? Or would you just sort of do it, do what comes naturally?

 

Steve [00:32:26] Oh, it’s a little bit of both. If we have our druthers, the videos would be like 20 to 30 minutes. Yeah, that’s like a reasonable amount of editing time. It’s a reasonable amount of footage. It’s a reasonable amount of attention span for a lot of folks. But some weeks, if it’s if there’s not a lot going on and it makes sense to cover it in a 15 minute video, then you know, we’ll do a 15 minute video instead of trying to create another 10 minutes of not a whole heck of a lot. And by the same token, if it’s really not something that’s going to be easy to condense and then we’ll put it out there and we do the sale design and stuff. And we met with Robbie Doyle recently and that ended up being a really long video with a whole lot of talking. And it’s just because of the nature and the information. And for our channel, it’s always been about the the journey of the wooden boat. And so that’s the that it’s, it’s ever changing. And I think if we tried to kind of like the timeline, if you try to fit it all into one certain box. Challenging.

 

Georgia [00:33:28] Yeah. So the sales thing’s absolutely amazing. I gather he actually approached you rather than the other way round. So tell us a little bit about that.

 

Steve [00:33:37] Well, so actually, everyone that we work with has approached us instead of the other way around. Really? Yeah. We have never gone to any company and said, Hey, can we have this, do this, get this. Our motto has always been to go and do and basically like the movie The Field of Dreams, like if you build it, they will come.

 

Georgia [00:33:56] Yeah.

 

Steve [00:33:57] Yeah. And yeah, Robbie Doyle came that way. So we had a guy who writes for the outdoor section of the Boston Globe. Want to do a little article? And that ended up becoming a front page article of the Boston Globe, which was while Robbie Doyle is apparently a reader of the Boston Globe. So obviously and sent us an email and said, Hi, I’m Robbie Doyle, and I founded Doyle Sales and I would like to design. And so your sales and I, not being a sailor, came out and I was like, Hey, KP have you heard of Robbie Doyle? He’s like, Yeah. Doyle Sales Yup, yup, yup. Heard of them. So I went to their website and was like, Oh, wow, okay, yeah, I recognize the logo and they’ve done some amazing projects. Yeah. So we went out and met with Robbie recently and he’s at this point mostly retired and does a lot of golfing and pet projects and it seems like he’s really interested in the different set of parameters and what he normally works on. So he’s done the sales for The Maltese Falcon.

 

Georgia [00:35:05] Yeah, exactly.

 

Steve [00:35:07] And all of these things. And basically, you know, there’s there’s one common denominator and all of that really too. And it’s it’s a lot of money and it’s so fast. And whereas is this is the complete opposite ethos of that so you know we met with Robbie and he’s like, all right, so you’re full keel and heavy displacement and gaff rig and like you could see the gears churning and it’s just a totally different puzzle. And he seems to be really enjoying that. And he told us that they’ve had tons of people over the years ask for sales and for donations of things and that they want to go sail around the world and that they said no and that he read the article and was like, we got to make sales for this guy. We got to log Skitter early on. I think basically the same way. And I don’t know where I came across this. Someone told it to me or I read it, but basically if your car breaks down on the highway and you sit in your car, nobody’s going to stop. If you get out and you open your hood, somebody may stop. If you get out and you start pushing your car down the highway, someone is going to stop and help. You probably are going to stop and help you. And I think we’ve had a lot of help and support that way. We had a guy stop by one day and he’s like, What are you guys doing here? And so he shot and we’re building the boat and he’s like, How are you getting word? So we told them we are pulling it out of the woods, the log with a farm tractor. And he’s like, You know how many people die a year pulling logs at a farm tractor? Like, I don’t know the numbers, but yeah, a lot. I know, I say, but it’s what we have. And Peter said, you know, I live up the road. I’m a retired logger. I’ve got a skitter in my front yard. If you’re going to do more logging, give me a call. I don’t want to hear that. You died under a farm tractor. Oh, and we needed more lumber. And I called Peter, and we figured out how to get a scooter down here. And I had it for a winter, and. And we used it for the logging, and I think, you know. It’s similar with Robby Doyle’s. We weren’t asking for help. We are going to. So the sales are sales by hand, if that’s what ended up being our only option. So I think seeing the gumption and that you’re just going to go do it. People are a really well answer to help out.

 

Merrill [00:37:18] So you’re going to be launching the boat next June, right.

 

Steve [00:37:22] To that Mystic Seaport.

 

Merrill [00:37:24] So what are the feelings that you have internally thinking about that date approaching? And also kind of with that, you know, when do you see yourself cruising? Are you just going to put the boat in the water and be like, okay, we’re out of here?

 

Steve [00:37:36] Yeah. And so up until till launch, I get a lot of work to do. So that’s the main focus. And right now we’re in basically triage mode. So we’re doing everything that we have to get done before it gets called, you know, gluing, painting. And then we’re the priority list of everything that has to happen for the boat to go in the water. So I don’t finish up locker space. I don’t need to wire up the water maker. I don’t need to put on the solar panels or the Bimini or finish all of the running rigging. So we’re going to get her to the point where she can safely go in the water and then we’ll spend a couple more weeks at Mystic and in the water doing the last bit of things that we’ve got to do for her to relatively function. But there’s a lot that I want to do after I get a little bit of experience with the boat because I’ve never sailed. So there’s a lot that I need to kind of figure out what I want and what it’s like living on the boat and the things that we want to store, where and how the sails shape the deck and where do we want to put the solar panels and what is the path forward on the foredeck? And so I want to leave, you know, as much kind of unfinished as is reasonable so that we can do some sailing next summer and get a feel for the boat and get a feel for living on her and cooking on air and what all that’s like and then spend next winter kind of doing the final big foot push to get all of those things buttoned up and dialed in. And then the summer of 24 will be the actual honest to God first go and cruise in season.

 

Georgia [00:39:10] Yeah, that sounds more sensible. Having a bit of a dummy run and figuring all that out before you are like, okay, well, yeah, I mean, I’ve got.

 

Steve [00:39:18] To learn how to sail, so.

 

Georgia [00:39:20] Right. How hard can that be?

 

Steve [00:39:21] Yeah, well, it depends who you ask.

 

Merrill [00:39:25] Well, when you were talking about how you were reading books and you just keep reading and then you figure it out. When I started sailing five years ago, I mean, that’s the only thing I did. I’d never even been on a boat. So I just read, read, read and figured it out. Sure. It’ll take a lifetime to become like the sailor earlier that you can be, but it’s pretty straightforward. I think you’ll be completely okay.

 

Steve [00:39:47] Yeah, and that’s everyone that I’ve talked to that has built and sailed is like, if you figured out how to build it, you’ll certainly figure out how to sail it.

 

Georgia [00:39:56] Yeah.

 

Merrill [00:39:57] So the boat’s got five berths right now. Who are you going to be bring in with you? I mean, is that been a thought like every one of the teams? Like, Oh, yeah, we’ll just cruise around with you or What’s that look like?

 

Steve [00:40:11] It actually looks a little easier than you would think. So than the video editor. He’s got a wife and a young son at a movie theater and Newburyport, so he’ll definitely come out and be on the boat a bit. But he is you know, he’s got no visions of long term cruising and has her own boat and cape. He has a partner and a kid. So JP will certainly be with us for the earlier sails. They’ve got their 100 tonne captain license, they’ve done a bunch of chartering and they’ve got a lot of sailing experience. So looking forward to having cape on the boat a bunch that for summer and learning, but predominantly on the boat. It’ll be me and my girlfriend Robyn and for the first bit a rotating crew of friends and captains and experienced people like JP. I really look forward to basically handing the reins over to a whole bunch of different knowledgeable people and seeing how they all would handle the boat. I’m sure they will all do things differently and I really look forward to seeing and watching how a bunch of people are going to go about handling the boat. And then once Robin and I get to the point where we feel comfortable with her, then we’ll take off to parts.

 

Georgia [00:41:21] Unknown Yeah. So have you have you planned where you want to go? Yeah. Or is it to say.

 

Steve [00:41:25] Nothing set in stone yet? I can say the Baffin Island in Greenland are calling my name really hard. I would love to go up and get on some of those big walls that drop right into the ocean up there. That looks amazing. So I think the 2024 will probably poke up towards that way, maybe go up to like Hudson Bay and just get a feel for some more northern sailing and spend a season. And then I turn 30 I’m sorry, I turn 40 May 20, 25 and I would like to leave to head up to. Baffin Island in Greenland then and then after that. Who knows? Maybe we’ll hop over to Norway. Maybe we’ll hop over to Alaska. Maybe we’ll go to the Caribbean.

 

Georgia [00:42:09] Norway? I mean, all of those sound great, but Norway’s amazing.

 

Steve [00:42:12] Yeah. Norway.

 

Georgia [00:42:14] The scenery and the fjords. It’s incredible.

 

Steve [00:42:16] I’ve been inland Norway a couple times. I haven’t been to the Norwegian coast, and that’s high on the list. But I don’t know. Squamish, British Columbia, Alaska. That’s just. That’s a tough pick.

 

Georgia [00:42:28] Well, who says you have to pick?

 

Steve [00:42:30] Well, you have to pick one first.

 

Georgia [00:42:31] But yeah, a boat is a life. Not just for Christmas, right? Mm hmm.

 

Steve [00:42:35] Yeah. And we get asked all the time, like, are you going to sail around the world? I usually. I’ll tell people yes, but I imagine that’s going to be a very long, circuitous route. And I’m an old, cantankerous Yankee at heart, and there is maybe the chance that I will purposefully never crossed my own path just so that I went all around the world but never actually went there.

 

Georgia [00:42:54] World no foreigner making any. Do you have any furry friends that might be joining you on this trip, by any chance?

 

Steve [00:43:02] Yeah. So I have a dog. Akiva is 11 years old, so I’d imagine he will be around for the first bit. Yeah. Crossing any oceans?

 

Georgia [00:43:12] Yeah, he’s. He’s very cute. I’ve got a picture of him up here. I’m a big dog person, and he’s really cute.

 

Steve [00:43:18] He is a good one. He’s. He’s very exuberant and he is pretty unflappable. So even though he’s old and has never lived on a boat, he doesn’t act old. And he’s been out on motorboats and in canoes. And as long as I’m there and I’m fine, he’s fine so I can.

 

Georgia [00:43:34] Adjust to it just as long as you’re there.

 

Steve [00:43:36] I don’t think I’ll have a tough time. And this winter we’re going to do a lot of work on the interior, so it’ll be a great opportunity now with the decks on to have him really get used to the deck and going down below and the boat and all of that while it’s here and on the horizon and not moving. And that should make the transition, getting under the water a bit easier. At least it’ll be a familiar space.

 

Georgia [00:43:55] Yeah, for sure. And does he like fish? Mm hmm. Okay.

 

Steve [00:43:58] He is a very little puppy. He ate an entire bluefish.

 

Georgia [00:44:02] Wow. Oh, bless him. That’s so sweet.

 

Merrill [00:44:07] Well, as we wrap this up, can you tell us where people can find you and read more about you and see your videos?

 

Steve [00:44:14] Yeah, for sure. If you do a search for ACORN to Arabella, you will absolutely find us. So you’ve got a website, we’ve got Instagram, we’ve got Facebook. But the really big one is YouTube. So we put out a new video every Friday morning. So it goes out at 7 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. And pretty much every Friday, like clockwork, I think we we missed like one or two a year. And there is a catalog of well over 200 videos now from us cutting the trees, pouring the ballast hill, digging out oak stumps and carving these out of them all the way up until now. And we’ll continue to follow the journey right through launch and under water.

 

Georgia [00:44:53] Will you be livestreaming the launch?

 

Steve [00:44:54] Yeah, we will definitely be livestreaming the launch.

 

Georgia [00:44:57] Yeah, because I don’t think we’ll all be able to make it, sadly, no.

 

Steve [00:45:00] But.

 

Georgia [00:45:01] We’ll be there.

 

Steve [00:45:01] But it will be free and open to the public. So if anyone who wants to come to Mystic on June 17th, you are welcome. And as the time gets closer, we’ll certainly be personal emails. But we will.

 

Georgia [00:45:15] See. June 17th, 2023. Yes, that’s my wedding day.

 

Steve [00:45:19] Oh, wow. I guess you you’ll.

 

Georgia [00:45:21] I don’t know. Well, I’ll explain it to the fans. They won’t mind once. Hilarious. I’ve no idea. It’s the same day. Maril your double booked my.

 

Merrill [00:45:30] Oh man.

 

Georgia [00:45:31] So thank you very much for coming to talk to us, Dave.

 

Steve [00:45:34] Yeah, yeah. Thank you very much for having me on. It’s an honor.

 

Farah [00:45:57] Check back every Tuesday for our latest episode and be sure to like, share and subscribe to ship Shaped Up for five.