Steve Denette was raised on a farm in Western Massachusetts, surrounded by the wilderness, something he found both comforting and inspiring. Whether it’s leading month-long, wilderness courses, mountaineering in Yosemite or forging Class IV white water in an open canoe, Steve seems to have done it all. But one thing he’s yet to tackle is the art of sailing.
Most people learning to sail, particularly in New England, will go the typical route of signing up for local sailing classes or perhaps learning through a relative or friend with their own boat. Steve is not most people. Rather than learning on a loaner or even purchasing a shiny, new fiberglass schooner, Steve decided to build his own.
The finished boat, named Arabella, will be 38-feet long, made entirely from wood sourced from Steve’s family farm. That means he cuts the trees down himself, sizes the boards from the logs, forms them into shape and adheres it all together. No ordering pallets from Home Depot, no making runs to the lumber yard, this boat is about as DIY as you can get.
“When we say ‘build’ we mean just that, from scratch, in our front yard, with our own hands,” the project website, Acorn to Arabella, reads. “Everything for Arabella will be sourced as locally as possible, this is very important to us. Almost 100% of the lumber will be harvested from our property; we mill boards on a small portable sawmill. We’ve foraged for and handled 12,000 lbs. of scrap lead for a ballast keel.”
Yes, you heard that right. This isn’t your average canoe, after all, and it’ll have all the fancy bits and bobs a modern boat requires, including ballast keel that was smelted and poured on video. And Steven can’t take all the credit; he’s got a crack team of friends and experts helping him along, as well as sharing their remarkable story through vlogs on YouTube, their Patreon and occasionally in person to boat enthusiasts who make the trip to Western Massachusetts.
Included on the team are: KP, a carpenter with extensive experience building boats in Maine before finding their way down to Massachusetts and into the crew of the Arabella; Ben, a theater owner, composer and video editor; and Annie B., sailor, storyteller and “tugboat in human form.”
Of course, the most important member of the crew is Akiva, a West Siberian Laika who travels with Steve on his adventures and has become a popular guest star in the YouTube videos documenting the building process.
Annie recalled that it was important to Steve to learn to sail on a boat he made himself. It certainly gives new meaning to starting with the fundamentals. Starting from the ground up meant selecting a design to follow, and for those less sea-savvy, it should be noted that there’s a lot of different types of boats. Big ones, small ones, ones made for comfort and ones made for speed. Materials are taken into account as well: Not all boats can be wooden, so they needed to find a blueprint that would fit with their specific vision.
Enter the Atkin family of boatbuilders.
“The name Atkin has long been associated with the best in basic boats. If you are looking for “the right little boat” to build – or have built – or if you just like to dream over boat plans – you’ll be delighted with the wooden boat design collections of John (1918-1999) and William (1882-1962) Atkin,” reads the Atkin website. “Having provided three generations with practical, well-proven wooden boat designs, our site offers more than 300 designs, including famed Atkin double-enders, traditional offshore and coastal cruising yachts, rowing/sailing dinghies, utilities and houseboats.”
Steve had hit the mother lode.
“After a lot of reading and research, I ended up on the Atkin website and really loved their tagline: ‘Individualized Designs for Unregimented Yachtsmen.’ That sure described me!” Steve recalls. He landed on the Ingrid hull, as Arabella will be a craft both lived on and traveled with, with enough room for a few friends while still being capable of being sailed by a single crewmember.
The whole endeavor started back in 2016 and has taken on a much larger life, the weekly YouTube videos amassing an online following of hundreds of thousands that spilled over into the real world, which led to the planning of a public launch in 2023.
Annie recounted looking at different places in Massachusetts they could host such an event. The shipyard would need to be logistically suited for launching the Arabella, as well as hosting the crowd of boat-heads there to watch the project’s culmination. Mattapoisett’s own Shipyard Park stood out to her as an incredible aesthetic location on top of prime launching ground. She recalled wandering around the park, taking pictures and videos before spotting the harbormaster. After a quick explanation of what she was looking for, she was met with open arms and a jaunty “Mattapoisett is ready for you!”
The launch is scheduled for June 17 at 10:00 am and promises to be a rip-roaring time. For more information about the endeavor, you can visit AcornToArabella.com, which also sports links to their YouTube and Patreon as well as updates and an emailing list about the project and the launch. Extra-curious readers can learn more about the design of the boat, the Atkin family and Steve and the crew’s journey. Those unable to attend the launch can catch sight of the finished craft at the WoodenBoat Show at Mystic Seaport on the weekend of June 23-25.
By Jack MC Staier