Arabella Launches!
About five years ago YouTube recommended a video about someone who was pouring a lead keel for a sailboat. Somehow I managed to get En to watch it as well, even though it’s something that’s completely outside what we normally watched.
It quickly turned into a Saturday morning tradition to watch each week’s new episode. It was a meandering series that covered everything from boat design, the technical aspects of building a boat, logging, saw milling, chemistry of fasteners. Everything. Building it all on his family’s farm. Even so far as using trees that his great grandfather had planted for some things.
The project seemed so far away from completion. For basically forever. The make-up of the crew changed over time. At first it was just Steve and his friend Alix. Alix left after a couple of years for personal reasons. A bunch of people volunteered here and there. Anne joined as a videographer and Ben stepped in to be the editor for the videos. Many people joined up to help.
Then Steve’s mom got diagnosed with cancer. Steve is the guy who had a dream to build a sailboat. Steve had never sailed before. But he wanted to take his mom out for a sail before she got sicker.
This past winter he announced a launch date: June 17th.
En and I went to Mattapoisett for the launch! It was amazing to see something that we’ve slowly watched come together.
Congrats to Steve for making his dream a reality! There’s still more work to do, but Arabella’s on the water!
