I don’t have cable so YouTube is my TV entertainment… I recently watched a few maritime videos after which YouTube suggested other maritime-related pieces. That’s how I came upon “Acorn to Arabella“, a project based in Western Massachussetts to build an old-fashionned wooden sailboat. The two young men in charge document their journey with a series of YouTube videos as the sailboat takes shape.
You can find a lot more info about the project on the website above, on Facebook and by watching the YouTube episodes (see beow), but I thought I would share a few reasons why I like this series:
- The project is about building this old-fashioned wooden boat while leveraging social media to attract viewers and creating a community of volunteers and sponsors. To me, this is a perfect combination of the old and the new, and hopefuly a sign of things to come. One of the young men is a skilled craftman while the other is a videographer and photographer.
- Construction of the Arabella sailboat is based on old-fashion techniques and hard work. There is a focus on manual labor, home-made and old-fashioned ingenuity, rigs, gears and recycling. For instance, wood is harvested and shaped by the team, tools are designed to build copper rivets on site and valuable items from a similar old but no longer serviceable boat are recycled for use in Arabella.
- Presentation and narration are articulate, professional, honest, detailed and complete but never feel boastful or commercial. The videos are of professional quality, well edited and scripted, and progress is fun to watch without requiring a huge amount of concentration… (it’s not like I am going to build my own boat tomorrow…)
To me, this is an honest, cheerful and heartening story of skill, determination and community, and a welcome respite from the day-to-day barrage of bad news. Take a look!
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Bernard Markowicz 