There’s plenty of good content on social media, and yet some would argue that watching invasive surgery on a dated fiberglass boat isn’t the best investment of time. But that didn’t stop Matt Steverson, 38, and Janneke (Janni) Petersen, 36, whose YouTube channel “The Duracell Project” has attracted more than 60,000 subscribers since the first episode aired in September 2021. Viewers tune in every week to watch the couple discuss cockpit ergonomics, deckhouse dimensions and interior design ideas, or to witness how Steverson–wearing Tyvek suit and face mask–cuts out ballast tanks or infuses fiberglass sandwich bulkheads with epoxy resin. When you’re converting a spartan racing yacht into a livable and fleet-footed ocean cruiser, there’s no shortage of loud and dusty projects.
The channel’s growth still surprises its creators, whose career choices as boatbuilder and middle school science teacher did not prepare them for showbiz. The success of their channel could be attributed to their low-key personalities. What you see on camera is what you get when you meet them in person.
As for their boat, it’s not so low-key. An old Open 60 racing yacht it was originally named Duracell, after the battery maker that sponsored the vessel in its heyday. The boat competed in the inaugural Vendee Globe singlehanded nonstop round-the-world race in 1989/90 and in the BOC Challenge of 1990/91—a similar contest but with stopovers. Duracell was built and campaigned by Mike Plant, the premiere U.S. ocean racer of his time and daredevil with a darker side, having done jail time for drug trafficking. Plant, an inductee in the Museum of Yachting’s Singlehanded Sailing Hall of Fame, remains the only American to have won a singlehanded round-the-world race, as the improbable champ of the 50-foot class in the BOC Challenge 1986/87 on Airco Distributor.
At 60 feet length overall, Duracell was bigger, faster and more demanding to sail than Airco, but she was no match for the French boats. Yet she elevated Plant to idol status in the Vendee Globe after he sought shelter at Campbell Island off the southern tip of New Zealand to fix a rigging problem. During repairs the anchor was dragging, forcing Plant to accept outside help to save his vessel, which violated race rules. Consequently he was disqualified, but completed the course anyway, getting an enthusiastic welcome by the French who crowded the finish line in Les Sables-d’Olonne to show their appreciation. Tragically, Plant was lost at sea in 1992 crossing the Atlantic on Coyote, the next boat after Duracell. All that notoriety seeps into “The Duracell Project” and viewers love it.
“They are a team, sharing the different jobs to bring this YouTube channel to life and entertain and inform people,” says Steverson’s mother, Judy. “He’s the actor, she’s the recorder. I don’t think anybody would know about Matt taking this project on. He would go about it in his backyard, and nobody would know. He’s not going to keep [it] a secret, it’s just that he doesn’t go out and offer information about himself.”
If Steverson is reluctant to be the center of attention, he learned to accept that role. “I have never seen him so committed,” says Petersen with a laugh. “He lives and breathes it. He has a twinkle in his eye, a bouncy step and that goofy grin on his face.”
Steverson grew up on a goat farm in landlocked Idaho and Petersen is the daughter of two sociologists in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. Neither Stevers0n nor Petersen grew up boating and they never planned to become social media stars. But they conquered their inhibitions, acquired the necessary skills and made it work. “She’s an opinionated person and has very clear ideas about what she wants and doesn’t want to do,” says Petersen’s mother, Mary Visher. “She would never have gone down that path by herself, going for a cruise around the South Pacific.”
And Steverson realized that without Petersen’s camera and editing work, there’d be no YouTube channel, which produces income and sponsorships that enable him to work on the boat full-time. Petersen still has a side hustle, developing and running a program called Youth Ecology Education through Restoration for the Washington Native Plant Society. “I think of myself as an earth restorer and this is an important part of who I am,” she replied to a question about what will come after the refit.
YouTube or not, Steverson will look after the boat, fixing or modifying as needed, maybe to accommodate guests for crew training or to make room for a baby crib. For him the process is just like when he put elaborate Lego airplanes together as a child, entertaining his chemical engineer father and his statistician mother with his curiosity and a habit of tearing everything apart to make something new.
In school Steveron showed an aptitude for math and physics and seemed destined for a career as a pilot or flight engineer. But things played out differently. “[That] college was not for me,” he says of his experience in an aviation school in North Dakota. He later transferred to Evergreen College in Olympia, Washington, a liberal arts school where students can design their own curriculum, which might include sailing. And that’s how he found his calling. He learned about explorers and practiced sailing on Resolute, a Luders 44 previously used by the Naval Academy in Annapolis.
After graduation he cruised to Nicaragua, where he ran a charter boat for two years. In 2010, he moved back to Seattle, where he worked at the fish market, taught sailing, acquired a 50-ton captain’s license and raced on the local circuit. That netted him a job as a bottom painter at CSR Marine in Ballard. Rotating through the other departments, he proved a quick study and soon struck out on his known, advertising himself as “The Window Guy,” fixing leaky portlights and deck hatches and doing other work. He also met Graeme Esary and Al Hughes, two noted Seattle area sailors, who became friends and mentors. Together the three of them won the inaugural Race to Alaska in 2015 on a small carbon fiber racing trimaran. Hughes was a multiple winner of the singlehanded Transpac aboard Dogbark, another Open 60 of Duracell’s vintage. He shared his knowledge of the Open 60 design when Esary bought Dogbark and converted it to a family cruiser. And that project created a blueprint for Steverson and Petersen.
“Matt is willing to tackle anything,” says Hughes. “Some people will say, ‘oh, sure, I can do that’ and figure it out later. Not Matt. He’s honest and he’s not shy to ask questions.”
Hughes sold Steverson and Petersen Louise, a 40-foot sloop he had designed and built for cruising the Inside Passage. It was the ideal starter boat for the couple, who wanted to try the cruising lifestyle. They had met online in 2014 and moved in together on Louise, which they bought jointly in 2016. Ditching their day jobs and casting off the following year, they ventured south, stopped in San Francisco Bay to get married and continued to Mexico and beyond, with Petersen growing sea legs on long passages and working remotely as a curriculum developer. Meanwhile, Steverson did some yacht deliveries and ran a couple of charters in French Polynesia on the side.
“While in Hilo, I helped rebuild one of the traditional Hawaiian voyaging catamarans that was used to train local kids to sail,” Steverson says, adding that on this job he learned much from small-boat designer Chris Morejohn, who later put him in touch with Rodger Martin, Duracell’s designer. Martin became a valuable contact for the refit project.
Returning from their cruising adventure on Louise, Steverson read an online post by John Oman, then the owner of Duracell (renamed Northwest Spirit), who was looking for a new home and a new purpose for the craft, perhaps as a refit project for day charter or as a short-handed, fast cruiser. Oman had bought Duracell from Plant after the 1990/91 BOC Challenge to campaign it on the West Coast and for a solo circumnavigation. That adventure ended when he collided with a freighter near the equator and the boat sustained non-catastrophic damage. He made it back to Seattle where the boat had sat on the hard ever since. “I didn’t have Matt’s skills, or I would have done [a refit] myself,” Oman explains. “With much consternation, I eventually decided the best chance of my seeing this vision for the boat being completed was to give it to Matt and Janni.”
When movers shoehorned the 14-ton boat into the couple’s backyard in Port Townsend, Washington, in June 2021, they had their two-fer: the boat they wanted and some potent clickbait with unexpected benefits. “It’s surprising how many talented people offer their help and how much positive feedback we get,” says Petersen.
One of the couple’s supporters is Evan Gatehouse, a naval architect in Vancouver, British Columbia, who engineers new composite backstay chainplates. “I watch a lot of YouTube sailing videos and ‘The Duracell Project’ caught my eye, especially because I know about Mike Plant,” Gatehouse says. Having refitted his family’s cruising catamaran for a round-the-world trip, Gatehouse finds likeminded company with the couple.
Then there’s Markos Thiraios, a naval architect and engineer practicing in Athens, Greece, who offered them 3D modelling of the new cockpit that features an open transom, seat benches and twin steering wheels. “Duracell is legendary and a huge technological milestone in sailing history. I was really interested to get involved,” says Thiraios.
Similar reasons brought Randy Neureuter, the chief naval architect at luxury yacht builder Delta Marine in Seattle, to the table. While posting on Instagram about refitting his Frers-designed 38-foot IOR one-tonner, White Lightning, he connected with Steverson. “This particular refit captured my attention in a way that others have not,” says Neureuter. “I was familiar with the boat’s history in the Vendee Globe and Mike Plant’s story but had no direct connection with Duracell until I met Matt.” Neureuter helped with the engineering of the aft bulkhead of the new deckhouse that will carry the traveler track, which has to withstand high shock loads, in case of a crash gybe, for instance.
With Petersen shooting videos of Steverson cutting, grinding and gluing away in the bowels of Duracell, progress has been good, but key decisions still have to be made, including the acquisition of a suitable second-hand mast and what to do with the battered original keel. The plan is to launch the boat by Steverson’s 40th birthday in 2024, but before they can cast off for good, they promise to take a special guest for a spin: John Oman, who contributed the key ingredient for the project.
In parting, Steverson offered two reasons for taking on the Duracell refit.
“One, we wanted a really fast boat that could outrun weather and get to anchorages before dark while still being a comfortable, stiff boat. Two, we wanted the project. Financially it may not make sense to build a 60-foot boat just to do it, but I really feel this is about the journey. Janni and I enjoy challenges and trying new things and this project is putting us out of our comfort zone.”
This article was originally published in the March 2023 issue.
