THE ANSWER IS #2: Modern-day 'Noah' spends 37 years building wooden boat
Date Posted: January 17, 2022
Source: KARE11

Staff Pick: This is one of the news stories our staff is reading this week.

Editor's Note: You may be wondering why this story's headline "THE ANSWER IS #2." It is the answer to our 2022 news quiz series titled "Deeper Dive News Trivia Quiz." This quiz is drawn from the newsletter each week. If you'd like to participate then click here to subscribe to our newsletter.Locals have nicknamed Bill Hable "Noah" not so much for the size of the boat or any connection to animal rescue but because, according to Answers in Genesis, Noah took between 55 to 75 years to build the Ark. Bill Hable, 83, started work on his Lake Superior schooner in January of 1985 and is still at it today. 

BLOOMER, WISCONSIN - Bill Hable was still in his 40s when he settled on a grand plan for his retirement.

He grabbed a chainsaw, cut down some trees and started building a boat. Hable figured the project would take 10 years to complete. He underestimated by three decades.

When we first visited Hable, he was 78 and standing in the scaffolding surveying his massive —  and still unfinished —  41-foot schooner.

“The main question that drives me crazy is, 'When’s that boat going to be done?' And my pat answer is this: 'Don’t ask,'” Hable said in January of 2017. At the time, Hable estimated his twin-mast schooner was 97 percent complete

Five years later, Hable is 83 and still building.

In 2017, Hable had hoped to sail his boat on Lake Superior by the time he was 80. Now he says he hopes to set sail by the time he's 90.

And he doesn’t much care what anyone thinks.

“If I really wanted to get this thing in the water I could have it by the end of this year," Hable said five years ago. "But that isn’t the goal. I want to build it the way I want to do it.”

Hable approached his project like the career engineer he was. Before starting construction, he built a shed in his backyard to house the boat.

Read more.

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