January / February 2025

Old Boats and New Media 

Twenty or so years ago, I became utterly smitten with a 33′ wooden yawl named SEA HARMONY, designed by Albert Strange. When I first encountered her, the boat was swinging to a mooring in my hometown of Salem, Massachusetts. She was soon moved to a floating dock adjacent to an outdoor mall in that city. I had the owner’s permission to go aboard, and so on my frequent visits to Salem I’d often divert to study the boat’s details up close.

What a boat! She had a long counter stern capped by an elliptical block forming not quite a transom, but rather a fair, tight elliptical curve around the stern. This was balanced by a beautiful convex bow with a short bowsprit. The gaff rig was well proportioned, with a generous mizzen meant to do the maneuvering work of an auxiliary motor in tight quarters. She had been built in England in 1937 by two brothers who were timber merchants; this was reflected in her materials, which included rock-elm frames, teak planking, and a backbone of greenheart. 

She was for sale. I studied her copiously but didn’t buy her. Thad Danielson did buy her.

Thad is a wooden-boat builder who was then living in Marblehead, adjacent to Salem. His career with SEA HARMONY spanned at least a decade, and during that time he became an Albert Strange aficionado, forging strong connections with a group in England called the Albert Strange Association. When one of Strange’s larger masterworks, the 47′ TALLY HO (originally BETTY), was moldering away in Oregon, and in danger of being broken up, Thad was nominated by the association to fly out and inspect her. He became the point person for her salvation in the United States, helping to publicize her plight. 

Thad was present when a young Englishman named Leo Goolden inspected the yacht for the first time. Tom Jackson recounts this in a quote from Thad in his article about Leo and TALLY HO beginning on page 46—a passage most resonant for me, because it reminded me of the near-sacred experience of sitting below in SEA HARMONY drinking in her details and history, and the visceral reaction that wrought:

We got the cover more or less back on. We were just about ready to leave, and Leo said, “I’m not ready yet. I want to go back just by myself, just go and sit in there and think about it.” Which is what he did. And about 20 minutes later, he came out and said, “Well, I think I’m going to do it.”

And so began a most exceptional and unexpected rebuilding of a most significant yacht. It would have been difficult to predict that a young shipwright of modest means could spin this clientless restoration into a stable business proposition 20 years ago, but Leo did just that. He made a series of more than 200 videos detailing his Herculean project. The videos brought fans, who brought time, energy, and encouragement to the project. And, through the burgeoning magic of YouTube commerce, the videos brought money. The finished boat graces this issue’s cover.

Nic Compton, beginning on page 36, further examines the trend of YouTube-based boatbuilding, with particular emphasis on another young Englishman named Dan Lee. On his channel, Dan Lee Boatbuilding, Dan presents a range of projects and techniques, from varnishing to CNC-cutting. Nic presents in his article a list of 10 more YouTube entrepreneurs on similar paths, though each with a very different focus. If you’re a subscriber to WoodenBoat’s digital edition, you can click links in that article to be taken directly to each of the listed YouTube channels. Pretty slick. You couldn’t do that 20 years ago, either.