Rising star of social media for his instructional boat building videos, Dan Lee is stepping out from behind the camera to teach a two-week face-to-face skiff building course at the Boat Building Academy in Lyme Regis, Dorset.
Dan has developed a big global following since taking his passion online, sharing content from his workshop in Gloucestershire. His videos showing traditional boat building married with CAD design and CNC cutting regularly attract 30,000 viewers.
Dan told the BBA, “I aim to pair modern technology with wooden boat building wherever possible. By embracing this change I am setting out on a mission to explore new ways in which we can build wooden boats. Hopefully tipping the balance of the industry back in their favour once again… let’s see!”
Dan has teamed up with the Boat Building Academy in Dorset to run a brand new course this August, taking students through the process of constructing a simple clinker skiff from a plywood kit.
“The aim of this course is to embrace the use of this technology in order to get the hull set up and assembled in record time. Once we have the hull of our little skiffs built, we will spend our remaining time mastering the art of great varnish and paint finishes on wood.
“By learning to use modern, two-part paint and varnish systems our boat builders will learn to produce professional quality finishes within a very short time-frame. Then we’ll finish up by installing hardware correctly, before launching our boats at Lyme Regis Cobb.”
On how he became such a boat building ‘influencer’, Dan said “I started sharing my builds on social media about 10 years ago. During and after Covid, my ‘hobby’ was taking up most of my time and I decided to go all in and set up my own boat building business.
“The videos have grown and grown in popularity, and I also sell my boat plans, because rather than building one-offs in private, I want people to build the boats and enjoy them. It’s been immensely rewarding to help people discover the same love I have for a modern-meets-traditional process.
“Of course, I have become accustomed to instructing in the ‘virtual’ world, so being live and face-to-face with people again at the BBA makes me feel equally excited and daunted. But I think this new course adds a new dimension to the short course programme at the academy.
“I’m very much looking forward to being amongst all their amazing tutors and helping people build some fantastic boats.”
