Nic Compton
Dan Lee, boatbuilder, of Gloucestershire, England, brings a cutting-edge sensibility to wooden boat construction—and to teaching the trade. His YouTube channel has more than 35,000 subscribers, and his most popular video has more thanone million views.
Dan Lee has an astonishingly high profile for someone who only became a full-time boatbuilder two years ago. Regular readers of WoodenBoat have encountered him and his classic speedboat MISS ISLE since March 2023 on the back cover, as the poster boy and boat for Epifanes varnish. Elsewhere, the same boat has been used as the face of WEST System epoxy. And anyone with an interest in wooden speedboats can’t have missed his YouTube series on building and restoring various boats, the most popular installment of which has had over one million views. All of this attention got me to wondering: Who is Dan Lee?