According to Cornwall, UK-based traditional wooden boat builder Ben Harris, a wooden sailing boat is perhaps the most glorious instrument the human hand can build. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, his mother even said that his first word was ‘log’.
Having been working with wood professionally since the young age of 15, Harris first cut his chops as an assistant to an established cabinet maker where he learned the foundational skills of sharpening woodworking tools and keeping a clean and organized workshop. From there, he further pushed himself into the skilled craft of furniture making and even forestry by working in broadleaf woodlands. After a stint in the oak framing business in Scotland, Harris then moved to Cornwall in 20015 to study his true calling, boatbuilding.
“The job of the boatbuilder is to breathe a new life into the supple wood and sturdy metal, rope, and sail,” explains Harris. “Like skin, bone and sinews, these elements merge, with craft, to form a creature that both flies and swims, hums with its own music, provides shelter and warmth, always opening new horizons.”
In this new short from filmmakers Pixillion, we get a behind the scenes look at what goes into making “the most glorious instrument the human hand can build.”
