Sailing on the open water—there is no combination of words that can describe the sensation. Eloquent adjectives try yet ultimately fail. It’s easier to describe the moment. If you have yet to step onto a schooner for a daytime—or, even more amazing, a sunset sail—now is the time to plan the experience. Imagine the salt air spritzing your face, the sun gently setting, sparking a collage of colors across the sky, the steady schooner bobbing in the waves, sails full of breath, harnessing the wind. The moment is spiritual in its simplicity. These moments are made possible, on Cape Ann, by an extraordinary gentleman: Harold Burnham, boat builder. Imagine building a schooner. The expertise, the craftsmanship, the meticulous attention to detail, physically constructing what will become a partnership, a bond, between boat and sea.
“To me, being out on the open water, and seeing the other boats out there…it’s real joy.”
This has been the Burnham family legacy for 11 generations in Essex. Maintaining that legacy implies pressure. “When I was younger, I always enjoyed building boats, watching the shipyards growing up, and yet I thought I might like to go out west where there’s more trees.… When I was 19, I got on a tanker going between the West Coast and Alaska and visited a lot of places. It’s incredible out there but what was missing was the culture. Even though those areas have incredible trees and beautiful landscapes—and you can build a boat just about anywhere—there’s not the same culture that’s [on Cape Ann. These places were] great to visit but it wouldn’t feel the same to build boats there. I’ve been all around the world as a merchant marine and I’ve always enjoyed different types of boats but I am always happy to come home.”
Over the last four centuries, Essex has produced more than 4,000 ships, primarily for the region’s fishing fleet. After World War II, steel and fiberglass were the boatbuilding materials of choice, and hand-crafted wooden vessels (with sawn frames and tree-nail fastenings) became outdated. Life came full circle in 1997, however, when Burnham was commissioned to build the glorious 65-foot Gloucester Schooner Thomas E. Lannon, resuscitating his family’s traditions. Since then, Burnham has been recognized for every conceivable honor and award connected with his craft, his art. And it’s gratifying to see shipbuilding acknowledged as an art form. In 2012, Burnham was recognized as a National Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the highest national honor in the Traditional Arts. “Harold is part artist, part carpenter, part project manager and part interpreter of historic photographs,” said Molly Bolster, former executive director of the Gundalow Company (a Portsmouth, NH-based non-profit protecting the Piscataqua region’s maritime history) in her nomination letter to the NEA. “The common wisdom is that he is the most intuitive of all living shipwrights today.” A fact that still stands true.
Launched in 1997, the Lannon led to other commissions and projects, including the schooner Isabella (a 39-footer built in 2006), originally designed for a private owner and his grandchildren, which joined the charter fleet in Gloucester in 2022, and the 58′ pinky schooner Ardelle, which was built with mostly recycled materials sourced from other boats. Ardelle and Isabella set sail all summer long, with Burnham at the helm as much as possible, although he is excited by the interest of younger colleagues and staff who are devoted to preserving Cape Ann’s maritime industries and culture. “There are many young kids that are learning and sailing in different capacities.” Burnham expands further on his website: “Like the fishing schooners of the past, these vessels are run on grit, economy and hard work, which are character traits the young crew learn and absorb. This is arguably the greatest return we could ask for, for in these vessels the essence of commercial sail is preserved.” “I’m very hopeful for the future,” he shares.
Burnham embodies the essence of Cape Ann, its ethos of hard work and respect for its waters. “I love building boats, to be thinking about how they fit together, how all the pieces come together.… Running the boat is the reward for all the maintenance and the work of building.… To me, being out on the open water, and seeing the other boats out there, particularly the ones I built, it’s real joy.”
