Beautiful Boat, Beautiful Film

Alison Langley is well-known for her nautical photography, but she also studied film at New York University, which she put to good use to tell the story of Marilee, a 1926 Nathanael Herreshoff New York 40 that the French & Webb yard rebuilt in Belfast, Maine. The documentary is 38 minutes long. If you love beautiful boats, it’s worth every minute of your time. WATCH

By Soundings Editors

June 25, 2018

Nathanael Herreshoff is known as one of the most celebrated yacht designers of all time, Alison Langley is a renowned nautical photographer and Todd French is a premier boat builder. Put the three of them together, and you get NY40 MARILEE: The Restoration of a Herreshoff Classic, a beautifully photographed and informative 38-minute documentary by Langley about a 1926 Nathaneal Herreshoff-designed and built New York 40.

In the film, Langley not only tells the story of the restoration of the boat by French & Webb, a Belfast, Maine, boat builder, but also wraps in the history of the New York 40 design, Nathaneal Herreshoff’s career as a designer and builder and a discovery in the Hart Nautical Collections at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Museum, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that gives Marilee a unique distinction.

The film was screened in Maine and Rhode Island and now is available online.